Alibaba helps messaging app Tango add in shopping feature

Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba has been investing quite literally all over the map. In March of 2014, the company sunk a huge sum – US$215 million – into American messaging app Tango. At the time it seemed a bit odd: why would Alibaba invest so much into an American chat app with no real footprint in China?

The picture has become a bit clearer today with the announcement of Tango shops. Tango VP Chi-Chao Chang told Tech in Asia that the goal is to make the in-app shopping experience convenient and social:

Tango users will be able to browse and search merchandise. They will be able to share personalized catalogs or collections of merchandise with other Tango users, and securely purchase from millions of products available.

To start, Tango shops will feature products from two partners: Wal-Mart and AliExpress. AliExpress, of course, is Alibaba’s consumer-facing global ecommerce platform, and Tango users will have access to the entirety of AliExpress’s offerings via the in app-search feature. Chang said that Tango will also curate special deals from both providers that will be made available to users on a daily basis.

It should come as no surprise that as an investor and now a partner, Alibaba has been heavily involved in the development of Tango’s new shops feature. Chang said Alibaba has even given Tango “special access” to products most other companies don’t have access to, and I got the impression that without Alibaba, the launch might look quite different. “They have been extremely involved,” Chang said of Alibaba.

Following WeChat

Tango itself is a bit reminiscent of Alibaba competitor Tencent’s successful chat app WeChat, in that it began with a focus on messaging and communication (video calling in Tango’s case) but has since branched out into a full-fledged platform with games, written content, music, and more. WeChat already has a booming ecommerce industry centered on its platform, and now Tango is headed in that direction too. The similarity is no coincidence. “We looked at that very carefully,” said Chang of WeChat’s partnership with JD, but he says that Tango’s mobile shopping experience “feels a lot more native.”

Chang told me Tango has a “very strong” footprint in some Southeast Asian markets, and that globally it has crossed the 300 million user mark, so Tango’s shops feature has a lot of potential customers out there to entice. At launch, it will be available only for US-based users, but Chang said it will be expanding to Southeast Asia in the “very near future.” And given that, the company will also be looking to partner with local ecommerce players in Southeast Asia so it can add to its shop offerings.

When I spoke with Chang several weeks before the launch, he was hesitant to share any specific goals the company has for the shops’ performance. The company’s first goal, he said, is just to get users involved and using the social sharing features.

“We’re super excited,” said Chang of the shops launch. “We think that this is the first step […] into mobile commerce.”