BYHEALTH International, a part of China major nutrition company BYHEALTH, has been selling the bulk of its Australia and US-made supplements into China via the CBEC channel, with the products sold in Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore as well.
As a result of COVID-19, the company noticed that the majority of the daigou business has switched to doing CBEC, according to Jesse Gu, head of sales and marketing at BYHEALTH International.
“There are three parts to focus on in the overall e-commerce environment in China: the traditional e-commerce, such as Tmall Direct Import, flagship stores, Ali health, and the sub-distribution channels, such as the POP stores, or distributors who can open their boutique stores (专卖店), and the interest-based e-commerce platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou…
“Nearly 80 per cent of the daigous have disappeared. Those tiers A daigous have become POP-store owners who have their warehouse, logistics, sales and marketing, and platform operation team.
"The daigou market is saturated and is transforming. We are also growing our CBEC channels rapidly while exploring other countries,” Gu said.
Citing data that the company has extracted from Tmall, Gu said that between January and June, the overall health and nutrition category was valued at 16.82 bn yuan, with a yoy gross merchandise value (GMV) increase of 6.15 per cent.
While the firm would continue to focus on China's CBEC channels, it is also planning to enter new markets in Asia as well as the US, including launching its products on Amazon US.
It currently operates via e-commerce channel Lazada in South East Asia and also enjoys retail presence in Singapore and Hong Kong via Watsons.
According to her, the US is a potential market since half of the BYHEALTH International range are already made in the country.
Popular categories in China
With COVID-19 spreading across China and lockdowns in place, Chinese consumers are buying more immune health products, with the category now the largest category on Tmall.
“We analysed data on the Alibaba platform, we found that from January to June 2022, the overall turnover of the category ‘health food and dietary supplements’ was 16.82bn yuan, with a year-on-year increase of 6.15 per cent.
“The total turnover of the vitamin market was about 1.62bn yuan, with a yoy increase of more than 30 per cent, and that’s one of the reasons we developed the immune product,” Gu said.
The effervescent powder, launched this month under the BYHEALTH PRO range, is known as Immune Active, and contains the DSM-trademarked vitamin D ingredient ampli-D.
It is a form of vitamin D3 known as calcifediol or 25-hydroxyvitamin D3, which is clinically proven to work 3.2 times faster than another form of vitamin D3 known as cholecalciferol.
She added that on Alibaba, fish oil, probiotics, lutein, and liver protection products have showed rapid yoy growth rate.
Between January and June, she said that BYHEALTH’s overall GMV growth on Alibaba was 66.8 per cent, higher than the overall category increase of 6.15 per cent.
This was driven by increased consumption in its liver health products and energy product containing lutein beneficial for the eye.
Aside from immune health product, the firm also launched PUPU enzyme three months ago in China via CBEC. This is a sachet drink containing sicklepod for clearing the bowels.