Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba is building up a retail team as it eyes a possible move on to the British high street.

The retailer has put together a small team of retail executives in London who are working alongside consultants, according to reporting by The Daily Telegraph.

In August, Alibaba opened its first physical store outside of China, AliExpress in Spain, which sells technology and electricals.

Alibaba has also been signing up UK-based retailers looking to expand internationally, with the likes of Waitrose, Burberry and tea merchants Whittard of Chelsea all available on the ecommerce giant’s site Tmall.

Over the last few years, Alibaba has moved strongly into bricks-and-mortar retail in its native China, acquiring a 36% stake in the country’s largest grocer for £2.2bn in 2017.

Chief executive Daniel Zhang has been quoted in the past on the importance of physical stores and how Alibaba would seek to combine its ecommerce operations with a more traditional shops and services presence.

The news comes after the retailer’s Singles’ Day event raked in over £11bn in sales in just over an hour of trading overnight.

This puts the 2019 event on track to post a fresh sales record, beating the £24bn that was set last year.

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