Alibaba gateway to Chinese consumers

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Published: November 12, 2015

OTTAWA — With 2.2 million employees, 260 million customers a week and annual sales of $482 billion, Walmart is the undisputed king of global retail.

Until now.

Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce firm, is challenging Walmart’s supremacy, and Alibaba Group president Michael Evans said that represents a significant opportunity for Canada’s food industry.

“Today about 12 percent of total retail sales in China is through e-commerce,” he told an Ottawa forum on Canada’s agri-food future.

“Over the next five years … it’s (expected) to grow to something like 35 percent.”

Read Also

Analysts Bruce Burnett and Jerry Klassen were on had to brief farmers at Ag In Motion 2025 on the latest market developments.

One beer market updates Day 2: The war effect and dispersal sales

Western Producer Markets Desk analysts tackle big questions at Ag In Motion 2025

Evans is a Canadian who became Alibaba Group president this summer. He is a former Goldman Sachs partner and won a gold medal in rowing for Canada at the 1984 Olympics.

Alibaba has 380 million users in China, more than the population of the U.S. and Canada combined. It controls e-commerce in the country, with an incredible 80 percent of the market.

Many people associate e-commerce with books and handbags, but Alibaba’s data shows that an increasing number of Chinese consumers are buying groceries and fresh foods online. Many want to buy products from Europe and North America be-cause they don’t trust Chinese food manufacturers.

Evans said e-commerce is particularly popular in China’s second and third tier cities. Those areas, with hundreds of millions of people, don’t typically have big box stores loaded with foreign goods.

Alibaba has worked with grower associations around the world to deliver unique items to Chinese customers, including:

  • Washington state cherries
  • Blueberries and king crab from Chile
  • Avocados from Mexico
  • Spanish oranges
  • Cod and lobster from Canada

“In one single day last year, Nov. 11… we sold 90,000 lobsters in a single day,” Evans said.

Nov. 11 is a hugely important day for Alibaba. The company has turned a strange holiday, Singles Day, into a massive e-commerce event, and last year sold US$9.3 billion worth of goods on that day.

Evans said Canada’s food industry has certain products that are particularly desirable in China.

“We think beef is going to be very important to the Chinese consumer,” he said. “Canada has a tremendous opportunity … and Alibaba can be a great partner.”

An internet search showed that a handful of Canadian firms are selling beef and meat products through Alibaba’s website.

One such company is the Beef Bacon Corp. of Calgary business, which produces bacon and ham-type products from beef.

President Richard Janzen said the company has been selling through Alibaba for a while, but it’s just a small component of its marketing strategy. He said global food shows in places like Dubai and Germany are much more important for Canadian companies seeking new buyers.

“That platform is where you’re going to make the majority of your money,” he said.

“However, the internet is a good introduction.”

David Pigott of Morrison Lamothe, a frozen food manufacturer in Ontario, said he’d like to sell meat and pastry products into China, but regulations are blocking the opportunity.

About the author

Robert Arnason

Robert Arnason

Reporter

Robert Arnason is a reporter with The Western Producer and Glacier Farm Media. Since 2008, he has authored nearly 5,000 articles on anything and everything related to Canadian agriculture. He didn’t grow up on a farm, but Robert spent hundreds of days on his uncle’s cattle and grain farm in Manitoba. Robert started his journalism career in Winnipeg as a freelancer, then worked as a reporter and editor at newspapers in Nipawin, Saskatchewan and Fernie, BC. Robert has a degree in civil engineering from the University of Manitoba and a diploma in LSJF – Long Suffering Jets’ Fan.

Markets at a glance

explore

Stories from our other publications