Herbaland, a Richmond-based nutritional gummy producer, partners with Tmall Global, an Alibaba subsidiary, to enter the Chinese market. The partnership proves the dedication of the Chinese firm to cross-border e-commerce.
Tmall Global and Tmall domestic serve not less than 500 million users and control a 55 percent stake in China's e-commerce market in 2018. Herbaland Co-founder Aisha Yang told reporters that the Chinese firm provides a good platform to showcase Herbaland's amazing products because it dominates the Chinese market and it is very user-friendly.
Herbaland said that the partnership was inspired by the growing Asian gummy market. According to a study conducted in 2017, the Asia-Pacific gummy vitamin market is expected to grow by 5.2 percent every year for the next eight years and it is expected to reach $4.17 billion by 2025.
The co-founder expects that the company's Richmond-produced gummies will be accessible in a market that has the largest number of online consumers in the world by working with the e-commerce giant. She said that when she was in the subway in China, everybody was watching their phones and doing their online shopping. She added that's become their daily routine and the company definitely want to be part of that routine.
In the merger, orders of the customers online from Herbaland will be shipped to Tmall's warehouse in California to be shipped to China. They can also send their shipments to government-set-up free trade zones in China where products shipped from other countries are not subject to the usual taxes. Yang believes that shipping won't be the major issue overall because It's very convenient, and shipping costs are being driven down by competition nowadays.
She also said that they have widely accepted prices in the Chines market despite that they are a little higher due to the cost of the shipments. She believes that the customers know the products will benefit them and they just want to enjoy the products as soon as possible.
The company claimed that its sales increased since they started the partnership with Tmall last November. They have seen an increase in sales of their new Vegan Collagen Booster Gummies that are exclusively sold in Tmall Global in China.
The co-founder said that, globally, all the countries want to do business in China, not only Canada which also means a lot of competition. She added that the company's biggest selling point is our Canadian high quality. The company plans to become the most recognized brand in the Chinese market.
