Invigor Group Limited (ASX:IVO) today confirmed that it is establishing a wine sales platform to sell Australian wine to Chinese domestic consumers and Chinese within Australia.
The company is launching a dedicated WeChat-powered online community to market and sell Australian wine, leveraging its WeChat Pay and associated social marketing platform to drive sales.
Invigor will initially target Chinese Australians that visit cellar doors and wine regions and exoand from there to allow Chinese tourists to purchase at cellar door with direct shipment to home address.
Invigor’s now has an immediate distribution channel in China via its partnership with Winning Group with its network of EasyGo stores being a potential retail channel available for product sales.
To assist with pricing and analytics, Invigor’s shopper insights, loyalty and pricing software — which has had extensive take-up among large alcohol beverage companies and retailers in Australia — will be integrated into the WeChat platform.
Utilising the joint venture with Enring, a ‘Mini-Mall’ shop within the WeChat ecosystem, Invigor will provide a safe, secure and trusted online destination for Chinese consumers to see product reviews, check pricing, make notes on tastings, take advantage of promotions, access customer support and execute sales.
Screen mockups – original in Chinese
Invigor is tapping into a very large industry sector that contributes over $40 billion annually to the Australian economy.
China represents the largest export sector for Australian wine with an estimated $1 billion in annual sales, while Chinese now are the most significant foreign visitors to Australian wineries.
The recent addition of Sun Asia Group to Invigor also enables the company to build on this initiative.
The China-Australia Free Trade Agreement offers Invigor has a competitive advantage. There are zero tariffs on its imports, versus 14% for France. Plus, US wines are now subject to 54% import duty due to US-China trade war.
Invigor’s CEO, Gary Cohen said, “This is another step in Invigor capitalising on its growing WeChat Pay operations, the Smart Farm initiative and our relationships within the beverage sector in Australia. Invigor and Enring have the capability, technology platforms, export licenses and relationships in place to generate sales relatively quickly.”
This is the second announcement from the company this week, after Invigor yesterday reported that its Shopper Insights and Loyalty solution has been selected as the product of choice by several large multi-national groups and nationwide retailers.