Belgian group Colruyt has made its Cara Pils and other private labels available on Chinese eCommerce giant Alibaba’s platforms, but for the time being, only professional customers can acquire Colruyt’s brands.
Pilot program
Colruyt’s subsidiary Colex has sold its private labels across the globe for a while, bringing in about 40 million euro last year. “Colex launched a pilot program on Alibaba.com last year”, spokesperson Hanne Poppe told De Tijd. “It is an international website and not only geared towards the Chinese market. Currently, we have about fifty products on the platform, like Cara Pils, but also mustard, mayonnaise, ketchup and cornflakes.”
The company currently only services professional customers, but it is also investigating whether it could sell straight to Chinese consumers through Tmall anytime soon.
JBC took the lead
A move to Tmall would mean following JBC’s example. The Belgian fashion company has been active on Tmall since 2015 and it firmly believes in the Chinese market’s potential. “We really want to focus on the Chinese market and Alibaba, which is why we recently appointed a local director for the Chinese market and want to appoint a technical partner to work with Alibaba”, operational director Dominiek Willemse said. JBC is also looking at other Chinese companies and is even considering its own Chinese web shop.
Alibaba founder and CEO, Jack Ma, visited Belgium about one year ago and encouraged companies to invest in the Chinese market and to move to its platforms and his visit is clearly paying off now.
