Great Britain’s Royal Mail is to open an online store in China to sell British products to Chinese.
Royal Mail will launch a shop front on Alibaba’s Tmall, providing Chinese consumers with “increased access to premium, authentic and high quality British products”.
CEO Moya Greene unveiled the Royal Mail online initiative at the start of the three day Great Festival of Creativity in Shanghai, China.
She said the store will offer British retailers and exporters an accelerated opportunity to access the China market when it goes live towards the end of March.
“It will remove the challenges that many companies would otherwise 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,” she said.
China is the largest economy by purchasing power parity and the biggest internet user base in the world, with 302 million online shoppers already, a figure which grows by the day.
Almost half of the country’s internet users purchase goods online, with 75 per cent of online shoppers in China buying products every week. Online shopping now accounts for just over 10 per cent of total retail sales of consumer goods in China, with the overwhelming majority of these online purchases being made through e-marketplaces, like Tmall and Taobao.
Among the goods soon to be sold on Royal Mail’s store are Brompton Bicycles, which Royal Mail will deliver to the purchaser’s doorstep.
“Royal Mail’s new shop front will help support British retailers and exporters expanding into the China market, fulfilling the strong demand of Chinese consumers for authentic, high quality British goods.
“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.”
The rapid growth in online shopping has also mirrored the increased demand from Chinese consumers for authentic, high quality goods. 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.
Chinese consumers are also concerned about the source of luxury goods they purchase, meaning they will trust foreign vendors ahead of Chinese.
Royal Mail says China is now the biggest overseas consumer of British products online, accounting for 25 per cent of overseas online shoppers purchasing goods from the UK.
The Great Festival of Creativity in Shanghai is a UK Government-led initiative to showcase the innovative and creative edge that British businesses bring to markets across the globe.
Royal Mail is also marking its Chinese foray with a special postmark, which will appear on items delivered to addresses across Britain from March 2 to 4.
