Throughout history, legendary rivalries have shaped entire industries, defining not just markets but the world itself. The competition between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates forged the personal computing landscape, laying the foundation for today’s interconnected digital world. Similarly, Henry Ford and the early pioneers of General Motors gave rise to the automobile industry, transforming mobility forever. In aerospace, Boeing and Airbus have revolutionised global transportation, connecting continents and cultures in ways unimaginable a century ago. Today, a new rivalry looms on the global stage—Jack Ma Yun’s Alibaba versus Colin Huang Zheng’s Temu. This battle is less about building lasting legacies or advancing humanity’s capabilities and more about who can dominate global e-commerce. Unlike the rivalries of the past, this clash is leaving behind not a future shaped by innovation but a trail of environmental devastation in the form of plastic waste and unchecked consumerism.
The Rise of the Giants
Alibaba, founded by Jack Ma in 1999, began as a modest B2B platform aimed at connecting Chinese manufacturers with global buyers. Over time, it evolved into an e-commerce behemoth, offering everything from wholesale trade to cloud computing. Alibaba’s consumer-facing platforms, including Taobao and Tmall, have become synonymous with online shopping in China, while AliExpress has taken its influence global. On the other hand, Colin Huang’s Temu, launched in 2022 under the Pinduoduo umbrella, is the brash newcomer challenging the status quo. Temu’s appeal lies in its ultra-low prices, aggressive marketing strategies, and focus on creating a social shopping experience. While Alibaba revolutionised how goods are bought and sold, Temu is reimagining e-commerce by embedding itself into the lives of price-sensitive consumers worldwide, particularly in the West.
Both companies are racing to dominate markets, not through innovation or quality but by outpacing each other in low-cost production and mass consumption.
Jack Ma’s vision for Alibaba was always expansive, rooted in the philosophy of empowering small businesses. Alibaba’s success lies in its ability to create an ecosystem where businesses can thrive, supported by logistics, financial services, and technology. In contrast, Colin Huang’s strategy with Temu is hyper-focused on consumers. By emphasising social buying, gamified shopping experiences, and incredibly low prices, Temu appeals to an entirely different demographic—those drawn to deals and instant gratification. Huang’s approach represents a new wave of e-commerce, prioritising scale and speed over quality and sustainability. However, this race to the bottom is not without consequences.
Microplastics Menace
One of the most glaring downsides of the Alibaba-Temu rivalry is its environmental impact. Unlike Jobs and Gates, who shaped the IT industry, Ma and Huang are fostering a culture of disposable goods.
Ultra-cheap prices and mass production mean lower-quality products, often made from plastic and non-recyclable materials. These items flood global markets, enticing consumers with affordability but contributing to mountains of waste. Temu, with its emphasis on micro-purchases and impulse buys, exacerbates this issue, as consumers often buy items they don’t need, only to discard them shortly after.
Plastic never fully degrades. Instead, it breaks down into increasingly smaller pieces, known as microplastics. It’s estimated that humans consume over 100,000 pieces of microplastics annually. That equates to roughly 5 grams of plastic per week—the weight of a credit card. Essentially, every week, we ingest the equivalent of one credit card through microplastic consumption. On a monthly scale, this amounts to 21 grams, totalling 250 grams of microplastics annually.
According to Greenpeace, 80% of goods produced in the global fast-commerce economy are non-biodegradable. These products clog landfills, pollute oceans, and harm ecosystems. As microplastics infiltrate food, water, and air, they exacerbate the damage caused by disposable goods. Alibaba has sought collaboration with Greenpeace, but Temu remains under constant pressure from the organisation, whose focus increasingly seems to prioritise anti-consumerism in recent years.
The New Face of Consumerism
This rivalry isn’t just about who controls e-commerce; it’s about redefining the relationship between consumers and consumption. Alibaba and Temu represent a new era of hyper- consumerism, where convenience and price trump sustainability and ethics.
The consequences are already visible. Items purchased on platforms like Temu are often shipped halfway across the world, only to be discarded after minimal use. The carbon footprint of such transactions is immense, compounded by the plastic packaging and materials used to manufacture these goods.
Moreover, this model perpetuates a cycle of wasteful consumption. Consumers, lured by low prices, buy more than they need, contributing to a culture where products are seen as disposable.
BlitzKrieg in the Region
Global economy and communication tools have introduced new opportunities and conveniences for regional consumers. These innovations not only enhance access to information and products but also profoundly change consumption habits. However, this transformation also brings significant challenges for local producers and economies, as they face fast, aggressive competition tailored to the demands of modern consumers.
This phenomenon can be described as “BlitzKrieg economics”— a rapid and relentless invasion of global players into regional markets, employing strategies that combine efficiency, innovation, and aggressive pricing. Across the Balkans and the broader Adriatic region, this trend is especially visible in sectors such as e-commerce, technology services, and retail. Dopamine-driven Ordering Consumers in the region spanning from Slovenia to Albania spent decades under socialist regimes largely detached from the consumerist lifestyle. The concept of “buy more, consume more” was foreign in economies focused on production and meeting basic needs.
Over the past decades, a seismic shift has occurred. Regional consumers have become more adept, informed, and product- hungry. The arrival of global e-commerce giants like TEMU marks the apex of this transformation.
One less-discussed but crucial element of this consumption revolution is its psychological dimension. The act of shopping, particularly online, has become a form of entertainment for many consumers. Shopping platforms gamify the process with flash sales, countdown timers, and personalised recommendations, turning purchasing into a dopamine-driven activity. Frequent ordering often becomes a coping mechanism for psychological dissatisfaction. Whether it’s stress, loneliness, or boredom, the act of browsing and purchasing provides a quick hit of satisfaction. The anticipation of a package’s arrival serves as a temporary distraction, filling a void that, in many cases, has little to do with the actual need for the products ordered. Since September this year, the Indirect Taxation Authority (UIO) has announced that 468,970 orders from Temu have been received in Bosnia alone.
Global Giants In Local Realities
Regional economies, still recovering from decades of economic transition, struggle to compete with the scale and efficiency of global platforms. Moreover, the environmental impact is staggering.
The Adriatic region, already burdened by poor waste management systems and industrial pollution, faces an additional strain from the surge in e-commerce. The high volume of single-use plastics, packaging materials, and low-quality disposable goods exacerbates an already critical environmental situation. Each click that brings joy to the consumer adds to the mounting pile of waste, from discarded packaging to unwanted items. In a region where environmental awareness and infrastructure lag behind global standards, the consequences are dire. Local waste management systems are ill-equipped to handle the flood of waste, and the lack of recycling infrastructure compounds the issue.
Regional challenge
The challenge for the Adriatic region lies in finding a balance between the psychological and practical benefits of consumption and the pressing need for sustainability. Blitz- Krieg economics, exemplified by global players like TEMU, is reshaping consumer behaviour and lifestyles in the Adriatic region. While it offers unprecedented access and entertainment, the psychological and environmental costs cannot be ignored. To navigate this transformation responsibly, the region must seek a path that balances the growing consumer appetite with the need for environmental and economic sustainability. Only by addressing both the psychological drivers and the material consequences of this trend can the region ensure a future with more benefits than detriments.
