Alibaba Group is the world’s largest online and mobile trading market, which runs various online and mobile platforms covering Retail, Wholesale and Cloud Computing, thus offering consumers, merchants and other participants’ technology and services for commercial activities in e-Commerce ecosystem. As of March 2016, there are 423 million active buyers on China’s retail platform of Alibaba Group. Based on this information, Alibaba Group looks to expand and create more value for merchants and consumers with global brand owners.

Press Release - Brussels, Belgium, 19 September 2016

Alibaba Group invites brand owners to adopt GS1 standards for product information management and use Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) for uniquely “identifying” their products in global e-Commerce. All users are encouraged to join the Global Data Synchronisation Network™ (GDSN®) for online exchange of product information. This will help brand owners to manage their supply chain efficiently, help to provide the standard information that complies with the laws and regulations and meet the demands for consumer transparency. We strongly believe that the GDSN® and GS1 standards will provide accurate and complete product information, for both upstream and downstream (supply and sales enterprises). The GDSN® would also provide consumers with access to authentic and rich product content, which helps brand integrity and improves the consumer experience in today’s global e-Commerce industry.

Alibaba to carry out GDSN in stages

To promote the standardisation of product information, Alibaba Group plans to carry out the GDSN® project in stages. In stage 1, brand owners in the categories of Health food, Maternal and Child, Beauty and Make-up, Personal Care will be invited to join the project. Alibaba Group will identify the products with GTINs to obtain the product information of the international brand owners, and thereafter, by leveraging GTINs, populate all pre-packaged categories. GS1, GS1 China and Alibaba Group together invite your enterprise to join the project, and by usage of GS1 standards, help your enterprise to provide the consumers with high-quality product information and manufacturer/brand information verification, enhance your brand image and international influence.

All of Alibaba's platforms will apply GS1 standards

All e-Commerce trading platforms of Alibaba Group will actively expand the application scenarios of the GS1 standards and adopt GTIN as product identifier. This will be provided to brand owners in key links (including product exhibition, information presentation, quality verification, shopping experience, W&L etc.). Alibaba Group will also offer brand owners the feedback of key data statistics, make sure consumers experience the convenience of direct O2O code scan shopping and obtain the most comprehensive product information. Brand owners can also get the fastest product listing experience as well as the product exhibition on various platforms of Alibaba Group.

Collaboration between Alibaba, GS1 and GS1 China

GS1 is a neutral, not-for-profit, global organisation that develops and maintains the most widely-used supply chain standards system in the world. GS1 China is responsible for the management of the product barcode in China, and also operates the only one GS1 certified China’s product data pool. In China, Alibaba Group and GS1 China have successfully connected Chinese product barcodes with manufacturer / product information, achieved outstanding cooperation on all Alibaba’s e-Commerce platforms. Both sides have satisfied the consumers’ demand for the information of the China’s local products. The project scope will now expand to imported products, in order to receive imported product information and feedback via the GDSN® certified by GS1.

GDSN® is comprised of 33 certified data pools worldwide (refer to the URL: https://www.gs1.org/gdsn/certified-data-pools). Please feel free to contact them for a better understanding of GS1 standards, GTIN management and joining the Alibaba GDSN project.

GLN: 6929020062567
Data receiver of the project:
GLN: 6929020062567

For more details of the project, please contact: Bo Wei@GS1 China, Email: bow@ancc.org.cn;
For more business information and overview of Alibaba, please contact: Li Zhi@Alibaba Group, Email: ali_dt@service.alibaba.com;
For more information of GS1, please contact: Alan Hyler@GS1GO, Email: alan.hyler@gs1.org

Additional links:

• More about GDSN
  
• PDF version of the press release