Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant announced the launch of Miravia, a new online shopping platform in Spain, according to Spanish media. The platform runs separately from the company’s other e-commerce sites, such as AliExpress and Lazada.

Miravia offers free shipping for all orders with a minimum 10 euros purchase, and 30% discount for new users in December. The platform currently curates a variety of fashion, beauty and lifestyle products, ranging from clothing, make-up, accessories, electronics, food, etc. from a slew of brands such as Lego, Pixar, L’Oréal Paris, Delonghi, Nivea, NYX, Staub and others.

Merchants were invited to join the new platform as early as October. Alibaba expressed to merchants that Miravia is a new cross-border independent platform for the European market, mainly targeting the European B2C cross-border opportunities. According to a Jiemian News report, Alibaba has invited top merchants from AliExpress to join the new platform.

Alibaba choose the Spanish market since it is one of the European countries with more e-commerce market potential, given its the local infrastructure of internet and high mobile technology penetration rate, according to Jiemian News quoting a person familiar with Alibaba.

"Spain is one of the European markets with the greatest potential in the e-commerce sector, which is a huge opportunity for a platform such as Miravia," said Miravia’s CEO, Yann Fotaine, who adds that "We hope to cover all Spanish consumers' needs, while offering local and international brands greater tools to sell and interact with their customers."

Alibaba is one of many Chinese companies looking to explore e-commerce opportunities overseas. ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, launched TikTok Shop in multiple countries in Southeast Asia, the UK and the US. Pinduoduo, a latecomer who quickly caught up with the online shopping scene in China, launched Temu, a budget shopping website headquartered in Boston.