Online sales effort highlights tea’s growing popularity

The Chinese green tea market is taking on a distinctly modern feel, as e-commerce platforms team up with leading producers to meet growing consumer demand for the freshest leaves picked in early spring.

随着电子商务平台与领先制造商合作，满足消费者对早春采摘的新鲜茶叶不断增长的需求，中国绿茶市场呈现出明显的现代感。

The time around Tomb Sweeping Day, on April 4, is among the tea market’s busiest of the year, when tender shoots are picked to make the first batches of spring tea.

4月4日清明节前后，茶市场最忙碌，这是采摘嫩芽做第一批春茶的时候。

And with that selling window firmly in mind, Suning Commerce Group Co Ltd, the country’s largest electronics retailer, launched a tea-selling campaign earlier this month on its group-buying site Ju.suning.com, which is already raking in orders.

苏宁商贸集团有限公司把该销售期牢记在心，作为中国最大的电子零售商，本月在其团购网站苏宁易购网（ju.suning.com）推出了茶叶销售活动，并已获得订单。

The strategy is simple, said Wang Di, general manager at Ju.suning.

策略很简单，苏宁易购网总经理王迪说。

Partnering with 12 tea producers from eastern China, home to the country’s most notable tea growing areas, he said the company has already been pre-selling the freshest spring tea to consumers, which helps reduce distribution channels and speeds up the delivery process.

与中国东部最著名的茶叶产区的12个茶叶生产商合作，他说该公司已经向消费者预售最新鲜的春茶，这有助于减少分销渠道和加快运送过程。

"This is a typical, modern consumer-to-business model. We collect orders online, and the producers then make and package the tea, based on demand," he said.

“这是一个典型的、现代的消费者对商业模式。我们在网上收集订单，然后生产商根据需求生产和包装的茶叶，”他说。

The sales model not only allows consumers to quickly get what they want, but enables tea producers to gauge how much demand there will be, and make better-informed business decisions based on that, he says.

这种销售模式不仅让消费者很快得到他们想要的，还让茶叶生产商衡量需求量，并在此基础上做出更好的商业决策，他说。

"Within three days of opening for pre-orders on March 9, we generated 86,500 orders, worth more than 11 million yuan ($1.7 million)," Wang said.

“在3月9日预售开幕的三天内，我们收到了86500个订单，价值超过1100万元，”王迪说。

Longjing, a type of green tea grown in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, was the most popular with over 18,000 orders at an average price per order of 187 yuan, Suning figures show.

浙江杭州的绿茶龙井是最受欢迎的一种，获得超过18000个订单，每单平均价格为187元，据苏宁数据显示。

Other top-sellers have included Maofeng tea and Lu’an Melon Seed tea, also green teas.

其他畅销茶叶包括毛峰和六安瓜片，也都是绿茶。

"All of these orders will be delivered in April when tea producers finish the traditional elaborate tea-making process," Wang added.

“所有这些订单将于四月交付，届时茶叶生产商已完成了传统的精心制茶工艺，”王迪补充说。

But his company is not alone in adopting more modern approaches to the ancient trade, as Chinese consumers re-kindle their enthusiasm for drinking tea.

随着中国消费者重新点燃饮茶的热情，但他的公司并不是唯一采用更现代方法诠释这一古老贸易的。

Last year, e-commerce rivals Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and JD.com both launched their own spring tea online promotions, to help tea-lovers access top-quality brands with just the click of a mouse.

去年，它的电子商务竞争对手阿里巴巴集团控股公司和京东商城都推出了自己的春茶网上促销，让茶爱好者只需轻点鼠标就能访问精品的品牌。

According to the China Tea Marketing Association, e-commerce accounted for just 8 percent of total tea sales in 2014, but it is now the fastest-growing channel and is playing an increasingly important role in promoting tea, particularly to younger Chinese.

据中国茶营销协会数据，2014年电子商务仅占茶叶总销量的8％，但现在电商是其销量最快的增长渠道，并对茶叶的推广发挥了越来越重要的作用，特别对在中国的年轻人。

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来源:China Daily爱语吧作者:Sylvia