AliExpress is piloting Elite, an invitation-only VIP program for customers who spend over $800 a year, in Australia, the UK, Germany, and Spain, according to The Information.
Unlike Amazon Prime… Elite has no fee, and membership is earned through spending rather than bought, with each member’s status re-evaluated every 90 days.
Like Prime… Elite gives members discounts on specially labeled items (an extra 5% off), faster delivery on labeled items, and easier returns, along with dedicated 24/7 customer service.
AliExpress already has two other loyalty programs… In 2023 it launched AliExpress VIP, a paid membership that costs $19.90 a year and mostly gives out monthly coupons, and it also runs a free points-based program that ranks shoppers as Silver, Gold, Platinum, or Diamond members. Elite appears to be separate from both.
AliExpress plans to add more European markets and South Korea next month and bring Elite to the US at some point in the future, aiming for a million members before the end of the year. Elite is part of a wider effort at the company to make AliExpress work more like Amazon. For example, AliExpress has also been testing next-day delivery from local warehouses in Madrid, Paris, and Warsaw, now that tariffs and new EU parcel fees have made direct-from-China products more expensive.
I like the idea of AliExpress having an “Elite” membership program for its most valuable customers. However, I question whether it’s a good idea to reward your best shoppers with a program that can be stripped away from them every 90 days if they don’t spend enough. The last thing you want to do as a marketplace is take something away from your customers, even if you were the one who gave it to them in the first place. AliExpress seems like it’s modeling Elite after an airline frequent flier program instead of a traditional marketplace shopping membership. I’ll be curious to see how that goes for them or if they end up pivoting along the way to a structure that’s more familiar to shoppers.
