At the onset of the coronavirus outbreak, many believed that businesses with online platforms would feel less of the brunt brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. And though that remains relatively true for some of the world's larger online enterprises, having an online presence is still not enough to make a full economic recovery.

This reality is something Chinese tech giant Alibaba has recognized and is working to address during this year's 618 (June 18) online shopping festival.

Often seen as a direct rival event to the Double Eleven shopping festival, 618 is no different. Platforms such as Taobao and Tmall all hope to raise record-breaking numbers in terms of sales, cashing in on China's enormous e-commerce and online shopping landscape.

But this year's event will face challenges unlike previous times, with the reduced supply of consumer goods and products being one of many obstacles.

"A lot of manufacturers say we've restarted work, but if you see how many workers are back, you can probably only see 60 percent or 50 percent," said Wang Tiantian, general manager of the International Trade Business Supply Chain Unit at Alibaba.

"So comparing with last year, a lot of factories cannot fulfill orders in time. So we have to put more effort into how we can select premium vendors, who can provide the full capacity to fulfill order requirements online," he added.

Addressing these issues, Alibaba said it's moving to digitize more services, specifically value-added services. For logistics and international supply chain management, the Hangzhou-based tech firm wants to assure its vendors they'll be able to get their materials and supplies. For Wang, it's a major priority to get both B2C and B2B platforms reconnected on a global scale.

"Right now, we are focusing on more value-added services. For instance, we provide logistics services to resolve problems and facilitate how customers can get goods in a certain time period and at a lower cost. This is becoming more obvious for cross border trade, due to the huge impact on global logistics."

While voicing concern for those selling goods and products, Alibaba hasn't forgotten the consumer base. And though recent figures from June this year suggest a rebound in consumer spending, Wang said Alibaba will still strive to provide competitive prices compared to rivals such as JD.com.

"The first thing is more selection. We not only say that we're going to enlarge how much percent or incremental selection there is versus last year. We also say what are the specific new needs of our consumers this year? For example, manufacturers sell to distributors, distributors sell to retailers, retailers sell to consumers. So how can we approach the manufacturers directly, to provide a factory price, so this price will be the price the end consumer can enjoy."

According to one Bloomberg report, Alibaba's Tmall e-commerce platform saw sales 50 percent higher than in the same period last year. And combined with estimates that most of the country's e-commerce giants are set to break previous record numbers in terms of the total value of goods sold, a competitive online shopping space may well be emerging in a post-pandemic China.

(Cover: The logo of Alibaba Group is seen during Alibaba Group's 11.11 Singles' Day global shopping festival at the company's headquarters in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China, November 10, 2019. /VCG)