David Lloyd, managing director of Alibaba in the UK and Nordics, spoke to reporters about what this expansion is about and what it means for Alibaba’s strategy in Europe.

Speaking to Forbes during London Tech Week, David commented: “Well, we’re not doing what you’d expect us to do. We’re not going toe-to-toe with local ecommerce players.”

Instead, it seems that Alibaba is focusing on two main objectives.

The first priority for Alibaba is to connect more businesses and brands in Europe with consumers in China.

Alibaba’s second mission in Europe is to get more of its services working here - not for locals, but for traveling Chinese tourists. In China, one of the fastest-growing payment methods is mobile payments, which work by scanning a shop’s QR code with a smartphone.

Alibaba’s Alipay, which boasts 520m users in China, isn’t recognised across most of Europe, but David and his team are working to change that, with Harrods, Selfridges, the Body Shop all currently accepting the mobile payment platform.