Expo a catalyst in rising preference for imported goods via e-commerce sites

Durian from Thailand, kiwi fruit from New Zealand, Australian beef and European-made handbags and shoes - these are just a few of foreign consumer goods making their way into ordinary Chinese homes.

A growing number of international brands have joined Chinese e-commerce platforms since the first China International Import Expo was held last year, as the country's middle-income shoppers and post-90s generation are showing strong preference for imported and high-quality products via online retailers.

The number of overseas brands surged 300 percent year-on-year in 2019 on Tmall Global, the cross-border e-commerce platform owned by tech heavyweight Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, and more than 80 foreign brands notched up over 100 million yuan ($14.3 million) in sales.

The turnover of imported products increased 89.7 percent this year on Tmall Global compared with a year ago, with sales revenues from electronics and home appliances, and household products jumping 286.8 percent and 161.9 percent respectively.

"So far, more than 22,000 overseas brands have entered our online marketplaces, covering 4,300 categories and 78 countries and regions," said Liu Peng, general manager of Tmall's import and export business unit, adding more than 80 percent of them were newcomers to the Chinese market.

Alibaba said at the first CIIE that it aimed to import $200 billion worth of goods from more than 120 countries and regions over the next five years.

"With cross-border e-commerce accounting for just 2.2 percent of the total online retail market, there is substantial room for long-term growth of brands and retailers," said Gao Hongbing, vice-president of Alibaba and head of AliResearch, the research arm of Alibaba.

China saw strong growth in retail imports via cross-border e-commerce platforms in the first three quarters of this year. Crossborder e-commerce retail imports volume expanded more than 30 percent year-on-year during this period, data from the Ministry of Commerce showed.

Accounting for about 20 percent of the total volume, Japan was the largest source of such imports, followed by the United States and South Korea. Moreover, cosmetics, food and daily necessities were the most popular products among the imports.

Yu Ronghua, director of marketing and operations at JD Worldwide, the cross-border e-commerce site of JD said after the first CIIE, the number of new brands opening online stores on JD rose 1.5 times compared with same period over the previous year.

Yu added the foreign brands are more willing to cooperate with Chinese e-commerce players, and the sales of these newly introduced brands increased six times that of the previous year.

In recent years, China has been actively expanding its imports while lowering the threshold for foreign goods to enter the Chinese market, as well as introducing favorable policies for cross-border e-commerce.

Market consultancy iiMedia Research said the country's crossborder online shopping reached 9.1 trillion yuan in sales last year. This figure is expected to rise to 10.8 trillion yuan in 2019.

Zhao Ping, director of the department of international trade research at the academy of the Beijing-based China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, said the CIIE builds a one-stop platform for foreign brands that aspire to march into the Chinese market.