How Brands Make Millions on Tmall Global in 2026

By Olivier Verot, founder and CEO of GMA, Shanghai since 2012. GMA has taken hundreds of foreign brands onto Tmall and Tmall Global; this article was first published in 2019 and is fully updated for 2026.

China has 1.4 billion people and close to a billion daily internet users. That alone explains why every brand we talk to wants a slice of Chinese e-commerce. What most of them get wrong is which platform to start on, and what it actually takes to turn a storefront into revenue.

This guide covers Tmall Global specifically: what it is, what it costs, and what separates the brands making real money from the ones that open a store and quietly disappear two years later.

1. Tmall or Tmall Global: what’s the difference?

Alibaba’s Taobao and Tmall together still handle the largest share of retail e-commerce in China. Tmall is the business-to-consumer side of that. Here is what defines it:

• It is the largest B2C platform in China, hosting tens of thousands of brands
• It lets businesses run a branded online store, not just a product listing
• It requires a business entity registered in Mainland China with a retail license
• Products must sit in a Mainland China warehouse for fast delivery

That entity requirement is what stops most foreign companies from opening a Tmall store directly. Setting up a Chinese subsidiary just to sell online is slow and expensive, so Alibaba built a separate door for international brands: Tmall Global.

Tmall Global lets a brand sell into China without a local entity, a local warehouse, or a Chinese business license. Stock stays outside China (or in a bonded zone) until a Chinese consumer orders it, and the platform handles the cross-border paperwork on each transaction. It is the fastest legal route for a brand with no China entity to start selling to Chinese consumers. Read our complete guide to Tmall Global for the full mechanics, or our Tmall guide if you are still deciding between the two.

2. How to sell your products on Tmall Global

Before you start

Alibaba screens applicants. To open an official Tmall Global store, you generally need:

• A business license from your home country
• Qualifications allowing overseas trading and a valid stock certificate
• Proof you are the brand owner or an authorized agency
• At least two years of sales operations, with meaningful turnover (Alibaba’s published bar is around 10 million USD; in practice, reviewers favor brands well above that)
• Existing brand recognition, ideally with some presence already in Chinese search or social platforms

If you clear that bar, the application itself is a fairly standard process:

• Submit product and brand information for verification, roughly 10 working days
• Register an Alipay merchant account
• Sign the platform agreement and pay the annual service fee and deposit
• Launch the store

The fees have not moved much since our last update, and they still surprise first-time sellers:

• Annual platform fee: roughly $5,000 to $10,000, depending on category
• Deposit: roughly $8,000 to $25,000, refundable but held as a buffer for customer claims
• Commission: 3-6% per unit sold
• Store management and advertising budget, negotiated separately, usually the largest line item

That last line matters more than the platform fee. Brands that budget for the store setup and nothing else almost always underperform, because on Tmall Global visibility is bought, not given.

3. Tmall Global in 2026: what the numbers actually show

A few figures worth knowing before you plan a Tmall Global launch this year:

• Taobao and Tmall combined still moved an estimated 8.3 trillion RMB in GMV over the past year, up roughly 6% year on year, according to industry trackers cited by Chinese financial media.
• The 2025 Double 11 shopping festival generated 1,695 billion RMB in total GMV across platforms, up 17.6% from the prior year and the longest Double 11 on record. Alibaba itself reported its strongest 11.11 growth in GMV net of refunds in four years for Tmall.
• Alibaba has kept simplifying entry: a self-service onboarding portal now cuts the application process to four steps, all completed online, down from the multi-week manual review that used to scare off smaller brands.
• Tmall Global has been pushing a “bonded import plus local processing” model in large bonded zones such as Hainan, shortening the supply chain so fresh imported goods can reach buyers the next day instead of within a week.

Read this as: the platform is still large, still growing, and still investing in making onboarding faster. What changed since 2019 is who else is competing for the same shopping cart.

4. Douyin is taking share, but not everywhere

In 2019, Tmall barely had a serious rival for cross-border sales. That is no longer true. Douyin’s e-commerce arm has grown into a real competitor, and by 2026 forecasts put China’s total e-commerce market near 18 trillion RMB, with Taobao and Tmall holding around 45% and Douyin close to 12% and rising fast.

The split is not even across categories. In beauty, one of the most competitive verticals for imported brands, Tmall still took roughly 46% of sales during the first period of last year’s Double 11, against about 26% for Douyin and 23% for Pinduoduo, based on data cited by Chinese industry analysts. Tmall keeps the international brands and the established domestic leaders. Douyin has become the main growth channel for newer domestic brands riding short video and livestream discovery.

For a foreign brand, that translates into a practical decision: Tmall Global remains the stronger choice for a brand that already has some reputation and wants a store that reads as an established, verified retailer to a Chinese buyer who is comparing options carefully, such as a supplement, an infant formula, or a skincare line. We cover the reverse case, and the brands actually pulling budget out of Tmall in favor of Douyin, in a separate piece on why brands are shifting from Tmall to Douyin. CBNData’s own reporting on the split between store-based and influencer-based Douyin selling is worth reading if you want the Chinese-side view of that shift.

5. What actually separates the brands making millions

We have run enough Tmall Global stores to see the pattern. It is rarely the product that decides the outcome. It is three things, in this order.

Content built for the platform, not translated from your website. A Tmall Global storefront that is a Chinese translation of your US or European site underperforms every time. Chinese buyers read product pages closely: certifications, ingredient lists, usage instructions, and comparison charts against competitors. Pages built specifically for Tmall’s layout and buyer habits convert at multiples of a translated page.

Service level, especially response speed. Tmall ranks and rewards stores that answer customer messages fast, ship on time, and keep return rates low. A store with a China-based or China-hours customer service team consistently outranks a store where messages sit unanswered overnight because the team is in a different time zone.

Price positioning that matches the story you are telling. Chinese consumers on Tmall Global are often paying a premium specifically because the product is foreign and verified as authentic. Undercut that price too aggressively and you damage the perception that justified the premium in the first place. The brands making the most money are not the cheapest ones on the page. They are the ones whose price matches their positioning and stays consistent across Tmall, their own site, and any offline presence in China.

A brand that got this right

One case we worked on, details changed to protect the client: a mid-size European nutraceutical brand came to us after a first Tmall Global attempt run by a local agent had stalled at roughly $40,000 a month in sales, barely covering platform fees.

We rebuilt the store around three changes. First, product pages rewritten from scratch around the ingredient questions Chinese buyers actually search for, not a translation of the European packaging copy. Second, a dedicated China-hours customer service line, cutting first-response time from over 12 hours to under 30 minutes. Third, we moved fulfillment to a bonded warehouse in a free trade zone instead of direct-mail parcels, cutting delivery time from around 10 days to 3.

Within eight months, monthly sales passed $310,000, with repeat purchase rate becoming the single biggest driver of growth by month six. None of the three changes required new product development. All three were operational.

6. Getting your product to the customer

Once your store and listings are live, logistics decide how good your reviews will be. Two models dominate:

• Bonded warehouse: you ship goods to China in bulk and store them in a bonded zone until an order comes in, then the last leg to the customer is fast, usually 1 to 5 days. It costs more upfront (inventory sitting in China, warehouse fees) but it is the model buyers increasingly expect, especially for anything perishable or time-sensitive.
• Direct mail from abroad: each order ships individually and clears customs on its own. No upfront warehouse cost, but delivery can run a week or more, and customs delays are a real risk during peak shopping periods.

Regulation around this keeps shifting. The compliance bar for cross-border e-commerce has moved more than once in the past few years, most recently with new CBEC thresholds that change what qualifies for simplified customs treatment; we track the current rules in a separate post on the 2026 CBEC law changes. If you are only checking this once a year, you are checking too rarely.

7. KOLs still move product, but the map has changed

Key opinion leaders still drive a large share of discovery traffic into Tmall stores. What changed since 2019 is where that traffic originates. It used to be mostly Taobao livestreams and Weibo. Now the strongest referral traffic into Tmall Global stores often comes from Xiaohongshu (RED) product reviews and Douyin short video, with the actual purchase happening back on Tmall because buyers still associate it with authenticity checks and easier returns. A KOL strategy that only posts on one platform is leaving reach on the table.

8. Getting paid

As a foreign seller, you get paid through Alipay, which is why registering a merchant account is one of the first steps in the application. Your Alipay merchant account links to your company bank account, and funds transfer out on request. This part of the process has stayed simple and has not changed much since 2019.

FAQ

Do I need a Chinese company to sell on Tmall Global?
No. That is the entire point of the platform. Tmall Global was built for brands with no Mainland China entity. You still need a home-country business license, brand ownership proof, and enough sales history to pass Alibaba’s review, but you do not need a Chinese subsidiary or a Chinese retail license.

How much does it cost to open a store on Tmall Global?
Budget for an annual platform fee of $5,000 to $10,000, a refundable deposit of $8,000 to $25,000 depending on category, a 3-6% commission per sale, and a separate marketing budget you negotiate with your Tmall agent. Most brands underestimate the marketing line, which usually costs more than the platform fee itself.

Is Tmall Global still worth it in 2026 with Douyin growing so fast?
For most established or premium foreign brands, yes. Tmall still holds around 45% of China’s e-commerce market and remains the platform Chinese buyers trust most for verifying that an imported product is genuine. Douyin is a stronger channel for newer brands relying on content-driven discovery, but the two are increasingly used together rather than as a straight replacement.

Bonded warehouse or direct mail, which should I choose?
Bonded warehouse if you can commit to holding inventory in China and want delivery times competitive with domestic sellers, generally 1 to 5 days. Direct mail if you are testing the market with lower volume and want to avoid upfront warehouse costs, accepting slower delivery and higher exposure to customs delays.

How long before a Tmall Global store turns a profit?
Plan for 6 to 12 months of investment before a new store covers its own costs. Stores that launch without a dedicated content and customer service plan often take longer, or never clear the annual fees and marketing spend.

Need help launching or fixing a Tmall Global store?

GMA has set up and run Tmall and Tmall Global stores for hundreds of brands since 2012, from first application to daily store management. We handle the content, the customer service setup, and the logistics decisions covered in this article, not just the account opening.

If your store is stuck at the same revenue it hit a year ago, that is usually an operational problem, not a product problem, and it is fixable.

Talk to our team on the contact page, and we will look at what is actually holding your store back.

Sources: Alibaba Group, Taobao and Tmall 11.11 results; 36Kr, on Tmall’s 2026 brand support policy; CBNData, on Douyin e-commerce’s shift toward store-based selling.