SYDNEY, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) -- A rapidly growing e-commerce platform, Aomaijia, has held a roadshow event in Sydney on Thursday to help connect some of Australia's largest retail businesses with consumer bases in China.
Founded in China's Guangdong Province in 2015, the Aoyuan Group subsidiary now has over 30 million registered users with international offices in Paris, Los Angeles, Seoul and Tokyo.
To launch the company's fifth office in Sydney, Aomaijia Chief Executive Maggie Liu told Xinhua, "we came to Australia because we want to bring more quality Aussie brands to China."
"Using deep integration of both online e-commerce platforms and offline stores, we hope to use our platform to help Aussie brands sell their products to Chinese consumers."
While the introduction of e-commerce technology, spearheaded by Chinese giants like Alibaba and JD.com, has been monumental for the global retail sector, experts say there's still a lot more innovation currently unfolding when it comes to cross-border sales.
"When you talk about e-commerce, there's so many channels and sub-channels that we have to discuss," Nestle Nutrition's Head of Cross Border Development in Oceania Matthieu-Nicolas Quentin told Xinhua.
"Today we're talking about O2O (Online to Offline) but cross border at large includes so many new channels, emerging channels, like social commerce, B2C (Business to Customer) platforms and C2C (Consumer to Consumer), so it's multifaceted. It's highly complex, it's vibrant and it's changing so fast."
"Those channels today didn't even exist three or four years ago, so we have to adjust and adapt to the fast pace of China," he added.
As well as Nestle, Sukin, Kids Smart, b.box and Tasman UGG also signed supply agreements with Aomaijia, joining other major Aussie brands such as Suisse and Blackmores.
Now with over 100,000 product lines from around 3000 individual brands across the United States, Europe, Japan, South Korea and Australia, Aomaijia connects the buyers through a mobile app, an online retail site and a mini sales program operated through WeChat.
The e-commerce platform also has 14 physical stores in China and expects to open around 100 more the next year.
According to David Jamieson, the general manager of vitamin company Kids Smart, the rapid speed of innovation and continued development of e-commerce has made it far easier to reach the Chinese market.
"It's certainly getting more streamlined," he said.
"China's always interesting. It has its challenges. But I think there's a real desire for Chinese consumers to buy quality products from overseas. So there will always be a demand for good quality products from Australia."
He regards the Chinese as mindful comsumers who care about their children's quality of life and Australian products are well known for its best ingredients and the latest technology.
"I just think it's fantastic for us to be involved in this. We're all about improving the quality of people's lives, through health and well being," he added.
With a number of Australian brands being targeted by daigou buyers -- personal shoppers who send products back to China with a substantial mark-up in price, Liu said platforms like Aomaijia will give Aussie operators better control of their branding in China as well as more control over their supply chain, distribution, sales volumes and profits.
"China is a very important export market for Australia because Chinese consumers have a very good image of Aussie brands," Liu said.
"Our platform has attached very high importance on the quality of the brands, and we've developed a system that allows consumers to follow the whole process from manufacturing to delivering."
"This allows Chinese buyers to feel confident and secure about their purchases."
