Nestlé has introduced a range of products including Nido milk powder, Damak chocolate and Nescafé Dolce Gusto BMW MINI coffee machines on China’s largest brand retailing website, with a view to picking up millions of new customers from rural areas in particular.
This is the latest e-commerce move by Nestlé, which already sells products online through its Nespresso boutique, and in October began selling super-premium chocolate brand Cailler using Amazon as the primary retailer.
Sebastien Szczepaniak, Nestlé’s e-commerce vice-president, said the company’s online sales have been growing by more than 25% per year.
“Moreover, offline purchases are increasingly influenced by what we see online, so brand building has gone beyond having good television advertising and nice packaging. Our ability to build brands on any touchpoint, be it digital or analogue, is vital," he said.
Speaking to FoodNavigator-Asia’s sister site, BeverageDaily, a Nestlé China spokesperson elaborated: “Online brand exposure is critical for brand building. Firstly it can reach a massive number of consumers because the daily traffic of major e-commerce platforms can be over 100m. Secondly it is very targeted because big data can help an e-commerce platform to screen out the targeted consumers.”
As part of the partnership, Nestlé and Alibaba will collaborate on chaoshi.tmall.com, tmall.com, tmall.hk, cun.taobao.com and ju.taobao.com.