Health and medical products and household medical equipment stand as the top category that has witnessed the fastest sales growth on Tmall Global. — China Daily
Beijing: Sales of high-quality fish oil surged during China’s “Double Eleven” online shopping frenzy, fuelled by urban Chinese consumers’ continuously growing health awareness after the Covid-19 pandemic.
Belgian fish oil brand WHC notched sales of over 10 million yuan or about US$1.3mil within an hour in the presale session of the Double Eleven shopping event, a Chinese version of Black Friday, and the company said its total sales for the shopping festival has exceeded 100 million yuan.
Entering the China market in 2015, the Belgian company has seen sales via major eCommerce platforms in the country surge 40-fold thus far.
“Many young office employees have been troubled by chronic illnesses and suffer from insomnia due to work pressure.
“Our main consumers come from first and second-tier cities and are aged between 25 and 40, with female consumers accounting for some 70% of the total,” said Dylan Zhang, co-founder of InReady, the sole partner of WHC in China. Inready is the sole distributor of WHC in China.
“They have been moderate to heavy users of health products and dietary supplements, and they have a better understanding about the components of fish oil and its core component omega-3,” Zhang said
WHC sources fish from Peruvian waters, as the deep-sea fish there have a short growth cycle and are suitable for making high-purity fish oil.
The raw materials are purified and processed in Germany and encapsulated in the Netherlands, before arriving at warehouses in Belgium from where they are delivered to different countries.
Currently, health and medical products and household medical equipment stand as the top category that has witnessed the fastest sales growth on Tmall Global, the cross-border eCommerce site of Alibaba Group.
Sales growth in the category has become even more significant since the Covid-19 pandemic.
The category is followed by beauty, personal care, and maternal and child products, said Pang Shuhao, head of marketing and business strategy at Tmall Global’s pharmaceutical and healthcare segments.
“Chinese consumers have shown an unprecedented strengthening of health awareness after the pandemic, driven by a huge elderly population and increasing health awareness among the younger generation. Such a trend has fuelled the growth of health products, food and personal-hygiene products,” said Yang Li, a global partner with Boston Consulting Group.
Meanwhile, another Belgian brand, AnesSens, which makes personal care products such as shower gel and body lotion with freeze-dried donkey milk essence, has seen positive sales in China, as a growing number of young sophisticated Chinese consumers pursue quality lifestyles.
As the first skincare brand in Europe that manufactures products based on donkey milk, the company entered the China market in 2020 and netted sales revenues of three million yuan in 2021 through cross-border eCommerce sales.
Without extensive marketing, a large number of customers are returning buyers, many of them women between 25 and 45 who have lived in Europe before so they have an understanding of the skincare effect of donkey milk, which can help promote skin metabolism, the company said. — China Daily/ANN
