CBI member, Dow Chemicals has announced a partnership with 1688.com, the online purchasing and wholesale platform of the Alibaba Group, to provide customers in China with a new and convenient online channel for purchasing Dow products.
The initial batch of products available on the new online store include 14 of Dow’s most popular products, covering various markets such as: polyurethanes industrial solutions, food, personal care, coatings, automotive lubricants, building & home decoration, agrichemicals and textiles & leather. Dow Chemicals also facilitates professional online support.
According to Yoke Loon Lim, president of Dow Chemicals – Greater China, “The partnership is a milestone aligned to Dow’s digitalisation strategy, as well as an important move to further enhance the customer experience and explore new business opportunities.”
Transitioning to e-commerce is benefitting foreign companies across a wide range of sectors, whether it be selling into the China market or providing practical technical support and solutions to digitalisation strategies and developing the customer experience.
Many CBI members have reported such success. Starting with practical support in digitalisation and developing customer experience, Accenture announced that it would partner with Malong Technologies to develop ‘auto-tagging technologies’, allowing machines to see and present products online in the same way a customer would view the product in-store. Building on this, and moving to the retail-side of e-commerce, British fashion house, Burberry launched its latest collection on Chinese social media-based e-commerce platforms and watched it sell out within 4 hours. Other CBI members to make the switch to partner and incorporate e-commerce in their sales strategy include, Akzo Nobel, the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants and Royal Mail. However, what is most startling about this collection of companies is that all of the above examples took place in November alone.
This can be summed up perfectly by Dow Chemicals president Lim, “China is a world leader in e-commerce platforms and the Internet of Things technologies enabling them. This, combined with Chinese customers’ preference for smooth and safe online shopping, creates an ideal environment for Dow Chemicals to expand our online presence and diversify our sales and service channels.”
The power of e-commerce cannot be understated in China. The country’s domestic e-Commerce sales account for 42% worldwide and the market is worth $599m. Furthermore, around 40% of China’s domestic trading B2B takes place on Alibaba’s 1688.com website; another example of the strength of e-commerce within the wider China retail space.
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