BASF (Ludwigshafen / Germany; www.basf.com) is strengthening its presence on the leading Chinese online trading platform Alibaba (Hangzhou, Zhejiang; www.alibabagroup.com) for direct distribution of BASF's products. This includes a number of polymeric materials. The German company announced the opening of a flagship store on the Alibaba e-commerce portal www.1688.com. Here, 11m sellers offer goods to more than 120m registered users from small- to medium-sized businesses.

It is important to make offerings more accessible to customers in the rapidly growing Chinese market, BASF said. The online sale will complement the company's traditional sales channels.

Covestro is another player that has recently made a similar e-commerce step on 1688.com – see Plasteurope.com of 02.05.2018. Speciality chemicals group Clariant has also launched its flagship 1688.com store, as part of its vision to become a "China Insider" – see Plasteurope.com of 30.04.2018.