Buy Chinese Wine Online
Without a doubt, Tmall.com is the No. 1 leader within the China wine e-commerce sector. By some estimates, Tmall.com now has a commanding 50 percent market share of all wine e-commerce sales. A big reason for that is the fact that Tmall.com is part of the Alibaba Internet empire, and that means Tmall.com benefits greatly from all the cross-promotional opportunities offered by the various Internet properties owned by Alibaba, especially Weibo and Taobao.
buy chinese wine online
In fact, Tmall.com is so dominant right now that many of the speciality wine e-commerce retailers within China have set up their own storefronts on Tmall.com. When Wine Australia was looking for a way to help sell more Australian wine to Chinese consumers, it turned to Tmall.com, where it is now possible to find a flagship online store for Australian wine.
JingDong launched at the end of 2010 and is now the closest rival to Tmall.com in terms of wine e-commerce dominance. According to JD.com executives, wine now accounts for nearly 25 percent of all online alcohol sales. As Chinese consumers transition from traditional favourites (such as the grain alcohol baijiu) to wine, this figure is expected to grow even higher. Just like Tmall.com, JD.com operates a mix of direct-to-consumer wine sales (in which wine is stored in a warehouse and shipped directly to consumers) and an online shopping mall made up of smaller merchants looking to sell their wine via storefronts. Big foreign wine brands with a major presence on JD.com include Penfolds, Yellow Tail, Casilleros del Diablo and Lafite Rothschild.
Close behind YesMyWine is Vinehoo.com, which is typically named as one of the leading examples of the B2C wine e-commerce model. Famously, when Wine Australia was looking for a way to sell wine on Tmall.com in 2016, it turned to Vinehoo to operate the storefront for 10 different Australian wine brands from 8 different Australian wine regions.
11/06/2021 The China Wine Competition has placed itself in the wine spectrum to help wine brands gain the build they need during these times, where new brands are entering the market on an almost daily basis.
In China there are over 7.1 million full-service restaurants, 18.2 million fast food restaurants and 404,000 street food stalls, according to 2019 data. In the first half of 2020, restaurants and bars were forced to close or operate within limited hours. In the month of February restaurant and bar closures over Chinese New Year lost wine merchants their most important wine sales period (Chinese New Year wine sales can contribute to as much as 30% of annual revenue for some companies).
Data from the Guangdong Alcoholic Drinks Association showed that premium drinks priced RMB600 (US$93) or above generated a total of RMB19bn (US$2.9 bn) in sales last year, a 26.7% increase over the previous year. This was despite months of strict lockdown measures that heavily affected on-trade sales. For bulk wine, Shandong province in eastern China is the biggest market.
There are about 70 wine importers with annual revenues above US$5m. At the time of going to press, data is not available on how many wine importers, wholesalers and retailers survived 2020. According to CADA, there were 6,411 bottled wine importers, but that number shrank to 4,175 within just the first five months of 2019, squeezed by soft consumer demand and a slowing economy.
Success in China comes with the danger of fraud. Wines as diverse in price and style as Penfolds (Grange and its high-end siblings), Château Lafite Rothschild and Yellow Tail are frequent victims of copycat wine brands. Intellectual property (IP) infringements became a major headache for companies like TWE and DBR (Lafite), both being mired in lengthy and costly legal battles with trademark squatters and copycats.
As the market matures, shares of white wines, Champagne, sparkling and rosé are expected to grow. Additionally, the low-alcohol category is emerging as a new growth driver. A 2021 report released by AliResearch, the research arm of Alibaba, found the low-alcohol category is gaining ground, driven by female drinkers aged between 18 and 34, most of whom are middle-class office workers, working mothers, and Gen Z consumers.
One explanation is that low yields and high costs have driven out early investors in the sector. Structural problems such as difficult climate conditions, technical constraints, and low productivity facing wineries are also making Chinese wines less competitive against imported wines.
Though social media networks of this kind, wine brands and products can be effectively promoted and marketed in China. Awareness and education about the wine brand are important. Since the Chinese are avid followers of specialized websites, it will benefit wine companies to introduce their brands to the public through microblogging and other social sites.
Weibo, for one, has attracted considerable interest from the French wine industry. Many French wineries now have their own Weibo pages, which have tens of thousands of Chinese followers. They include, among others, the following:
The impact of this networking is revealing itself in the tourism sector. Along with being a popular destination for wine fans, Toulouse is one of the most attractive cities in France for Chinese students. In response, the French Chamber of Commerce and Industry in China has recommended the organization of wine-related events, such as harvest day, wine tasting, etc. to allow for the promotion of wines in Southwest France via Weibo.
One effective way to do this is to position key members of the company as thought leaders. In China, 10% of people influence 90% of the population, so it is important both to have your company participate in thought leadership and to partner with influencers, who are able to skyrocket your sales by putting you in front of millions of people online.
If influencers are outside your budget, you can demonstrate your expertise by using a wine expert in your advertising materials. For example, you can hire a French wine expert to appear in your ads.
One way to make the most out of your content marketing efforts is to use video, and make sure to feature a sommelier. The Chinese are more open to multimedia and more responsive to it than many other peoples, so this presents a great opportunity. Use your spokesperson to tell a story about the history of wine since oral history is such a strong part of the Chinese tradition.
It is easy to get lost in the jungle of Chinese wine events. Contradictory information and confusion may arise from this. The country holds numerous wine tasting, winery tours, wine shows, and has various wine salons, showrooms, shops, and events. The cities of Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Guanxi and, of course, Hong Kong are renowned for holding these wine events.
Of the abovementioned Chinese wine shows, the Tang Jiu Hui show is a unanimous favorite mainly since it is already well-established in China. It is common for the Chinese importer to invite the foreign wine provider to this event since it is attended by the most prolific wine operators, such as wholesalers, producers, importers, and distributors.
The Tang Jiu Hui show also referred to as the Chengdu Food and Drinks Fair is normally held March of each year in the city of Chengdu, which remains to be unexplored fully by international wine producers. However, the Tang Jiu Hui show serves as a true barometer of the Chinese wine market, as well as other alcoholic beverages. It is attended by operators who prefer not to travel to other events held in other coastal cities as Canton, Shanghai, etc.
Motivation is another important factor to consider. The most commonly stated reason for drinking wine in China is for the variety of health benefits it can offer. Additionally, female wine drinkers on the younger end of the market drink wine specifically for its health and beauty benefits.
Based on a 2013 study conducted by Wine Intelligence, the typical consumer of imported wine in China is male, between 30 and 39 years old, residing in Shanghai, belongs to the middle to upper classes, and earns over 10,000 RMB monthly. He is someone who likes to discover and consume new variants of wine, especially red wine mainly due to its health benefits. He would normally spend 100 and 300 RMB (10 to 35 Euros) per bottle.
With regard to purchasing criteria, the origin of the wine and the price of the wine are the main basis. Moreover, depending on the consulting firms, the criteria considered are based on the name, the brand, the label and the shape of the bottle. In descending order importance, the best-known varieties of Chinese wine for consumers are as follows:
At the margin of the profiles presented, it is interesting to report another entirely speculative buying behavior and which concerns only the grands crus. The Liv-ex website now based in London was created a few years ago by two bankers from Hong Kong. The classification of great wines is presented with stock market indices. When a wine is well rated by a renowned critic, the Chinese wine consumers massively invest in them, which quickly increases the prices of the respective wines. This is a very high-risk market whose prices fluctuate very rapidly.
Chinese wine consumers are known to be one of the most difficult groups to understand and equally challenging to create a market strategy for. As discussed above, some Chinese wine consumers prefer online methods of wine research, while other demographics prefer to visit wineries and take a hands-on approach to their wine connoisseurship. Of the estimated 38 million upper-middle class wine drinkers in China, approximately 9 out of 10 actively use the internet, with just under 50% using the internet to purchase wine.
Similar to many other Asian markets, Chinese wine consumers are highly influenced by foreign luxury wine brands. There is a popular ideal in China that these big brands are the best choice for the average consumer, which makes it difficult for competitors to break into the market and win consumer trust. The positive impact of this cultural norm, however, is that winning over the trust of the Chinese market will likely lead to acquiring a loyal customer base for the foreseeable future. 041b061a72