Jessica Liu, president of Tmall fashion and luxury. (Photo by Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images)
Jessica Liu started her career in the book trade at state-run China Machine Press. It was only later that one of China’s most influential women in e-commerce entered the field where she has made a name for herself: fashion.
“In the e-commerce world, the first category was books,” and it was a natural career move for her to Amazon in China from China Machine Press, she recalled in a recent interview. There, she learned the ropes of pricing, technology and consumer experience, as well as other product categories – such as fashion.
By 2012, Liu wanted to learn how local e-commerce operations at China’s own sites such as Tmall and Alibaba worked. “Amazon defined itself as a retailer; Tmall is a platform.” So she took the plunge. “That is why I came to Alibaba. I really wanted to learn if a different model could be more successful in the China market.”
Today, Liu is making a mark in China and elsewhere as president of fashion and luxury at Tmall.com, Alibaba’s big retail platform – or “mall” — for brands and premium shopping. China’s No. 4 website counts Uniqlo, Zara and Victoria’s Secret among its more than 150,000 brands. In 2017, Tmall opened a “Luxury Pavilion” for higher-end luxury names; today, it has close to 50 brands including Burberry, Tod’s, Zenith, La Mer, Maserati and Dom Perignon. Gains in Alibaba’s consumer retail business including Tmall helped to lift its total revenue by 61%, to $9.9 billion, in the three months ended on March 31. That increase in turn helped Alibaba’s New York-listed shares to rise by 3.5% on Friday after the earnings report was posted.
In a company best known for its showman-style billionaire chairman Jack Ma, Liu is one of several women with top jobs. Others include co-founder Lucy Peng, CEO of Southeast Asian unit Lazada (see related story here), Trudy Dai, president of wholesale marketplaces, and Judy Tong, the chief people officer. All three were members of a list of China’s most successful businesswomen published by Forbes China earlier this year (see full list here). For her part, Liu made a list of Notable Chinese in Global Fashion published in the latest issue of Forbes China.
Tmall’s continued rapid growth in the latest quarter and Alibaba’s optimism about the new fiscal year may give the impression that e-commerce sales at Alibaba’s scale are fairly easy to come by. Yet buyers behave differently, sellers have different needs, and results differ from the same product, Liu said. Some brands look at their e-commerce as a discount channel; other brands look at it as a very important platform to communicate through branding. The way Liu sees it, the common denominator for success among brands is open-mindedness.
“The most important thing is that they are open-minded; that they are open to new innovation and to big data. Even though they are really successful in physical world, if they are not open to new technology, to big data, or to innovation, they would meet difficulty in the online world. And, basically we cannot say what kind of brand is open-minded, or will apply new technology first.”
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Jessica Liu, president of Tmall fashion and luxury. (Photo by Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images)
Jessica Liu started her career in the book trade at state-run China Machine Press. It was only later that one of China’s most influential women in e-commerce entered the field where she has made a name for herself: fashion.
“In the e-commerce world, the first category was books,” and it was a natural career move for her to Amazon in China from China Machine Press, she recalled in a recent interview. There, she learned the ropes of pricing, technology and consumer experience, as well as other product categories – such as fashion.
By 2012, Liu wanted to learn how local e-commerce operations at China’s own sites such as Tmall and Alibaba worked. “Amazon defined itself as a retailer; Tmall is a platform.” So she took the plunge. “That is why I came to Alibaba. I really wanted to learn if a different model could be more successful in the China market.”
Today, Liu is making a mark in China and elsewhere as president of fashion and luxury at Tmall.com, Alibaba’s big retail platform – or “mall” — for brands and premium shopping. China’s No. 4 website counts Uniqlo, Zara and Victoria’s Secret among its more than 150,000 brands. In 2017, Tmall opened a “Luxury Pavilion” for higher-end luxury names; today, it has close to 50 brands including Burberry, Tod’s, Zenith, La Mer, Maserati and Dom Perignon. Gains in Alibaba’s consumer retail business including Tmall helped to lift its total revenue by 61%, to $9.9 billion, in the three months ended on March 31. That increase in turn helped Alibaba’s New York-listed shares to rise by 3.5% on Friday after the earnings report was posted.
In a company best known for its showman-style billionaire chairman Jack Ma, Liu is one of several women with top jobs. Others include co-founder Lucy Peng, CEO of Southeast Asian unit Lazada (see related story here), Trudy Dai, president of wholesale marketplaces, and Judy Tong, the chief people officer. All three were members of a list of China’s most successful businesswomen published by Forbes China earlier this year (see full list here). For her part, Liu made a list of Notable Chinese in Global Fashion published in the latest issue of Forbes China.
Tmall’s continued rapid growth in the latest quarter and Alibaba’s optimism about the new fiscal year may give the impression that e-commerce sales at Alibaba’s scale are fairly easy to come by. Yet buyers behave differently, sellers have different needs, and results differ from the same product, Liu said. Some brands look at their e-commerce as a discount channel; other brands look at it as a very important platform to communicate through branding. The way Liu sees it, the common denominator for success among brands is open-mindedness.
“The most important thing is that they are open-minded; that they are open to new innovation and to big data. Even though they are really successful in physical world, if they are not open to new technology, to big data, or to innovation, they would meet difficulty in the online world. And, basically we cannot say what kind of brand is open-minded, or will apply new technology first.”
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