By CASEY NEILL
A NEW partnership will help Greater Dandenong businesses tap into China’s eCommerce market.
The State Government announced a deal with Australia Post and Chinese online marketplace Tmall at an eCommerce in China seminar on Wednesday 9 March.
Small Business, Innovation and Trade Minister Philip Dalidakis said it would allow businesses to sell direct to consumers in the world’s largest economy without leaving their homes.
Last financial year Tmall sales were up 68 per cent on the previous year, exceeding $170 billion dollars.
The Chinese eCommerce market is the world’s largest, with an estimated 649 million internet users spending more than $250 billion dollars each year.
Greater Dandenong Council’s business group manager Paul Kearsley was at the seminar.
“Through the systems that the Victorian Government has just set up, with a partnership approach, that allows businesses in our region to access that market without having to go through all the hurdles of registering their business in China, setting up an office in China,” he said.
“They can literally, as far as I understand it, just put it on Tmall Global.
“There’s a massive opportunity here for small and medium enterprises to offer their services and their products directly to China.
“We’ve just got to be part of it.”
Mr Kearsley visited Nanjing twice last year.
“We were taken to a couple of other companies that were specialising in eCommerce,” he said.
“It was very evident to me, and also to the businesses that I took, that eCommerce was a huge opportunity to businesses in the Greater Dandenong area.”
He will ask the State Government to provide information and, potentially, workshops to help Greater Dandenong businesses to understand their opportunities.
“They also might be interested in listening to speakers with examples and case studies of how they’ve gone about it,” he said.
“Business to business is always the best way that we can get the information out.”
