Maggie Zhou: tension won’t sour Alibaba sales of Australian-made goods
Alibaba’s Australian chief says tense relations between Australia and China won’t have an impact on the sale of Australian-made products.
The chief executive for the Australian operations of Alibaba, the world’s biggest online marketplace, does not believe the increasingly tense trade relationship between China and Australia will affect the sale of Australian-made products during the site’s Double 11 shopping festival.
As “singles day” kicked off around the world, Alibaba Australia chief executive Maggie Zhou said she did not expect demand for Australian brands, especially in beauty, healthcare and petcare, to be soured by current trade tensions.
“According to the data from our platform we still see very strong demand from Chinese consumers for Australian products, especially after COVID, as people seek good products for their family and themselves,’’ Ms Zhou told The Australian.
Alibaba is hoping its e-commerce sales bonanza will beat last year’s November 11 record sales day of $50bn, with COVID-19 further accelerating online sales among digital-savvy Chinese consumers.
Australian-sourced products are particularly popular on the Chinese site, with Australia the fourth-biggest international seller into the “singles day” festival.
Australian vitamin companies Swisse and Bio Island are the second and fifth most sought-after foreign brands respectively.
Other popular local brands on Alibaba include Chemist Warehouse, Blackmores, Devondale and Bellamys. However, this year’s shopping festival on the Alibaba site comes as trade tensions between China and Australia have escalated, with tariffs placed on Australian barley, some beef blocked and the Chinese government now investigating alleged dumping by our wine industry, which could lead to further tariffs.
There are also fears that Australian coal, sugar and timber could be blocked at Chinese ports.
“I think this year is going very well, and our cross border e-commerce is mainly about health products and personal care and skin care,” Ms Zhou said.
“And I think they are still going very well.’’
The Alibaba platform is a key sales driver for many Australian businesses, with Chemist Warehouse co-founder Jack Gance telling The Australian recently that the company had sold almost $38m during the Double 11 shopping festival (formerly better known as Singles Day) last year.
To meet the increasing demand from Chinese consumers for international products, Alibaba’s Tmall Global platform will bring more than 2600 new overseas brands, including Australasian products, to Chinese consumers for the first time.
Alibaba said late on Wednesday that in the first 30 minutes of the November 11 shopping festival, total gross merchandise volume exceeded 372.3 billion yuan ($77.2bn), with the number of orders peaking at 583,000 per second.
“After the first hour of the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival, Australia was ranked 4th of all countries selling into China, maintaining its ranking from last year,” Alibaba said. “A number of Australian brands were ranked in the top 10 brands globally selling via cross-border e-commerce, including Swisse and Bio Island.”
Alibaba’s 11.11 Global Shopping Festival began in 2009 with participation from just 27 merchants as an event for merchants and consumers to raise awareness about the value of online shopping. More than 250,000 brands are participating in this year’s event.
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