China’s top e-payment firm, Alipay, announced today it has established an office in Australia that will seek to increase cross-border trade between the two countries and bring Australian products and brands to the Chinese consumer.
The Alipay Australia office will be based in Sydney and will offer Australian businesses and merchants access to Alipay’s cross-border payment solutions.
Taobao Marketplace, China’s largest C2C shopping website, also said it will launch an Australian food page to bring agricultural and food products to millions of Chinese consumers. The food page will seek to raise awareness about Australia’s domestic agricultural industry and the products offered through the website will be endorsed by the Australian government, according to a joint release by Alipay and Taobao.
Melbourne-based Zoyu Digital will be the third-party service provider to help Taobao Marketplace source Australian products for the food vertical. Zoyu will work with Sinotrans, a Chinese logistics company, to distribute goods to Chinese shoppers.
“Through Alipay Australia and the Taobao Australia E-commerce Channel, we feel China’s online consumers will respond well to the accessibility of Australian products,” said Sabrina Peng, president of Alipay International.
The Alipay and Taobao announcement comes just as China and Australia signed a landmark free-trade-agreement in Canberra, Australia’s capital, on Monday. China is Australia's largest two-way trading partner in goods and services, valued at more than A$150 billion ($130.8 billion) in 2013. China is also the top export destination for Australian products—A$95 billion ($82.7 billion) last year—and is Australia’s largest source of merchandise imports, according to Australian government statistics.
In May, Australia’s national postal service, Australia Post, set up a Tmall.com storefront to encourage more Australian retailers to sell online to Chinese consumers. The Australia Post Tmall.com store currently sells Australian wine, organic maternity wear and skincare products. In addition, Alipay has been working with Australia Post to sell the Alipay Purchase Card across 4,400 retail outlets in the country, to make it easier for Australian shoppers to top up their Alipay accounts and shop on Tmall.com and Taobao Marketplace.