A total of 18 brands will be listed on the New Zealand country Flagship Store, which is a joint venture between Tmall Fresh and the New Zealand Food Basket. Chairman of New Zealand Food Basket, Nicola O’Rourke, said the platform offers these brands a direct reach to Chinese consumers, and significantly improves reach in a way that individual brands couldn’t achieve alone.
In a targeted promotion test of products, the flagship store on Tmall Fresh received orders for 1,200 cases of New Zealand apples in two minutes – six times more than normal monthly sales of the same product.
Tmall users can access and select from the products directly from the Tmall mobile homepage.
An initial batch of nine brands which includes Rockit, and other food and wine products, began sale through the flagship store on Tmall Fresh from mid-April.
A second batch of nine including Zespri and Cherri will begin sales on the marketplace in June.
Discussions about the flagship store began last year between Tmall and the New Zealand Trade and Enterprise. Alibaba’s managing director for Australia and New Zealand, Maggie Zhou, said talks were based on a shared vision of boosting Chinese consumer awareness of premium New Zealand food products.
According to New Zealand’s official data agency, Stats NZ, in 2018, China was the country’s largest export market, accounting for around one in every five dollars in sales of goods and services.
