New Zealand seafood goes online in China promotion

New Zealand seafood goes online in China promotion

7 April 2014

New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) has joined forces for the first time with China’s most popular business-to-consumer online shopping platform Tmall.com, to promote New Zealand seafood in a week-long campaign.

The promotion with Tmall.com will take place between 9-15 April, allowing Chinese shoppers to buy live seafood fresh from the sea in New Zealand, then have it packaged and air freighted to Shanghai within 36 hours. Within 72 hours, the seafood orders will be delivered to Chinese consumers across the country. The New Zealand products available for sale include paua, greenshell mussels and Bluff and Pacific oysters.

The ability to sell and deliver live seafood to Chinese consumers is a significant milestone. A similar Tmall.com campaign with Alaskan seafood last year resulted in a total of 50 metric tonnes supplied to Chinese consumers.

Online shopping is a major trend in China. In 2013, the number of online shoppers surged to 302 million, surpassing the number of American online shoppers for the third year. Capitalising on growing demand from China for imported food, Tmall.com is continuing to build its fresh food platform (http://miao.tmall.com/) through this joint promotion with NZTE.

Mike Arand, NZTE Trade Commissioner in Shanghai, said: “This channel gives New Zealand companies access to efficient and scalable ways to expand sales in China, so we are very excited to have our first New Zealand promotion with Tmall.com.

“Tmall.com is known not only in China, but around the world for their online sales and logistics expertise, and New Zealand is well known in China for fresh and safe seafood, so we think this is an excellent combination and look forward to a successful ongoing partnership.”

China is New Zealand’s largest seafood market. Last year, exports topped $376 million – up 19% on the previous year. Total international seafood sales have grown in the last 20 years from $500 million to $1.5 billion.

Head of International Business Development at Tmall.com, Janet Wang, said: “Through this collaboration with NZTE, Tmall.com hopes to provide the most authentic, fresh and nutritious food from New Zealand to China. We look forward to future cooperation to bring richer, affordable and tasty produce from New Zealand to Chinese consumers.”

The supply chain manager for this week-long promotion is Oceanus, who have been importing, promoting and distributing New Zealand seafood in China since 2011. It is their supply chain and logistics that make it possible to achieve the milestone of transporting and delivering live New Zealand seafood within 36 hours to Chinese consumers.

New Zealand companies taking part in the campaign include PauaCo, Pure New Zealand Greenshell Mussels, Ngāi Tahu Seafood, Pacific Marine Farms and Talley’s, as well as several wine companies.

Trade Minister Tim Groser gave his support to the cooperation while in China with the Prime Minister last month, saying a marriage between New Zealand’s food, seafood and wine and Tmall.com’s great e-commerce strength is a marriage made in heaven.

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