Australia has moved into the third spot on the list of importer countries into China, on Alibaba’s business-to-consumer (B2C) platform, Tmall.
This is up from the fourth spot in 2016, according to the 2017 Tmall Global Annual Consumers Report.
Led by strong demand from Chinese, Australia ranked behind only Japan and the United States, and ahead of Germany and South Korea.
Alibaba Group Australia MD Maggie Zhou said this is boom time.
“Since opening our ANZ headquarters in Melbourne last year, we have worked harder than ever to support the success of Australian businesses in China.
"These incredible results for Australian merchants demonstrate that we are succeeding in our mission to make it easier for local businesses to do business anywhere.
"With 515 million annual active consumers now using our China retail marketplaces the opportunity for Australian businesses remains enormous, and we are excited to be part of the China journey for even more local brands in 2018.”
The report highlighted that people born in the 1990s have now become the biggest spenders on imported products, which come from a more diverse range of countries and are consumed more frequently throughout the year.
Womenswear retailer Review accomplished an Australian first earlier this year by becoming the first local brand to launch on Alibaba's Tmall platform.
Ragtrader can reveal, the PAS Group-owned brand made the decision based on a strong Asian consumer base.
PAS Group GM digital Anna Samkova said that half of the Review brand's loyalty database is made up of Asian customers.
“Most live here and some of them remain in or travel or live in Asia, but most of them live in Australia. “Chinese consumers - especially the new emerging millennial consumer - have a disposable income and they like to look good and spend their money. They love spending money on Australian brands.”
Samkova indicated it was the reason why Tmall originally approached the brand. She said the PAS Group would continue to use the platform as a testing ground for the business while using the data to determine whether a bricks-and-mortar presence in China was sustainable.
“Any omnichannel business looks at it like this. You want to enter the market online first and learn everything that you need to know and this is the best way to learn because everything is very factual.
“And then you collect all the data, you analyse it and then you make a decision as to whether you open up another store or not.”