By Rieva Lesonsky
The countdown to holiday sales is underway. And luckily for retailers and e-tailers—so is the Super September sale at Alibaba.com. This is a great chance for you to stock up on merchandise and get some amazing deals.
That won’t be hard considering there are millions of products available all month—more than 50 million (yes, 50 million!) from over 50,000 selected suppliers. And over 30,000 of these products feature a 30% discount. Make sure you check out the site or the Alibaba.com mobile app throughout the month to take advantage of the Weekly Deals, some of which are discounted up to 50%.
Kuo Zhang, general manager of Alibaba.com told Alizila, Super September is “our biggest promotional event of the year. We use the month to drive deeper engagement with Alibaba.com among our customers, and to draw new customers to the platform.”
Small business owners will be particularly interested in the Bargain Buys being featured during Super September. Here you’ll find more than a million items you can order with low minimum order quantities (MOQs). This makes this month a great time to test new merchandise, expand your inventory, add to your product line, order clothing items in this season’s new bold colors or even start another business. And you can still work directly with the manufacturers so you can maximize profits.
No matter what you sell, chances are you can find it in on Alibaba.com. Featured Supwe September categories include:
- Apparel
- Beauty and personal care
- Consumer electronics
- Fashion accessories
- Furniture
- Home and garden
- Machinery
- Packaging and printing
- Sports and entertainment
But it’s not just about the vast array of products you can buy. Super September features a lot of perks and incentives as well. These include:
- 50% off air and sea freight shipping
- 50% off product inspection
- 30% off Weekly Deals
- Brand Zone featuring brands available exclusively through Alibaba.com
For many small business owners, stocking your shelves for the holidays means spending money now for sales to come in the months ahead. If that worries you, check out the new Pay Later option to help you finance your purchases. You can apply for up to $150,000 of credit (the application is free and takes about 10 minutes) and fees are as low as 1.25% a month. If you sign up in September, the first month is free. There’s a loan calculator on the page to help you see what your fees would be. To qualify, you must be a U.S.-based business, have been in business for at least one year and have revenues of at least $50,000 a year or $4,200 a month for the past three months.
Alibaba.com is, says Zhang in Alizila, “focused on ‘Global Buy, Global Sell.’” While the majority of suppliers on the site are Chinese, the company, says Zhang, wants “to see trade between all countries.” He says Turkey and Malaysia are also “top supplier countries.” (I talked to Zhang in January about a lot of the changes taking place on Alibaba.com.)
I have long believed entrepreneurship is the great equalizer. For instance former NBA basketball star Metta World Peace, turned to Alibaba.com for the same reason many of you do—or should. He was looking for “more solutions” for his company The Panda’s Friend because his “margins were very small.”
If you’re particularly concerned about the holiday shopping season, check out the Holiday One-Stop Shop, which features over 600 items with low MOQs. Act now, though, Super September ends on September 30.
