Wednesday, 28 October, 2020
The Drinks Business, Alice Liang
Looking back at the last decade, he began, it’s clear that Covid-19 is not the first knock the Chinese wine market has received, the government’s anti-corruption policy in 2012 was one such moment but the pandemic has proved much more severe.
“The imported wine market in China started to pick up again in 2015. Wine has been popular among young Chinese people, who think wine is cool, sophisticated, and it is not the beverage that their parents used to drink. The product is particularly having a moment among female drinkers, as wine is not as filling as beer and it is not as harsh as spirit,” said Keeling.
Despite the market enjoying a positive run these past few years, the beginning of 2020 definitely proved harsh and challenging for the industry. Although E-commerce in China has become quite well developed in the last decade, the logistic chain initially strained under the huge volume of online transactions. Fortunately, the industry was able to quickly respond to this and online sales channels had even been able to cover the losses of volumes in the on-trade.
“COVID-19 has accelerated the growth of e-commerce in the world and China is no exception. It is a huge boost that pushes things to happen possibly two to three years earlier,” said Keeling.
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