25-7-2018
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USA’s biggest wine producer California-based E & J Gallo Winery will open an online flagship store on Alibaba’s retail platform Tmall in September, featuring 20 of Gallo’s premium wine brands. The flagship store is scheduled to open on 9 September, pronounced as “jiu jiu” in Mandarin which also means wines or spirits. The day has been marketed by Tmall as Wine and Spirits Festival since 2016. In 2017, brands from over 50 countries participated in the festival. It only took 3 hours for sales revenue to top RMB 100 million. The Gallo online store is part of a three-year strategic partnership the company signed recently with Alibaba, China’s biggest online retail and e-commerce company. The agreement will see Alibaba’s Tmall host a flagship store for E & J Gallo and feature their wines in Tmall’s supermarkets, Hema and RT-Mart. Twenty of Gallo’s premium wine brands willl featured including Apothic, Carnivor, Dark Horse, Gallo Signature Series, Orin Swift, La Marca, William Hill Estate Winery, J Vineyards, MacMurray Estate Vineyards. The winery has previously partnered with Tmall for sale of its Carlo Rossi, Peter Vella and Gallo Family Vineyards brands. “We are very excited to continue our on-going partnership and collaboration with Alibaba Group,” said Bill McMorran, vice president and general manager for Gallo Asia. “As we have witnessed the rising sophistication of wine consumers in China, we are continuously looking for new ways to meet growing consumer demand. We are thrilled to offer more than 20 of our premium brands on Tmall, bringing high-quality, great-tasting wines to consumers in China.” By taking advantage of the reach that Alibaba can provide in China, E & J looks to establish a further presence in China and the Asia-Pacific region as it continues to expand its presence in the global wine market. Over the next five years, according to forecasts by the International Wine and Spirits Research (IWSR), China is set to become the world’s second largest market for grape wines with consumption increasing to 192 million cases worth about USD 23bn. Currently, China is the world’s fifth biggest wine consumer after the United States, France, Italy and Germany.
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