I am glad to apply for the position of marketing manager at Taobao.com. Taobao.com, which is owned by Alibaba, is one of the best e-commerce platforms in the world, and I really hope to work here. I know e-commerce is developing rapidly and has occupies people’s daily life. I am so interested in this field. My major is about business and I have some experience in marketing management. At the same time, I think I am capable of dealing with the challenges that Taobao.com is facing now. As a result, I am qualified for this position.

Firstly, I have read Alibaba’s financial reports from 2013 to 2018 and I also have known the market shares of different e-commerce platforms in China. A few years ago, Taobao.com dominated most of the online shopping market in China. However, due to the rise of other platforms, the market share of Taobao.com is decreasing. Then, I summarize the external changes Taobao.com faces to through PEST analysis. For example, in recent years, the policies are changing. The Chinese government is encouraging cross-border e-commerce transactions. However, different from B2B, each order of C2C transactions in Taobao.com is small, but the total amount is large, which increases the costs of customs clearance. This makes Taobao.com difficult to adapt to global transactions. Meanwhile, nowadays, Tmall.com, JD.com and other online platforms have occupied a large market share and are becoming competitors of Taobao.com.

People are increasingly pursuing quality, so they tend to use those B2C or B2B platforms instead of C2C platforms like Taobao.com. Besides, it is worth mentioning that the internet celebrity economy is developing fast in China in recent years. The internet celebrity economy refers that the celebrities promote their own brands or sponsored products on social media and customers purchase through Taobao.com based on recommendations of their favorite Internet celebrities. This economy mode looks simple, but the influence is huge. According to the data of PwC, the turnover of celebrity economy has reached RMB 58 billion in 2016. However, the outcome of the internet celebrity economy is not optimistic. According to the feedback, the recommended products customers buy are in low qualities and the prices are higher than similar products. This situation also leads to a decline in customersatisfaction and then Taobao.com loses a large number of customers.

As a result, the growth rate of Taobao.com is decreasing. What is more, the changes in online payment methods, physical shops and logistics can affect the development of Taobao.com as well. Actually, Taobao’s executives are aware of the problems caused by changes in the external environment and they have made some adjustments. For instance, in order to ensure product quality and maintain customer satisfaction, Taobao.com launches a live streaming function, which can enable customers to see the details of products more intuitively. At the same time, Taobao.com focuses on technological updates. It uses big data technology to understand customers’ needs and recommend products based on their buying habits.

In general, Taobao.com has taken effective measures to respond to changes in the external environment. However, I think these solutions can only solve certain problems and cannot improve Taobao’s ability to cope with external changes in a long run. Therefore, I think, Taobao.com needs to improve the organizational learning ability, through which Taobao.com can gain a stably better performance. Organizational learning includes four processes: information acquisition, information distribution, information interpretation and business memory. From these four aspects, Taobao.com should take more effective measures. Furthermore, in order to enhance organizational learning abilities, Taobao.com should make some adjustments on business culture, including changing leadership and management style.

In conclusion, Taobao.com faces many problems. Its financial performance shows a downward trend. Currently, the measures taken by Taobao.com are not enough to respond to all the changes in the external market. I have read a lot of literatures about organizational learning and have a lot of practical experience. I believe that I am a fitting candidate for being a marketing manager. Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. I look forward to discussing with you about the future development trend of Taobao.com.