Ecargo Not What It Seems, page-53

Royal Mail goes after Chinese e-commerce consumers
Greg Knowler, Senior Asia Editor | Mar 07, 2015 10:40AM EST
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Britain's Royal Mail has targeted booming growth in the Chinese cross-border online shopping market.
HONG KONG — British postal service Royal Mail has launched a new Chinese-focused online shop front to capture soaring demand in the mainland cross-border e-commerce market and rising interest among local consumers for premium UK-made products.

The shop front will be opened on Alibaba’s Tmall Global marketplace, China’s main online shopping platform, and is expected to be operational by the end of March.

Royal Mail chief executive officer Moya Greene said the online shop would help support British retailers and exporters expanding into the China market. China is now the biggest overseas consumer of British products online, accounting for 25 percent of the e-commerce goods purchased from the UK.

“Online shopping, and the connection it facilitates between retailers and consumers, is a key channel to develop sustainable trade between China and Britain and we are excited at the prospect of offering UK companies a new and streamlined way to increase the accessibility of their products to Chinese consumers,” Greene said in a Royal Mail statement.

Royal Mail Group chief executive officer Moya Greene announced the product at the Great Festival of Creativity in Shanghai, a UK Government-led initiative.

The online solution will offer British retailers and exporters an accelerated opportunity to access the China market. It will remove the challenges that many companies face in getting their products into the hands of Chinese consumers, including promotion on Chinese e-commerce sites, local customer support service, customs duties, documentation, shipping and logistics.

For China’s 302 million online shoppers, Royal Mail’s online shop will offer the selection of British brands with last-mile delivery. One of the brands is Brompton Bicycles, a long-standing UK company, and CEO Will Butler-Adams said the online shop front gave him a direct connection to Chinese consumers.

Butler-Adams said he was excited about the opportunity and he has good reason to be. China has the biggest internet user base in the world, and online shopping has grown exponentially, with e-retail sales increasing by 42 percent in 2013 to $305.2 billion.

Almost half of the country’s internet users , the 302 million people mentioned earlier — purchase goods online, with 75 percent of online shoppers in China buying products every week. Online shopping now accounts for just over 10 percent of total retail sales of consumer goods in the mainland, with the overwhelming majority of these online purchases being made through e-marketplaces Tmall and Taobao.

The rapid growth in online shopping has also mirrored the increased demand from Chinese consumers for authentic, high quality goods. Royal Mail said Chinese consumers represent almost one third of the global market for personal luxury goods and spend three times more abroad on high quality, designer goods than they spend locally.

With rising concerns in China over authenticity and safety of goods, with the ongoing issue of fake items being sold within the country, have helped boost dramatically the appetite for brands and products sourced from British suppliers.

Contact Greg Knowler at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter: @greg_knowler.