Alibaba Short SMBs Needed To Launch Mexican Site

About a year after the government of Mexico signed a deal with Alibaba to help businesses sell goods online, an official with a trade group says that the effort needs many more businesses to be successful. While 24 companies have been currently approved for Alibaba, the retailer is waiting for 100 vendors to open a site specific to Mexico, Reuters reported.

“They’re scared of coming because it’s expensive,” ProMexico Project Coordinator Carlos Alvarez told Reuters. “But once they’re there, they can take off.”

To that end, ProMexico is seeking to educate businesses that it is worthwhile to tackle high shipping and insurance costs as well as complex logistics to gain access to Alibaba. And, in a statement, Alibaba said it wanted to help them “participate in global trade through eCommerce and the use of technology.”

In September of last year, the government inked a deal with Alibaba to enable small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) to join the new eCommerce field in Mexico. The idea was to have them operate alongside of larger players such as Amazon and Walmart de Mexico.

The news comes months after Ant Financial’s Alipay — China’s leading payment provider and the primary means of online and mobile payment for Chinese consumers — announced news in March that it will be growing its presence in Mexico via a partnership with Openpay. Alipay’s more than 600 million users worldwide will be able to tap into their Alipay wallets as a payment method at any business in Mexico already affiliated with Openpay.

Openpay’s payment platform represents a wide swath of regional businesses, from large enterprise-sized businesses down to SMBs. Through its interface, firms can quickly and easily accept online payments. All in all, the Openpay network represents more than 17,500 associated points of sale in Mexico, connected in real time through its Paynet network, which allows cash payments to be made online.