Online start-up NZ1Mall.com seeks to open Chinese export doors for local SMEs

Small New Zealand businesses may get a leg-up from a new online start-up which seeks to overcome the barriers faced by niche exporters trying to access the Chinese market.

Expat David Lo, who came to New Zealand in 1986, has set up NZ One Mall, a company with an online platform NZ1Mall.com to sell premium Kiwi products into China. Unlike major Chinese retail sites such as Tmall and JD.com, which buy products to resell them in China, NZ One Mall acts as a conduit for small and medium-sized producers to sell their wares directly through its Chinese-language website.

"We don't sell products, more importantly, we serve medium and small-sized suppliers in NZ, and we bridge them and Chinese consumers and are their extension in China," Lo said. "We don't follow the mode of Taobao or JD.com which target thousands, and we work very closely with NZ businesses here."

The website seeks to overcome a lack of scale for smaller companies whose brands might not be familiar to Chinese consumers, and which don't have the capital or channels to promote themselves in the world's second-largest economy, he said. That includes helping local firms establish their brands in China and covers the whole supply chain including E-commerce sales, transportation, licensing and certification, customs clearance, promotion, sales channels exploration, and delivery of the products to Chinese customers.

NZ One Mall, who shareholders have invested about $3.1 million, will generate revenue from transactions, website subscriptions for suppliers, and consulting services including marketing campaigns, Lo says. The company was incorporated in September 2015.

The company employs eight people across Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch and five in China, where it has a 4,000-square-metre warehouse in Beijing to deliver products from New Zealand to Chinese buyers.

Vaughan Meneses, NZ1Mall's head of export business and relationships, said technology plays a much bigger role among Chinese consumers than in New Zealand.

"That changes behaviour. That changes how people shop. That changes how people think. That's quite different from NZ," he said.

The company has signed 17 suppliers, such as Miharo Honey and Kawatiri Coffee Roasting, and is talks with a seller of alpaca quilts and two others keen on exporting canned fresh air to China.

NZ One Mall wants 70 suppliers signed up by the end of the first year, and 200 after five years.

Lo says the major challenge is overcoming the complexity of doing business in China, ranging from logistics and shipping to clearing customs.

"Every single process is difficult which involves a lot of waiting and a lot of frustration," he said.

(Hu Min visited New Zealand and worked at BusinessDesk as part of an Asia New Zealand Foundation exchange programme)

(BusinessDesk)