Italian wine company Gruppo Italiano Vini (GIV) has signed a deal with Tmall.com and Wangjiu.com, both owned by China’s Alibaba Group, to sell wines from 15 historic cellars.
Marco Pizzoli, General Manager of GIV Shanghai, explained that the main aim of the agreement is to increase sales by 100,000 bottles per year within 2017.
Negotiations between the parties commenced two years ago, but it was formally signed this week, at the Italian Embassy in Beijing. Thanks to these two e-commerce sites, GIV will simplify and accelerate wine distribution in a market of 710 million potential consumers.
The company already exports one million bottles to China each year. Following this deal, it will now have a storage facility in Hangzhou, where Alibaba is located. GIV sells in other 84 countries in the world, reaching €350 million of sales.
© 2016 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Dario Romano. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
