Raphael Stevens

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba unveiled Tuesday an artificial intelligence-powered search engine for small businesses in Europe and the Americas to source supplies.
Initial tests showed businesses’ purchase intent using the new tool increased by 40% versus traditional search engines, according to Kuo Zhang, president of Alibaba.com and vice president of Alibaba International.
With a few text or image prompts, businesses can use Accio to find wholesale products — including analysis on their popularity with consumers and projected profit, according to demos viewed by CNBC.

Alibaba International promotes its e-commerce platform for small businesses at the Canton Fair in Guangdong, China, on Oct. 16, 2024.
Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images

BEIJING — Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba on Tuesday unveiled an artificial intelligence-powered search engine for small businesses in Europe and the Americas to source supplies.
It’s an attempt to leverage ChatGPT-like tech to increase sales. Initial tests showed businesses’ purchase intent using the new tool increased by 40% versus traditional search engines, according to Kuo Zhang, president of Alibaba.com and vice president of Alibaba International.

The product is called Accio, after the spell used in the Harry Potter fantasy series for summoning objects. The initial version is web-based and supports English, German, French, Portuguese and Spanish, according to the company.
With a few text or image prompts, businesses can use Accio to find wholesale products — including analysis on their popularity with consumers and projected profit, according to demos viewed by CNBC.
Examples shown included helping a sports entrepreneur to build a line of pickleball products. At the end of the search, the tool lists a number of procurement options for the business to discuss directly with each supplier.

The tech uses generative AI from Alibaba’s Tongyi Qianwen large language model, Zhang said, declining to confirm whether the product integrates AI from other companies.
An LLM is an artificial intelligence model trained on large amounts of data. A model supports generative AI applications, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which generates human-like responses to user prompts. To be sure, several businesses are still in the experimentation phase with AI and many firms are yet to find a way of monetizing the technology.

Accio uses data from 50 million businesses on Alibaba International’s platform, and publicly available industry information, Zhang said. He said the tool incorporates 1 billion product listings and documents covering industries across more than 100 markets from Alibaba.com, the company’s business-to-business platform which sells to companies outside China.
Businesses based in Europe and North America are the largest group of buyers, the company said.
Alibaba’s international arm in October announced an updated version of an AI translation tool to help merchants reach customers in other countries. The company claimed the tech’s translation capabilities beat that of Google, DeepL and ChatGPT.
The international business has grown rapidly in recent years, but Alibaba’s main revenue driver remains its domestic e-commerce platforms Taobao and Tmall. In August 2023, management told investors that “the Taobao app has the greatest potential to become a one stop smart portal for life and consumption enabled by AI.”
During the weeks-long Singles Day shopping festival that wrapped up Monday, more than half of over 500 merchants selling on Chinese e-commerce platforms such as Alibaba and JD.com used a generative AI-enabled tool, according to a survey by Bain & Company.
Those features include AI for customer service and generating content. The survey found 56% of respondents said AI tools had “high positive impact” on improving productivity.
Alibaba is scheduled to report quarterly results on Friday.
—CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report. More

Major e-commerce companies used to report gross merchandise value, an industry measure of sales over time, but did not for a third consecutive year amid weak consumer sentiment.
“I do think for many brands it probably will have turned out a bit better than they thought, but on a low level. Probably nobody would say we hit it out of the ballpark,” said Chris Reitermann, CEO of Ogilvy APAC and Greater China.
“There seems to be an uptick” in consumer sentiment over the last six weeks, said Daniel Zipser, senior partner at McKinsey and leader of its Asia Pacific consumer and retail division.

Staff sort express deliveries at China Post’s Zaozhuang branch in east China’s Shandong province on November 10, 2024
Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

BEIJING — China’s Singles’ Day shopping festival saw consumers spend more than expected in what has otherwise been a tepid retail environment, consulting executives told CNBC.
The country’s version of Black Friday kicked off this year on Oct. 14, more than a week earlier than in 2023, and wrapped up Monday. Major e-commerce companies used to report gross merchandise value, an industry measure of sales over time, but did not for a third consecutive year amid weak consumer sentiment.

“I do think for many brands it probably will have turned out a bit better than they thought, but on a low level. Probably nobody would say we hit it out of the ballpark,” said Chris Reitermann, CEO of Ogilvy APAC and Greater China. He is also president of WPP China.
Many multinational corporations that sell consumer products in China are more cautious on the market, if not struggling, Reitermann said. But he pointed out many of the companies are still “very profitable” in the country, even if their growth has slowed to the low single digits, instead of high double digits.
For this year’s Singles Day, Alibaba claimed “robust growth” in GMV and a “record number of active buyers,” while JD.com said the number of shoppers on its platform rose by more than 20% year-over-year.
The shopping season that celebrates single people, also known as Double 11, came as the Chinese government has announced a series of stimulus measures since late September, fueling a stock market rally.

“There seems to be an uptick” in consumer sentiment over the last six weeks, said Daniel Zipser, senior partner at McKinsey and leader of its Asia Pacific consumer and retail division. It’s “hard to predict what that means going forward.”

Singles Day exceeded expectations for most brands, Zipser said. But rather than sales rising across the board, he pointed out pockets of growth in categories such as outdoors, pet care and “blind box” toys — in which consumers buy uniformly marked boxes for a chance at winning a new collectible.
He noted that the blind box category is one that went from $0 before Covid-19 to an industry more than $2 billion in size, reflecting the potential speed of consumer adoption in China.
China’s retail sales for October are expected to have risen by 3.8% from a year ago, according to a Reuters poll. That would be an improvement from 3.2% growth in September.
“We saw people spending more this year,” Jacob Cooke, co-founder and CEO of WPIC Marketing + Technologies, told CNBC on Tuesday. The company helps foreign brands — such as Vitamix and IS Clinical — sell online in China and other parts of Asia.
He estimated 16% growth in GMV for the shopping festival from last year, in likely the strongest performance in years. Cooke added that brands didn’t have to cut prices as much.
Research firm Syntun said Tuesday it estimated 20.1% year-on-year growth in sales over the Singles Day period to 1.11 trillion ($150 billion) for Alibaba’s Tmall, JD.com and PDD.
Investors could get more details on China consumption later this week. JD.com is scheduled to release quarterly results Thursday, followed by Alibaba on Friday.
“We’ve seen consumers who have, if you will, save for a rainy day, and they’ve purchased on this Double 11 shopping festival,” Deborah Weinswig, founder and CEO of Coresight Research, said Tuesday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia.”

She said the company’s weekly survey has indicated some “differences” in consumer sentiment over the last month.

Hopes for a recovery in 2025

China’s consumer spending has come under pressure since the Covid-19 pandemic as households grapple with economic uncertainty. A real estate slump has cut into household wealth, while economic growth has slowed.
While premium or mid-tier brands are “disappearing very fast,” higher-end brands such as Lululemon can do well, Reitermann said. He noted generally that local brands are often lower-priced and able to go to market faster.
He expects some rebound in consumer confidence in the second half of next year, after additional stimulus is likely announced in the first half.
China’s Ministry of Finance last week indicated more fiscal support could come in 2025. While China did not hand out cash to consumers during the pandemic, this year, the country did roll out a trade-in program to subsidize a portion of car and home appliance purchases.
— CNBC’s Sonia Heng contributed to this report. More

The stock market could enjoy a bigger boost from President-elect Donald Trump than any previous administration thanks to his pro-business policies, according to Jeremy Siegel, finance professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
“President-elect Trump is the most pro-stock market president we have had in our history,” Siegel said Monday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “He measured his success in his first term by how well the stock market did. You know, it seems to me very unlikely he’s going to implement policies that are going to be bad for the stock market.”

The market already reached new heights in reaction to Trump’s election win as investors bet that his promises of tax cuts and deregulation will propel growth and benefit risk assets.
The S&P 500 soared 4.66% last week for its best week since November 2023, trading above 6,000 for the first time ever. The blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average also climbed above a new milestone of 44,000 post election.

Stock chart icon

Investments seen as the biggest beneficiaries under a Trump presidency exploded during the week. 
Tesla, whose CEO Elon Musk is a prominent backer of Trump, saw shares skyrocket 29% to return to a $1 trillion market cap. Bank stocks such as JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo also had big rallies. Bitcoin continued to hit record highs as traders see looser regulations under Trump.
Siegel believes that Trump’s corporate tax cuts from his first term in 2017 are mostly likely to be extended.

“I think the extension of his 2017 tax cuts, looks pretty much like a slam dunk, but the expansion to all his other tax cuts is certainly going to be much more difficult,” Siegel said.
Still, the president-elect’s trade policy, including his vow to slap steep tariffs on trading partners, could hurt growth and inflame inflationary pressures at a time when the Federal Reserve has spent more than two years raising interest rates to bring down price increases.

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Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari said that tariffs would hurt long-term inflation if global trade partners were to strike back.
One of Donald Trump’s central economic proposals for his second term is to impose universal tariffs on all imports from all countries — with a specifically targeted 60% rate on China.
Economists, Wall Street analysts and industry leaders have repeatedly expressed concerns over the inflationary impact of that hardline trade approach, just as inflation has begun to come down and the Fed is lowering interest rates.

Neel Kashkari, President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, speaks at the Milken Conference 2024 Global Conference Sessions at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., May 7, 2024. 
David Swanson | Reuters

Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari said Sunday that President-elect Donald Trump’s tariff proposals could worsen long-term inflation if global trade partners were to strike back.
One-time tariffs, Kashkari said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” “shouldn’t have an effect long run on inflation.”

“The challenge becomes, if there’s a tit for tat and it’s one country imposing tariffs and then responses and it’s escalating. That’s where it becomes more concerning, and, frankly, a lot more uncertain,” Kashkari said.
During his first term, Trump essentially sparked a trade war with China when he imposed a series of import taxes on Chinese goods, which triggered the country to retaliate with its own set of tariffs on the U.S.
One of Trump’s primary economic proposals for his second term is to impose universal tariffs on all imports from all countries — with a specifically targeted 60% rate on China.
Economists, Wall Street analysts and industry leaders have repeatedly expressed concerns over the inflationary impact of that hardline trade approach, especially since inflation has just begun to cool from its pandemic-era peaks.
“We’ve made a lot of progress in bringing inflation down,” Kashkari said. “I mean, I don’t want to declare victory yet. We need to finish the job, but we’re on a good path right now.”

The Fed on Thursday passed its second consecutive interest rate cut, continuing its effort to loosen monetary policy as inflation approaches the central bank’s 2% target. Kashkari said he expects another cut to come in December, but that will depend on “what the data looks like” at that time.
As for Trump’s other major policy proposals like a sweeping immigrant deportation plan, Kashkari noted that the inflation threat is still unclear and so the Fed is still taking a “wait and see” approach before adjusting its policy.
Trump and his backers like billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk have also been outspoken about their desire to give the president input on Fed policy decisions. The central bank views its political independence as a core feature that allows it to shape monetary policy exclusively based on the health of the U.S. economy, not election incentives.
But Kashkari said he is not concerned about politics permeating Fed decisions.
“I’m confident that we will continue to focus on our economic jobs,” he said. “That’s what should be dictating what we’re doing and that is what’s dictating what we’re doing.” More