Gome looks to establish overseas clientele with new online portal

Gome Electrical Appliances Holding Ltd, a Hong Kong-listed electronic appliances retailer in China, recently launched its overseas online shopping portal in cooperation with Japanese consumer electronics retail chain Bic Camera.

Gome will sell popular Japanese products on its website, and will allow consumers to try them out first at its local stores in China. Within a few years, Gome plans to launch online shopping channel for products from South Korea and Australia.

With the growing demand of Chinese online shoppers looking to buy foreign goods, several leading Chinese online retailers started highlighting cross-border e-commerce sales for their retail strategies.

"There are more young people pay attention to their lifestyle and their quality of life than ever before. They prefer online shopping. We plan to establish an overseas shopping portal for young people, and we aim to become the best website in the sector," said Gome CEO Wang Junzhou.

"Under the support of a comprehensive overseas supply chain, we will fulfill consumer's demand of Japanese fine electronic products," Wang said.

According to a report of China E-commerce Research Center based on the first half of 2015, the cross-border e-commerce trading scale reached 2 trillion yuan, a 42.8 percent jump compared to last year.

Gome started establishing its overseas shopping website in 2014, and it has been focused on improving its overseas supply chain.

Wang said the core to surviving cross-border e-commerce competition is to set up a solid overseas supply chain.

"Consumers care most about the authenticity and the price of the product, and if they can receive the goods quickly enough. Therefore the scale and variety of a platform is not the most important."