Britain’s 500-year-old Royal Mail has decided to open a virtual shop on China’s biggest online shopping platform, to deliver authentic British products to Chinese consumers. To British businesses vying for China’s enormous online shopping boom, this could be the biggest fruit from Prince William’s four-day visit to China.
Royal Mail sets eyes on Chinese market
Let’s talk about business….
If you think Prince William’s visit to China has been largely ceremonial and only culminated in exchanges of pleasantries with Chinese dignitaries, then you are wrong. The first visit by a royal member to China in three decades has been fruitful in some unexpected field.
Shortly after Prince William’s arrival in Shanghai on March 3rd, the UK’s Royal Mail announced that it would open a virtual shop on Tmall.com, China’s biggest B2C online shopping website, run by ecommerce giant Alibaba Group.
Moya Greene, CEO of Royal Mail, said at a UK-themed promotion event in Shanghai that the new platform is expected to go live towards the end of March. She added the shop will help British retailers and exporters expand into the Chinese market.
Royal Mail said in a press release that the new platform will offer Chinese customers increased access to “premium, authentic and high quality” British products, including renowned British brands like Brompton Bicycles. And Royal Mail will provide delivery to the doorstep.
Moya Greene received the interview by yicai.com, a Shanghai-based business news agency, during her stay in Shanghai. She said that parcel delivery has always been the greatest strength of Royal Mail and she’s full of confidence in the cooperation with Alibaba. For more details from the interview, please watch this video on yicai.com.
http://www.yicai.com/news/2015/03/4582083.html
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Royal Mail made the announcement to join hands with Alibaba, following Prince William’s meeting with Jack Ma, Chairman of the Alibaba Group and China’s richest man, on March 3rd in Shanghai.
According to an article posted on Alibaba’s official WeChat account, Prince William shook Jack Ma’s hands and asked:“Hi, Jack, how’s business?”
Shanghai-based CCTV NEWS reporter Shi Wenjing covered William’s Shanghai trip. She said she saw the Prince in person. But she didn’t get a chance to ask questions. So she only smiled at the Prince, like a 10-year-old schoolgirl. She said, unlike William’s Beijing trip which focused more on cultural exchanges, business was high on the agenda of the visit to Shanghai. And the prince acted like a goodwill ambassador to promote the British creative industry and services.
https://soundcloud.com/ying-li-2/shanghai-reporter-shi-wenjing-on-prince-williams-visit
An increasing number of British brands are choosing to access potential Chinese consumers on China’s online shopping portals. British beauty care websites like BEAUTY EXPERT，LOOKFANTASTIC，HQHAIR，MANKIND, are all acceptting payments by Chinese consumers on Alipay, China’s most-used online payment platform.
This is apparently what the UK government is glad to see. In late 2013, Jack Ma and British Prime Minister David Cameron signed an agreement to promote the sale of British goods on the company’s sites.
Ahead of the UK’s Royal Mail, Australia Post and New Zealand Post have already opened their virtual shop on Tmall, to enable Chinese consumers direct access to their original products and provide international logistics services to Chinese companies.
In the first half of 2014, Alibaba’s total trading volume exceeded 150 billion US dollars. The company says in two years’ time, the online retail volume of Alibaba will surpass the sales of Walmart worldwide.
Related reading…….
The moment Prince William stood in front of the Taihe Palace in the Forbidden City, he might be thinking about his grandparents, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip. Three decades ago, the Queen also stood in front of the Palace, where the Chinese emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties ruled.
“Taihe” literally means “the Supreme Harmony”. The name of the Palace reflects the highest pursuit of Chinese feudal monarchs in domestic governance. It remains an elusive question to what extent Prince William could digest the cultural connotations when hearing translation of Palace’s name. But he did seize this opportunity to show off a bit of his Chinese to the photographers, saying” Ni Hao, Ni Hao”(meaning how are you?) He also admitted that his Chinese skills were slowly come along.
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CCTV News reporter Zeng Siwei has been following the Beijing leg of William’s China visit. He says William’s one-day stop in Beijing has a strong emphasis on cultural exchanges.
https://soundcloud.com/ying-li-2/beijing-reporter-zeng-siwei-on-prince-williams-visit-to-beijing
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//Caption:Beijing reporter Zeng Siwei on Prince William’s visit
Prior to his visit, Prince William delivered on video his Chinese New Year greetings in Mandarin. The video has been a nice surprise to his young Chinese fans and hugely popular in China.
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There have been extensive media coverage on Prince William’s visit on Chinese media outlets.
The official Xinhua news agency says the visit “will be a rare and important field trip” for him to “experience in person the great Asian civilization and promote bilateral exchanges”.
Li Ying's London Journalism Journal 