“I bought this on Alibaba,” Temi Hollist, director of strategic partnerships at the Guardian, says while holding up a lock of her long, smooth, raven-black hair.
Alibaba, which had its record-breaking IPO on Friday, accounted for 80% of China’s e-commerce in 2013. That is about $248bn in business, more than Amazon and eBay combined, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.
Some of that wave of profit comes from Americans who use Alibaba. One of the site’s most loyal followings include those looking to buy human hair pieces at bargain prices, for lissome extensions, weaves and wigs.
Hair extensions and weaves are the undercredited heroes for the magical transformations of many Hollywood stars. Naomi Campbell, Miley Cyrus and many actresses have added long locks at the hairdresser, leading to demand among women who sought to recreate that glamour. As demand for hair extensions escalated, price follows. Hollist found in her search that virgin human hair – unprocessed, chemical-free – could cost the princely sum of $700.
There is a black market. The criminal underground robbed hair salons, which have suffered losses as high as $230,000 in
100 human hair extensions. Prices at salons rose. Perhaps predictably, consumers turned to the internet. Online, Hollist and others like her can now buy their hair extensions directly from the factory.
But what connects them to the factory?
Enter: AliExpress, one of Alibaba’s many online marketplaces. Based in China, AliExpress allows manufacturers to connect directly with consumers. It’s the one of Alibaba’s e-commerce sites most used by western audiences.
Hollist discovered it accidentally.
“I was looking to buy hair extensions and one of my friends mentioned a supplier she had in Atlanta,” says Hollist, who found the supplier charging money that could plausibly pay for a plane ticket to Europe or a used car. “So I looked on YouTube and saw some reviews on hair extensions and one of them was about AliExpress.”
“We are not the retailers. We have our factory,” a representative for Parkson Hair, which has an online site on AliExpress, told the Guardian. This particular factory is based in Qingdao, China. “We just start selling for two years on AliExpress. We sell wigs and hair extensions, lace closures. We got many customers.”
Relying on word of mouth as well social-media advertising, AliExpress sellers like Parkson Hair have come up with the perfect way to capture their clients overseas. Type “AliExpress” into Google search and AliExpress hair appears as the third suggested search item.
Additionally – showing the popularity of the search – human hair is the main category highlighted under the AliExpress search.
Still, the success of AliExpress in the hair market depends on a leap of faith. Online shopping is not ideal, especially when it comes to hair.
“I was nervous that I could only rely on the YouTube reviews to see the hair that was being sold,” says Hollist. “Sometimes people get good hair, and then the next lot can be dodgy.”
The bargain, however, was too good to pass up. Figuring that worst case scenario, she was only going to be out $250 to $350 – far less than the $700 that salons demanded – Hollist clicked “buy” and hoped for the best.
Seven days later, she had her best clip in hair extensions. They were not dodgy. Hollist’s extensions are squarely in the “crowning glory” category one might expect of a hair advertisement: soft, thick, uniformly dark and long.
At the moment, the not-so-secret supply is mostly known to those who frequent YouTube reviews. That’s not a coincidence. AliExpress offers discounts if customers agree to review the products they buy.
Search for AliExpress and hair on Youtube and you get about 77,200 video hits. Narrow it down to just AliExpress hair extension reviews and you get about 42,000 results.
“I was told that if I review their hair on YouTube, I get a 20% discount next time,” Hollist explains.
She passed on the discount. Even without it, she was happy to give the product a positive review, making it a stronger endorsement by noting that she was not paid for it.“I didn’t want to take a discount, because I thought it would be dishonest of me.”
A few days post-IPO, Alibaba is now valued at about $231bn – or 4.9bn packs of human hair wigs or extensions at the site’s bargain prices.
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