German consumer goods giant Henkel has recently signed a strategic partnership with Chinese online seller Alibaba, covering brand building and marketing collaboration.
The deal concerns Henkel’s Beauty Care arm of the business and aims to strengthen Henkel’s e-commerce business in China as well as emerging markets in East Europe, South America and South East Asia.
To do this, Henkel aims to take advantage of Alibaba’s Tmall platform, which will continue to act as a major portal of the company’s new product launches. Last year, Henkel launched 13 brands and more than 80 products through Tmall.HK, with product categories including hair care and colouring, and body care.
The momentum has been sustained into 2016, with Tmall used to exclusively launch Shcwarzkopf’s new anti-pollution range of products called Extra Care Purify & Protect. The products, which debuted in July, were created as a result of the company’s Asia-Pacific local R&D.
Henkel also reaped success on Tmall during China’s annual ‘singles day’ in November, also known as ‘guanggun jie’ – a shopping day put on for consumers who are single.
Singles day was created by Alibaba in 2009 with just 27 merchants and today is one of the biggest shopping days in the world. Last year, total gross merchandise volume was more than $10bn.
