Taobao plans to run this year’s Double 11 shopping festival across 20 overseas markets, with free-shipping offers in 13 countries and regions and more than 1.2 million Taobao and Tmall merchants participating, the company said on September 21. The campaign extends the platform’s international push beyond small parcels, with furniture and home-improvement goods among the medium and large items it aims to ship directly overseas.
The four markets of Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and Malaysia will receive free shipping with no minimum spend. The other nine markets will have subsidized or promotional shipping offers. Taobao also said that more than 90% of medium and large goods in the campaign are expected to be eligible for direct overseas delivery.
The platform is promoting a “one investment, two businesses” approach, allowing merchants to use their existing stores and product listings to reach domestic and overseas customers. Taobao says it will provide support for cross-border logistics, payments and customer service, lowering some of the operational barriers for merchants that have not previously sold internationally. The extent of that support may vary by market and product.
A second element is “Promote Good Stores,” a recommendation strategy that selects merchants based on product quality, distinctiveness, price competitiveness and service. Taobao plans to increase discovery through recommendations alongside search, aiming to surface more differentiated products to overseas shoppers.
Taobao’s overseas business began in 2016. Alibaba said it established a direct-mail network covering 20 countries and regions in 2025, alongside foreign-currency payment, returns and multilingual services. The company has reported six consecutive years of double-digit growth in overseas gross merchandise volume and said more than 150,000 merchants doubled overseas GMV year on year. These are company-reported figures; it has not disclosed the overseas business’s absolute GMV in the announcement.
The campaign reflects Taobao’s attempt to turn its large domestic merchant base into overseas supply without requiring every seller to build a separate cross-border operation. Broader product selection and platform-supported fulfilment could help merchants test international demand while limiting upfront investment. For shoppers, free-shipping promotions and recommendations may make a wider range of Chinese goods easier to discover.
Whether this approach can sustain growth will depend on repeat purchases and the economics of shipping, returns and service across different markets. The number of participating merchants and destinations signals reach, but does not by itself show how much overseas sales the campaign will generate or how profitable those sales will be.
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