Alibaba’s international marketplace AliExpress has opened its first European retail store in Madrid Xanadú, one of the continent’s biggest shopping malls, for consumers to purchase products on site.
Around 3,000 people gathered for the opening of the 740 sqm store on Sunday (August 25). Some 100 people had even spent the night there in order to be the first to visit the shop when it opened at 12 noon. The e-commerce giant additionally gave out 500 gifts for the first customers at the opening. The Xanadú mall is located in Arroyomolinos, just outside Madrid.
The new AliExpress Plaza, located on the mall’s ground floor just below the Apple store, offers a variety of products of different types and is divided into five different areas, with about 1,000 products from over 60 brands like Xiaomi, Huawei, Samsung, Playstation and Nintendo.
The store also offers customer services related to items purchased in the physical store. But it is not responsible for products bought online as it does not operate as a Click & Collect service point.
After China, the United States and Russia, Spain is Alibaba’s fourth largest market in terms of turnover. According to the Spanish newspaper El Periódico, it is therefore no surprise that AliExpress chose Spain as the location to open its first physical store in Europe.
Ecommerce News Europe cited Rubén Bautista, the company’s operations director in Spain and Portugal, as saying: “Spain is an important country for the group, where the largest number of customers in both volume and value is now concentrated. For the Alibaba Group, it was as strategic choice to bet on Spain, because it’s the gateway to Europe.”
