retail environment
55 per cent of Chinese shoppers purchased UK goods in past three months
China’s love affair with British brands has manifested itself in 55 per cent of shoppers purchasing their ‘little corner of England’ online in the past three months and spending an average of £104 per month on UK goods.
This is according to a new study commissioned by Royal Mail, which found that 87 per cent of the 1,500 respondents surveyed like to buy British brands, while 76 per cent trust that items bought from British brands are not counterfeit.
Overall, the average online shopper in China spends £123 per month, compared with £89 in the UK. Three in four Chinese shoppers said that they have recently increased their rate of online shopping, with confidence rising 30 per cent in the last two years. Eight in 10 Chinese shoppers make purchases via their smartphone (up from 70 per cent in 2015), compared with 28 per cent of shoppers in the UK.
Nine in 10 shoppers in China search for free delivery, and 92 per cent are more likely to return to a particular retailer if their delivery service was satisfactory. Returns are now more important to China’s shoppers in comparison to 2015, with over nine in 10 more likely to shop with a retailer that has a clear returns policy.
Search engines were the top method for how Chinese shoppers find British retail websites (44 per cent), followed by word of mouth (42 per cent) and advertising (30 per cent). Three in 10 find British goods through social media, which is significantly higher than the global average.
Royal Mail joined the Chinese e-commerce boom in 2015, launching a storefront on Tmall Global, providing China’s online shoppers with more access to British products and in turn giving British retailers access to Chinese consumers. Royal Mail was one of the first postal organisations to set up a flagship store on Tmall.
Nick Landon, managing director of Royal Mail Parcels, said: “This study provides a deep dive into the largest e-commerce market in the world. By 2020, China’s e-commerce market is set to be larger than those of the US, Japan, Germany, the UK and France combined.
“UK brands are really clicking with China’s shoppers and have a unique advantage as their goods are perceived to be of premium quality,” he added. “UK retailers should feel confident that exporting to China can deliver benefits to their business. Breaking into this market has been made much more straightforward thanks to Chinese third-party platforms such as Alibaba’s Tmall.”
