BASF advances its e-commerce presence and digital business model in China
- BASF increases the number of high-performance products sold on its flagship e-stores
- New digital business model developed by BASF and 1688.com
- BASF and 1688.com sign agreement to deepen strategic cooperation
BASF will offer 10 more chemical products on its online flagship shop at the Alibaba e-commerce platform 1688.com, China’s major domestic online business-to-business service platform. With this, BASF increases the total number of products sold online to more than 60 since the company has first launched its flagship store at 1688.com in April 2018. Some of these products are Accelerator products, which means that they have a substantial sustainability contribution in the value chain.
The newly launched chemical products are part of BASF’s intermediate portfolio produced at the company’s Verbund site BASF-YPC in Nanjing, China, a 50-50 joint venture between BASF and Sinopec.
“The digitalization of sales, marketing network and internal organizational system are the three major steps for an industrial company in its transformation journey,” said Jet Jing, Vice President of Alibaba, secretary-general of Alibaba’s enterprise-service team. “Alibaba is building a new channel that covers all business elements. We are very pleased to work with BASF to explore and realize all-round digital operations that lead to higher operational efficiency and business growth.”
BASF and 1688.com also signed a strategic cooperation agreement to further develop new business models and to expand future cooperation. The two partners developed the consumer-to-manufacturer (C2M) model, in which manufacturers produce consumer products using advanced materials supplied by BASF through the 1688.com’s platform.
In June, kitchen gloves made by East Asia Gloves, a leading glove manufacturer in China, hit the Chinese consumer market on Tmall.com, Alibaba’s online marketplace. The gloves use BASF’s Hexamoll® DINCH, an alternative non-phthalate plasticizer. It is safe to be used in various products, ranging from medical devices to toys. Building on this success, BASF plans to work on more C2M projects with 1688.com, for example in the home care sector, and to expand its online portfolio to more than 100 products.
“We have pioneered new digital business models with strong partners like Alibaba in China, achieving great results,” said Dr. Stephan Kothrade, President Functions Asia Pacific, President, and Chairman Greater China, BASF. “We will continue to launch creative ideas, turning them into applications and innovative products for our customers in China.”
BASF has established its e-commerce presence along the entire supply chain for suppliers and customers globally. BASF was one of the first chemical companies to open an online directory page on Alibaba in 2015 and continuously optimizes its operation. With a simplified direct-sales model kicked off earlier this year, it only takes Chinese customers two to three days to complete the purchasing process at BASF’s online store, rather than two to three weeks.
About BASF Greater China
BASF has been a committed partner to Greater China since 1885. With larger production sites in Shanghai, Nanjing and Chongqing, BASF is a major foreign investor in the country’s chemical industry, and operates the Innovation Campus Shanghai, a global and regional research and development hub. BASF posted sales of over €7.3 billion in 2018 to customers in Greater China, and employed 9,317 people as of the end of that year. For further information, please visit www.basf.com/cn/en.
About BASF
At BASF, we create chemistry for a sustainable future. We combine economic success with environmental protection and social responsibility. The approximately 122,000 employees in the BASF Group work on contributing to the success of our customers in nearly all sectors and almost every country in the world. Our portfolio is organized into six segments: Chemicals, Materials, Industrial Solutions, Surface Technologies, Nutrition & Care and Agricultural Solutions. BASF generated sales of around €63 billion in 2018. BASF shares are traded on the stock exchange in Frankfurt (BAS) and as American Depositary Receipts (BASFY) in the U.S. Further information at www.basf.com.
