Vinexpo and Alibaba signes MoU

Vinexpo, the world’s premier international wine and spirits exhibition, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Tmall, the retail platform of China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba Group.

Lei Zhao (third from left), director of Fast Moving Consumer Goods at Tmall, signs a MoU with Vinexpo CEO Guillaume Deglise on the opening day of this year’s Vinexpo in Bordeaux.

Signed at the opening of Vinexpo on 18 June by Vinexpo CEO Guillaume Deglise and Tmall’s director for Fast Moving Consumer Goods Lei Zhao, the MOU will see an initial four-year cooperation between the two parties.

Based on the MoU, Alibaba’s Tmall and Tmall Global will become ‘official partners’ of Vinexpo Bordeaux 2017 and Vinexpo Hong Kong 2018 held from 29 to 31 May.

The partnership also includes the development of key marketing activities including the promotion of the biennial exhibitions on Alibaba’s Tmall and Tmall Global, and on a number of global social media-communication channels including Tmall and Tmall Global’s official fan page on Facebook, Twitter, WeChat and Weibo.

Tmall has also chosen Vinexpo to make the high-profile announcement of its ‘Country of Honour’ for Tmall’s  9/9 ‘Global Wine Festival’ sales day, held annually on September 9. The online shopping extravaganza launched by Alibaba in 2016 is designed to emulate its commercially successful Singles’ Day on 11 November that brought in US$17.8 billion sales in one day, although sales figures for the inaugural 9/9 Global Wine Festival were never released.

“This MoU underlines China’s growing prominence in the wine world as the fastest-growing market for high-quality wine with a huge potential. Current trends show that China is on course to becoming the world’s top wine-consuming nation within the next 20 years. It also reflects Tmall’s pre-eminence at the forefront of the world’s biggest online market. Vinexpo is delighted to be co-operating with such a major force which will be playing a key role in the future of the global wine market,” commented Vinexpo’s Deglise.

Lei Zhao, director of fast moving consumer goods at Tmall, said: “In accordance with our mission ‘to make it easy to do business anywhere’ we are pleased to be partnering with Vinexpo and cater to the increasing popularity of quality wines from all over the world to Chinese consumers. We look forward to collaborating with French and international wine producers and merchants to enable more and more Chinese consumers to fully enjoy the very best products the sector has to offer.”