E-commerce giant Alibaba has signed an agreement with Austrade to sell fresh Australian produce and services into China.
Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, and Alibaba founder, Jack Ma, witnessed the contract signing at the company’s headquarters in Hangzhou, China.
Alibaba’s websites, Tmall.com and Tmall Global, will sell more fresh produce from Australia as a result of the new partnership. Currently, there are 1300 Australian brands available on Alibaba’s website, but 80 per cent of them still haven’t reached the Chinese market. The company has planned a fresh food promotion that focuses on high quality products. Significantly, consumers showed increasing interests in purchasing oats, cereals, beef, dairy, organic skincare and sportswear.
Last year, Alibaba ran a similar promotion for New Zealand oysters, off the back of which 50,000 Kiwi oysters were sold in just one day. Consumers were able to use the mobile phone app to keep track of the seafood’s temperature in transit from New Zealand to China.
Chemist Warehouse was the first Tmall merchant to have $2 million in sales in one day in 2015 during the global shopping festival. Alibaba also announced that it will open its long-rumoured Australian office in Melbourne by the end of 2016.
