Royal Mail joins Alibaba with online shop front

Royal Mail announced that it is joining the Chinese e-commerce boom with the launch of its shop front on Alibaba’s Tmall Global e-marketplace, providing Chinese consumers with increased access to premium, authentic and high quality British products. 

The solution will offer British retailers and exporters an accelerated opportunity to access the China market. 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.

For China’s 302 million online shoppers, Royal Mail’s new shop front on Tmall Global will offer a selection of distinctive products for purchase by renowned British brands with delivery to the doorstep. The platform is expected to go live towards the end of March.

Royal Mail chief executive officer Moya Greene said: “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 in China 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.  There are also rising concerns in China over the authenticity and safety of goods, with the on-going issue of fake items being sold within the country. Together, these factors have helped boost dramatically the appetite for brands and products sourced from British suppliers. China is now the biggest overseas consumer of British products online, accounting for 25% of overseas online shoppers purchasing goods from the UK.