Ali Express, China’s Alibaba Group’s e-commerce platform, will participate as an official partner in the ‘2024 Gangwon Winter Youth Olympic Games’.At a press conference held at the Westin Chosun Hotel in Sogong-dong, Seoul on the 4th, AliExpress announced that it would partner with the competition organizing committee and exclusively sell licensed products.The online store, which will operate starting on the 19th, the opening day of the competition, will feature the competition mascot Moongcho doll, badges, clothing, accessories, stationery, etc.An official from the organizing committee explained, “Ali Express was selected as a partner in the e-commerce sector after comprehensive consideration of the fact that Alibaba Group is a global partner of the Olympics and profit distribution issues.” Alibaba Group has been participating as an Olympic global partner of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) since January 2017.This competition, hosted by the IOC, supports the Olympic ticketing system and volunteer and staff management system through a cloud-based platform.Leon Cie, General Manager of Alibaba Group’s Olympic Business, emphasized, “We will support this Games in various ways through AliExpress and Alibaba Cloud Business.”
Ray Zhang, CEO of AliExpress Korea, said, “We are happy to be an official partner of this Winter Youth Olympics, which will be held for the first time in Asia. We hope to promote coexistence and growth with various partners and organizations in Korea, our core market.” He expressed his feelings. He also expressed his intention to speed up market penetration by considering building a logistics center in Korea to provide fast delivery services such as ‘next day delivery’.AliExpress plans to use its participation as a partner in this competition as an opportunity to shed its negative image, such as the controversy over the sale of ‘counterfeit’ products.The Gangwon Winter Youth Olympics will be held in Pyeongchang, Gangneung, Jeongseon, and Hoengseong from the 19th to the 1st of next month, with approximately 15,000 participants, including 1,900 youth athletes from 80 countries.This year, in its 4th year, this competition is being held in an Asian country for the first time.The first competition in 2012 was held in Innsbruck, Austria, the second competition in 2016 was held in Lillehammer, Norway, and the third competition in 2020 was held 스포츠토토존 in Lausanne, Switzerland.