Alibaba.com, the world's largest online business-to-business (B2B) marketplace, is planning a major expansion to increase its footprint in Thailand this year.
The move is part of the Chinese e-commerce giant's strategy to expand its presence abroad.
"The year 2015 will mark a good step forward in our continuous growth strategy in a drive to cash in on many opportunities stemming from trading activities in Asean," said Thomas Ho, country manager for global business development of Alibaba.com Singapore E-Commerce Private Ltd.
The expansion will be in the form of partnerships with local e-marketing companies.
Mr Ho said consumers are increasingly turning to online channels to research and purchase products and services from Southeast Asia, due to their quality and reasonable prices.
Thailand is an export country specialising in food, drinks, agricultural products, apparel and beauty products, he added.
"The number of internet users in Thailand has increased significantly, due to the nationwide wireless network and the proliferation of smart devices," said Mr Ho.
He said he believed more than 2.7 million small and medium-sized companies have high potential to use online channels to sell their products and services.
In order to boost the number of Thai consumers using its marketplace, Alibaba now provides Thai-language support to local companies.
It also provides big data analytics that enable online merchants to learn consumers' purchasing behaviour.
As of March, Alibaba.com had 570,000 registered users in Thailand, an increase of 42% from the same period last year.
Globally, Alibaba has 36 million registered users across 200 countries, with 85-90% of them buyers.
Alibaba appointed Webnatics (Thailand) and ReadyPlanet as local authorised resellers to help it recruit suppliers to enhance the quality of its product profiles and increase sales opportunities.
Mr Ho added that Alibaba expects the B2B marketplace to be promising, as it provides the ability to research and understand products. Convenience is also key to adapting and differentiating business models, enhancing transparency and inventory visibility.
A recent study by research firm Frost & Sullivan says that the value of the global B2B online retail market is expected to be double the size of the business-to-consumer (B2C) online market, generating US$6.7 trillion by 2020.