Some things were just made for each other

Mar 16, 2016

China is as synonymous with eCommerce as ‘fish’ is with ‘chips and it looks as though the country’s online focus shows no signs of waning. Only last week we reported on the Forrester report that projected total eCommerce revenue for China, Japan, South Korea, India and Australia is set to double in the next five years from $733 billion in 2014 to $1.4 trillion by 2020. That figure may be set to increase further following an announcement from Alibaba.

The Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s Internet finance arm, Ant Financial, plans to invest 1 billion yuan ($154 million) to train a million teenagers in rural China to help start their own online businesses. The plan is to support college graduates who want to return to their home towns to start businesses.

This follows the country’s eCommerce Internet Plus strategy that was unveiled last week by the Premier Li Keqiang. As part of this strategy service stations have been set up in villages to help those who lack the necessary skills to trade online. Villagers can order goods at the service stations and then return in a few days to collect their packages.

As I think we may have mentioned (!) we have supported a number of retailers with their expansion into China. Recognition of the opportunities there motivated us to further explore the region so that we could develop a comprehensive understanding of the market. China has very specific requirements with businesses requiring a Chinese business licence to operate. Coupled with this the buying habits are very different from what is witnessed elsewhere in the world. It is vital that brands wishing to access the market not only understand this but appreciate the importance. These factors were key when developing our Chinese offering. We quickly realised that we had to develop much more than a delivery service but a mechanism for retailers to operate within this very specific market. In order to do this we decided to develop a partnership with experts in China who could bring this experience and cultural understanding to our logistics services.

So keen for a slice of the trillion dollar sized pie? Come and have a chat with us.