Taobao, the world’s largest online marketplace, has launched a dedicated food channel dubbed Taobao Foodie (淘宝吃货) on its mobile app to ride a wave of China’s rosy food e-commerce prospect, Chinese e-commerce news vertical Ebrun reports (link in Chinese).
The Taobao mobile app has a whopping 700 million monthly active users, who will be able to find everything from popular packaged food items from around the globe to Chinese local specialities.
Last month, Alibaba revealed a plan to upgrade the supply-side of its business in a bid to lift the quality of items sold on its e-commerce platforms. This included plans to incubate 1,000 global agriculture industrial zones—that is, production and distribution centers of agricultural products, and to bring 30,000 brands to consumers from the rural areas and lower-tier cities. Currently, the company is working with 300 such industrial zones.
Meanwhile, Taobao Foodie gives Alibaba with yet another entry point to capitalize on China’s growing food e-commerce market. The market could reach RMB 2.8 trillion (roughly USD 417 billion) by 2023, up from an estimated RMB 425 billion (roughly USD 62 billion) in 2018, according to market research firm Qianzhan.