Recently, Alibaba's direct supply platform for direct supply of goods at the source factory 1688 officially launched the "strong recovery of the industry belt" investment promotion activity and released five major "breaking" measures, aiming to help small and medium-sized manufacturers, especially factories that take over the second generation of factories, get out of the internal circulation dilemma.

According to reports, this investment promotion focuses on the source manufacturers of the industrial belt, focusing on supporting "specialized and innovative" enterprises with digital transformation, AI technology application and cross-border capabilities, and pay special attention to OEM factories with outstanding capabilities in small orders and light customization. The five major measures are based on the core logic of "maintaining business, grabbing business, reducing costs, reducing burdens, and going global". First, through the promise of "double insurance", the basic market of merchants will be stabilized. Integrity merchants will obtain at least 30 customers within 60 days, and the buyers of strong merchants will double within half a year. Second, special funds are invested to improve buyer experience, and it is planned to double user traffic investment in 2025, and tilt 80% of resources to high-quality merchants. Third, tools such as AI digital employees are opened for free to help merchants save manpower and reduce operational difficulties, and at the same time introduce DeepSeek big model to optimize decision-making efficiency. Fourth, strictly control the platform's commercialization rate, crack down on malicious refunds, and give priority to protecting the interests of merchants. Fifth, expand offline product selection centers and overseas markets, and plan to enter 15 countries and regions by 2025 to help manufacturers achieve overall growth. Data shows that 1688 has covered 600,000 factories across the country, accounting for one-third of the total number of factories above the scale. The platform will accurately match the top 20% of high-quality supply and core users to promote the efficient circulation of resources in the industrial belt.

According to a reporter from Southern+, AI technology is now not only the core of factory transformation, but also the key to building a digital supply chain and supporting merchant services. In the past year, the continuous advancement of large models has allowed people to see the potential of AI technology, and with the emergence of DeepSeek, AI applications have entered a new stage. Zhuo Han, general manager of the 1688 Origin Ecological Development Department, said that the platform has been connected to the DeepSeek big model and is planned to be open to merchants in mid-February, fully integrated with merchant business by the end of February, and a corresponding business model will be launched in early March. At the same time, it is promised that all AI tools will be open to merchants for free. Zhuo Han pointed out that the application of AI in marketing and promotion will bring huge changes to the e-commerce scenario, such as automatically generating marketing materials that are adapted to different platforms, and automatically translating product information. In his opinion, in the future, a boss can form a team with AI, helping merchants reduce labor costs and improve operational efficiency. Although AI technology has brought huge opportunities to e-commerce and manufacturing, its widespread use has also brought new challenges. In the industry's view, the information generated by AI may make it difficult to distinguish between true and false, posing a potential threat to transaction security. Therefore, the government should strengthen supervision of AI technology, and enterprises should also follow more norms when using AI technology in e-commerce and assume corresponding responsibilities.

Southern+Reporter  Ye Dan