Via Alibaba’s «Tmall Global»: Waitrose to export «Duchy Organic» biscuits to China for the first time

London / UK. (wr) British supermarket chain Waitrose is to export to China for the first time from 18th April after reaching an agreement to sell products online with the retailer predicting it could become its biggest international business in the next three to five years.

It will be the first time the UK supermarket has exported to a country via a website platform only and will give the world’s fastest growing ecommerce market access to products and ranges, including «Waitrose Duchy Organic» biscuits, «Waitrose Baby» and later this year, «essential Waitrose» and «Waitrose 1».

Waitrose products will be sold exclusively through the Royal Mail store on Tmall Global, an online marketplace operated by Alibaba Group.

Tmall is China’s largest third party online platform for brands and retailers to connect with hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers. Waitrose has arranged the deal through Avenue51, who runs Royal Mail’s store on Tmall Global. Avenue51 is the UK’s leading Chinese e-commerce specialist service provider.

The Royal Mail store specialises in championing British companies and Waitrose will be one of its highest profile brands to date. There will be a dedicated Waitrose page within the Royal Mail’s online store with information about the brand for its new customers in China alongside the product listings.

An initial 30 products will be available from the Waitrose offer, including biscuits, tea, coffee, cereals and nuts as well as beauty, baby and organic ranges with more lines set to be added shortly after the launch.

Shoppers will be able to choose from favourites like the supermarket’s Earl Grey tea and Waitrose Duchy Organic Shortbread to the ever popular own label Baby bottom butter.

A report researched and compiled by e-retail analysts, Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG), in 2014 highlighted the potential of the Chinese online market. It estimated that less than half of China’s 1.36 billion population was using the internet, despite it already being the world’s largest ecommerce market. In addition, the number of mobile internet users in China had grown by more than eight times in the last five years and was expected to surpass 700 million this year.

The organic food company «Duchy Originals» was founded by the Prince of Wales in 1990. The cooperation with Waitrose the company announced in 2009. For more details please see bakenet:eu on 2009/09/11. Today Waitrose Duchy Organic is the chain’s flagship organic brand. Created from the groundbreaking partnership between Duchy Originals and Waitrose in September 2009.