Accio and Alibaba: How AI Is Rewiring Sourcing for Small Online Sellers
When Mike McClary decided to revive a discontinued flashlight that had once been one of his best sellers, he didn’t dust off the old supplier spreadsheet or spend weeks emailing factories. Instead, he opened Accio, an AI-powered sourcing assistant on Alibaba.com, and started a conversation. Within weeks he had a redesigned product, a recommended factory in Ningbo, and a projected per-unit manufacturing cost that dropped from about $17 to roughly…