Chinese wine lovers numbers are still rising with the increase of disposal revenue. In 2019, China has become the world’s largest wine consumer. With the rapid growth of China’s wine consumer group, China’s wine market is a new market full of potential. France is the world’s largest wine producing country, and its wine making technology, vineyard cultivation and wine marketing are in a unique leading position in the world. For Chinese wine lovers, Wine is a new and luxury product and the French wine is the best in the world.
China’s wine market – full of potential
The global wine consumption remained stable in 2018, about 24.6 billion liters, while China’s wine sales were only 1.8 billion liters, accounting for 7.3% of the total consummation. It’s very inconsistent with China’s population. It can be seen that there is still much room for development in the country’s wine market.
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China: the New Eldora for French Wine
In the current domestic market, Changyu is the absolute leader in the wine industry, while the Great Wall ranks second. Even so, there are still a large number of small and medium-sized brands that compete with the two major brands with their distinctive products and marketing capabilities. China is the third largest market for red wine consumption in the world, and with the increasing number of red wine consumers, it is expected to surpass France in 2021, becoming the second largest red wine consumption market in the world.
In addition, with the upgrading of domestic consumption, people are looking for better-quality and better-tasting red wine products. Among them, French wine has a worldwide good reputation, which is continuously favored in the Chinese market.
France – N.1 exporter of wine into China
In the era of rising personal consumption, China’s wine market has entered a period of rapid development, in which the growth rate of imported wine has stabilized in double digits for three consecutive years. Statistics show that from 2013 to 2017, China’s wine imports increased by a total of 381,347 kiloliters, an increase of 93.96%. In terms of import value, the amount of Chinese wine imports in December 2018 was US$302.3 million with a year-on-year decrease of 23.3%. Cumulatively, from January to December 2018, Chinese wine imports amounted to US$3914.6 million at a year-on-year increase rate of 6.5%. The Chinese wine market is undergoing rapid development, with imports value continuing to rise for many years.
- French wine accounts for about 30% of China’s imported wine, ranking first;
- Australia accounts for about 20%, ranking second.
- Chile accounts for more than 10%, ranking third.
The wines of the three countries present more than 50% of the total imported wine market in China. This shows the diversification of wine consummation in China.
To conclude, China’s wine market is not yet saturated, on the contrary, it is in full growth. But there is competition not only between China’s domestic brands but also foreign companies. Therefore, it is very important to enter the market early before the market is stable and fully occupied.
How to find a reliable distributor?
Indeed, Chinese wine market has a lot of opportunities as the former part of this article has explained. But the opportunity lies in the challenge. Why do we say this? Because the Chinese market is very different from those of others countries, especially Western ones. Chinese consumers’ mindset is different. They tend to be suspicious, which means they think a lot and search for information everywhere in order to know if the brand is reliable before buying. Thus, the only object of Chinese wine distributors is to make a fortune, to sell. They are not marketers, they will not do the marketing to sell others’ products. So they only choose those products of which the brand has already been known by Chinese consumers. What you have to do is promote your brand awareness and e-reputation before looking for your distributors. Only in this way, you can have the choice to find a good one and have more leverage in your negotiation. Moreover, take into mind that Chinese people don’t use emails. They have their own ways to communicate. So what you can do is to switch into Chinese social platforms to work on your brand awareness.
How to promote your brand awareness?
- WeChat brochure facilitates your distribution
- Baidu SEO boosts your brand awareness
- E-commerce to reach more Chinese wine lovers
WeChat is a messaging app, with 1,17billion users in 2020. It is the biggest social network platform in China. It is more than a messaging app, WeChat has been described as “China’s app for everything”, from basic messaging, social media, mobile payment app to an e-commerce platform. If you want to promote your brand awareness, then a WeChat brochure is a must. Chinese customers and businessmen do not use email. Creation of a WeChat brochure of your products in Chinese and share it everywhere you go with a QR code. It is simple and convenient. Since you don’t need to print your business card and products list, this way can save you money and at the same time, more efficient.
Baidu SEO boosts your brand awareness
When we talk about SEO in China, we have to mention the largest searching engine in China: Baidu. In China, Google is blocked, so if you want to tackle with Chinese, you are obliged to use their platforms. Online marketing services through Baidu can help customers precisely target the right feed users based on user data on the Baidu platform. Baidu’s online marketing services are based on search queries:
- P4P (Pay for performance advertising): P4P services is like bidding advertising. Customers bid for priority placement of their paid sponsored links
- BrandZone: Baidu provides a way for companies to capture traffic through search engine results. The paid results of the advertiser will be prominently displayed on the search result page.
E-commerce can help you to reach more Chinese wine lovers.
E-commerce is very popular in China, representing approximately 35% of the overall retail market. Especially during the pandemic of 2019, Chinese customers are connected with e-commerce more than ever. China’s E-Commerce share is expected to reach half of the global market by 2020. Taobao, JD, Weipinhui are the leading e-commerce platforms in China. With the development of the logistic system in China, online shopping platforms can reach more and more people, even those who live in the deep mountain. Selling online can help you to promote your brand awareness and facilitate your selling process if you are not yet present in the Chinese market.
Once you have enough brand awareness, our agency can provide you with our wine distributor’s list to help you make connections with them. If you want to know more about China’s wine market or if you have any questions, please feel free to contact GMA, a digital marketing agency, specialized in the Chinese digital market.
