A partnership between Britain's Royal Mail and Alibaba Group's Tmall Global online marketplace is brewing. The partnership is designed to attract Chinese consumers to small British companies.
The partnership can generate a new lucrative market for the companies' overseas parcels business.
Alibaba's Tmall Global links around 302 million Chinese netizens to virtual stores and payment portals. If Royal Mail would be able to tap into the same consumer market, it would certainly boost business for many small British companies.
Royal Mail asserted that the Tmall online shop front would be launching later this month and British SMEs can use it to do business with Chinese online consumers.
Some British retailers want to engage in Chinese business but never had the means to do so. The Tmall online shop would give them a pathway to carry out these operations.
With Tmall, British retailers and exporters can have quick and easy access to the growing Chinese online consumer population. British businesses that would use Tmall to engage with Chinese consumers are also given a method to directly contact their customers.
Royal Mail, in particular, would be handling the required documentation for the firms. It would also be responsible for other business-related functions such as marketing, promotions and customer services.
Royal Mail would only receive a specific rate of commission on the British SMEs' sales and delivery of products through its Parcelforce express unit.
Royal Mail will be celebrating the new partnership by including a special postmark on the items it delivers nationwide from March 2-4.