Nio Opens Flagship Store For Lifestyle Products On Alibaba's Tmall: What You Need To Know

Chinese electric vehicle maker NIO Inc. NIO is teaming up with Alibaba Group Holding Limited BABA, the top Chinese e-commerce company.

What Happened: Nio Life, the EV maker's unit focused on lifestyle products, has opened a flagship store on Alibaba's Tmall platform, the CnEVPost reported, citing the company.

Nio Life was launched in 2018 and it has a network with over 500 designers around the world. It has so far developed 813 new products and delivered over 2.8 million Nio Life merchandise items to users.

Tmall.com is Alibaba's business-to-consumer e-commerce platform, where local Chinese and international businesses sell branded goods to consumers in Greater China.

Nio Life's presence on Tmall will give its lifestyle product a greater reach.

Related Link: Nio Makes Norway Entry Official, Shares Details On Local Team, Infrastructure, Service And Vehicle Models

Why It's Important: Nio is following in the footsteps of its U.S. rival Tesla, Inc. TSLA, which opened its flagship store on Tmall in mid-April.

Tesla intends to use the platform for selling some auto parts and interior accessories for its cars.

The company said at that time that it sees the move to a third-party platform as a means for establishing an online closed-loop service system to better serve a younger generation of Chinese consumers.

Nio's store is likely to be restricted to sales of its lifestyle brand, although it is likely the company could use its presence to push products related to its cars in the future.

At the Shanghai Auto show in mid-April, Nio Life presented the Blue Sky Lab, a fashion project based on automotive industry recyclables that reuses the materials left from the car production to create a series of fashion products. Products from this project are expected to be launched in the fall.

BABA, NIO Price Action: Alibaba shares were up 1.07% at $208.21 at last check Friday, while Nio shares were rallying by 6.34% to $33.20.

Related Link: Is ARK Invest's Cathie Wood Interested In Nio?

The Nio ES6. Courtesy photo.