Selection, Trust-Building & AI-Driven Efficiency | How Alibaba Plans To Innovate B2B Supply Chains
At Manifest 2025, we talk with Justin Liu, U.S. Country Manager for Alibaba.com, about how AI and automation are transforming the B2B sourcing experience. With new AI-powered communication tools, supplier verification, and automated comparison reports, Alibaba.com is streamlining supply chain operations for U.S. buyers and sellers. Learn how businesses can optimize sourcing, mitigate risks, and expand globally using Alibaba’s latest innovations.
⏳ Important Timestamps:
- 0:00 - Welcome & introduction from Manifest 2025
- 0:47 - Meet Justin Liu, U.S. Country Manager for Alibaba.com
- 1:30 - What Alibaba.com does for B2B buyers & sellers
- 3:00 - How Alibaba.com helps U.S. businesses source globally
- 4:20 - The biggest supply chain challenges for buyers
- 5:30 - New AI-powered sourcing & supplier communication tools
- 7:00 - How Alibaba.com is helping businesses mitigate supply chain risks
- 8:45 - Key insights from Justin’s Manifest 2025 panel discussion
- 10:10 - The biggest misconception about Alibaba.com for U.S. buyers
- 11:30 - The future of B2B e-commerce & AI-driven trade
- 13:00 - Why AI in trust-building & supplier management is critical
- 14:10 - Closing thoughts & how to connect with Alibaba.com
Special thanks to our sponsors TGW Logistics for making our Manifest coverage possible. To learn more about TGW head here: www.tgw-group.com.
#manifest2025 #alibaba #supplychain #b2b #ecommerce
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Transcript
Hello everyone.
Speaker A:This is Omnitalk Retail.
Speaker A:I'm Chris Walton.
Speaker B:And I'm Anne Mazinga.
Speaker A:We are coming to you live from the Manifest Future of Logistics conference in Las Vegas.
Speaker A:Our coverage today is provided to you in partnership with TGW Logistics.
Speaker A:Revolutionize your retail supply chain with TGW Logistics.
Speaker A:Their experts tailor warehouse automation solutions to your needs, ensuring you have the edge.
Speaker A:Work with TGW before your competition does.
Speaker A:Discover more@tgw group.com and joining us now, Ann is probably the tallest guest we've had in the history of an Omnitalk livestream, but that is Justin Lu.
Speaker A:And Justin is the country US country manager for Alibaba.com Justin, welcome to Omnitalk and thanks for joining us at Manifest.
Speaker C:Thank you.
Speaker C:Thank you, Chris.
Speaker C:Thank you, Anne for offering me this opportunity.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Well, Justin, I'd love to just find out from you a little bit about what your role covers.
Speaker B:It's a very broad title.
Speaker B:I imagine there's a lot underneath there that you oversee.
Speaker B:So maybe let's start by just outlining that for us and for the audience at home.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker C:Happy to.
Speaker C:So like Chris was saying, I'm the country manager for Alibaba.com in the US we also oversee the Canada business, but it's a much smaller business compared with the U.S.
Speaker C:but overall speaking, there are two main supporting pillars for my business.
Speaker C:Number one is to drive the growth for our buyer business for Alibaba.com as you all know, Alibaba.com is the leading platform for business buyers to source and buy globally.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker C:So in terms of buyer growth, we're talking about how do we help US based buyers, we're mostly referring to, let's say Amazon third party sellers, small to medium sized business owners to help them to source more cost efficiently, let's say.
Speaker C:And you have your own restaurant.
Speaker C:We're going to try to help you to buy, you know, furniture, right.
Speaker C:All the replenishment, you know, resources at a lower cost so your business could be more profitable.
Speaker C:So that's what my team is responsible for for one aspect of the business which is the driving the growth for our buyer business.
Speaker A:I didn't know that.
Speaker C:The second part.
Speaker A:All right, interesting.
Speaker C:Learn a little bit.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:This is why I love my job.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:So, so the other part of our business is obviously the seller side, the supply side of our business.
Speaker C:There's demand and there's a supply.
Speaker C:The supply part we're helping, trying to help US based suppliers, manufacturers, wholesalers to distribute their products more Widely all over the world.
Speaker C:Cause we do have buyers, over 30 million buyers all over the world that are buying and sourcing actively from Alibaba.com, so if you are a US based, let's say you're a brand owner or you're a wholesaler distributing some brand selection or you're a manufacturer, you can sell your product, distribute your product and your service through our platform to buyers all over the world.
Speaker C:So my team is also responsible for recruiting buyers, sellers in the US and provide the hand holding onboarding experience to make sure that their business successful on our platform.
Speaker A:Yeah, now that part I was aware of.
Speaker A:Justin, I'm curious, which of those two take up the greater proportion of your time?
Speaker C:That's a good question.
Speaker C:I would say right now it's 70, 30.
Speaker C:So the buyer side actually takes up a lot of our time because for a very straightforward reason, because US is one of our largest market in terms of buying power.
Speaker C:The platform originated 20 years ago with a mindset or a goal, a business goal or a value prop, you know, in our mind, which is to help US buyers to source more cost efficiently all over the world.
Speaker C:And you know, that has never changed.
Speaker C:So we're constantly improving our US buyer experience through launching new features and technology functionalities to help U.S.
Speaker C:buyers to be able to identify business partners and source more with ease.
Speaker C:Basically.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker C:So that is kind of our main focus.
Speaker C:But us selling is obviously also very important, you know, because as we all know, US is a home to a lot of world very well known brands and creators of new brands.
Speaker C:And we do think, you know, these brand owners especially maybe they started their business online, DTC from Amazon, Shopify.
Speaker C:Now they're thinking about, hey, how do I diversify my distribution channel?
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:I don't want to put all the eggs in one basket.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker C:Alibaba.com can actually help them distribute to regional local distributors, retailers.
Speaker C:And that's where we believe our next sort of growth engine or area would be.
Speaker C:So that's obviously very important to us too.
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean, and I've already always been a big fan of that idea.
Speaker A:Especially considering a lot of these retailers are already sourcing their products over there.
Speaker A:So getting that distribution outlet seems like a no brainer in a lot of ways.
Speaker A:All right, so you're at Manifest.
Speaker A:Have you been on stage yet or are you still.
Speaker A:You have.
Speaker A:How'd it go?
Speaker C:It went pretty well.
Speaker C:Pretty well.
Speaker C:How did it go?
Speaker C:Biased.
Speaker A:What did you share with the audience?
Speaker A:What were you up there talking about?
Speaker A:Similar things.
Speaker A:Did you share any new messages?
Speaker C:Yeah, similar things.
Speaker C:The main topic is there, right?
Speaker C:How do we help us buyers to source?
Speaker C:So we are launching a handful of really cool new features this year to help us buyers.
Speaker C:We have the new AI powered buying agents per se that help you do all the communication.
Speaker C:You know, cross time zone communication is a pain in the neck, right.
Speaker C:You send out a message and you know the, the manufacturer or the factory owner doesn't respond to you maybe like until 13 hours later.
Speaker C:And you know, the whole thing drags on for weeks.
Speaker C:Now we have AI powered communication manager that can do like auto follow ups, ask questions, gather information while you're asleep and when you wake up we will auto generate a comparison report that compares all the manufacturers that manufacture the product you're looking for based on all sorts of business specs and attributes and things like that.
Speaker C:We also have our new image search functionality, our new business reports, a lot of stuff that we're launching announcing at Manifest this morning.
Speaker C:And on the supplier on the seller side, one of my colleagues was giving a case study on how do we help suppliers to.
Speaker C:Well actually still for buyers to diversify their supply chain and to mitigate risks and fluctuation.
Speaker C:So I think overall it's pretty informative and we have some key messages and great news that we want to share.
Speaker A:Was it just you on stage or like what was the format?
Speaker C:It was me and my colleague.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker C:It was me and my colleague.
Speaker A:Okay, great.
Speaker C:So it was.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:It sounds like they're doing that a lot and like.
Speaker A:Yes, two, two colleagues up on stage.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:No more moderating fireside chatting necessary.
Speaker B:No, we're getting down to the.
Speaker A:Well.
Speaker B:Justin, I'm curious, from your experience, how long have you been in this role now?
Speaker C:This role.
Speaker C:Close to a year now.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:Close to a year, yeah.
Speaker B:What looking back on that year, what do you think is the, maybe the biggest misconception that you hear from buyers and sellers on the platform or what have you had to teach people, especially in the US market about selling on Alibaba.com or buying from Alibaba.com that they don't know?
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:I think the biggest misconception from I used to work at Amazon like Amazon claimed to be one of the most customer centric company in the world.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Everything revolves around how do we help our buyers.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker C:In different aspects.
Speaker C:You know, olive oil.com sort of have the same mentality like how do we help our buyers to improve, you know, their discoverability experience or discovering browsing comparison.
Speaker C:But you know, we're in a B2B world.
Speaker C:And the game is like one level up in terms of complexity.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:You're not just placing an order that's worth of 40 bucks.
Speaker C:We're talking about $40,000.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker A:Big difference.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So in terms of improving buyer and seller experience have completely new meanings behind it.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:We're not just talking about, hey, this search function works really well.
Speaker C:And read all the customer reviews.
Speaker C:It doesn't work like that anymore.
Speaker C:So there's a lot of complexity that plays into how do we facilitate that communication for business buyers and sellers, and how do we make sure we can help them to build trust in the middle.
Speaker C:So I think that's.
Speaker C:I don't want to say that's a misconception, but it is completely.
Speaker C:You know, I would say it's definitely more complex than, you know, I first imagined before I joined.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Especially in the getting goods and services back and forth to the supply chain aspect of it, I imagine.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So, Justin, I'm curious, like, so as you look.
Speaker A:So we're in.
Speaker A:I mean, it's just the start of the year, basically.
Speaker A: s, you know, the beginning of: Speaker A:As you look to the.
Speaker A:As you look to the rest of the year, is there one thing you would hope to improve upon in your job or in supply chain?
Speaker A:In terms of how things work?
Speaker A:Like, what do you think?
Speaker C:Selection.
Speaker A:Selection.
Speaker A:Oh, my God.
Speaker A:You say that.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker C:How so?
Speaker C:I think for me, there are really two things.
Speaker C:Selection and experience.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:That's the supporting pillar for really, like any e commerce platform that you can name or think of.
Speaker C:We want to be able to provide our buyers the widest, the broadest, but also matching selection, be it the product itself or a trusted or a trustworthy manufacturer from some other parts of the world.
Speaker C:It is not easy for someone that's based in the US who's ready to cut a $50,000 check but not knowing who the other person is.
Speaker C:They have never heard of that city, that factory, that country, or even.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So selection is really important.
Speaker C:When I say selection, it's not just the quantity, obviously, it's also the quality.
Speaker C:We are doing some pre filtering for our buyers to make sure that whoever that is selling Alibaba is a business knows what they're doing and would be able also have the experience to meet the needs.
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:That's gonna be my question is if former executive merchant, you know, in my heyday, like, that's a different process to decide what products you want to carry in your Assortment versus just the average garden variety seller, consumer to retail to consumer transaction.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So how do you think through that?
Speaker A:Is it just what you said, like making sure that you've got bona fide suppliers that can meet the commitments that you're going to promise your end consumer?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So there will be entry barriers.
Speaker C:It's not, you know, anybody that wants to sell will be able to sell.
Speaker C:There will be entry barriers.
Speaker C:And at the end of the day, I think it all comes down to are the suppliers or manufacturers competing?
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Are there enough competition?
Speaker C:Because the competition is the real motivation that will push people to continuously improve their service experience and to service quality and their selection and the price competitiveness, all that all goes to competition.
Speaker C:That's the sustainable way of making sure that our buyers are getting the best of the best.
Speaker C:So we have sales team or business development team on the ground all over the world that are relentlessly going after some of the top manufacturers under different verticals in different regions.
Speaker C:We make sure they have a good experience of being onboarded, be able to list their products and catalog easily and then we give it sort of to competition.
Speaker C:We are the platform, right.
Speaker C:We make sure that our platform policies and rules, encourages, enables the people that do run, say honest, you know, and a long term perspective business will be able to succeed.
Speaker C:So that's, we just hand it to algorithm and platform competition per se.
Speaker B:Well, Justin, want to close out with one last question.
Speaker B:If there was one technology that you were going to be taking a look at here to improve the processes of your day to day life.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Back at home, what would that technology be?
Speaker C:It has to be AI.
Speaker B:In what form?
Speaker C:It has to be AI.
Speaker C:We are.
Speaker C:Well, that's a good question.
Speaker C:I think we care a lot about our communication efficiency because a lot of the B2B transactions involve some sort of communication, involve some sort of building trust through communication.
Speaker C:So any AI supported trust building constructive communication management tools and stuff like that, I would definitely be interested to check them out.
Speaker B:Amazing.
Speaker A:All right, well, you heard it here first, folks.
Speaker A:Well, that concludes our interview with Justin from Alibaba.
Speaker A:Thanks to TGW Logistics for making all of our coverage from manifest possible.
Speaker A:And until next time and be careful out there.
