As major Chinese e-commerce players train their sights on the global marketplace, Beijing-based Wandou Gongzhu is laser-focused on the booming cross-border commerce between China and Japan, driven by the demand for premium Japanese products among young and increasingly affluent Chinese consumers.
It was launched in 2015 as a Chinese-language B2B2C platform for facilitating the sale of Japanese products to Chinese consumers. It has more than 20,000 registered users who are aged between 20 and 30 years old. Users in this demographic account for 60% of active users.
According to Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the market for Japan-focused China e-commerce is expected to rise by 20 per cent in 2020, Wandou CEO Weng Yongbiao noted.
The platform deals with 3,300 Japanese brands with over 40,000 products – covering cosmetics, medicine, food & beverage, and home appliances. It offers customers next-day delivery services and operates a 16,000sq. m ‘smart’ warehouse in Japan and a nearly 10,000 sq m one in China. Wandou has also set up offices in Tokyo and Hangzhou.
In January, Wandou raised $48 million in a new Series B funding round, from investors SBI Holdings, pharmacy chain Sugi Holdings, and XJ Holding, a unit of China’s CITIC Group.
Among Wandou’s earlier investors was Japanese trading house ITOCHU Corporation, which had participated in a $10 million Series A round in 2016.
Weng told DealStreetAsia in a recent interview that part of Wandou’s efforts involve helping Japanese retailers reach Chinese consumers. Last year alone, the platform helped more than 70 Japanese brands to sell into China.
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