Online outlet connects US farmers with Chinese homes

Within a few hours of being harvested, fresh cherries from across the Pacific are quickly cleaned, sorted, packed, shipped via air and delivered directly to Chinese customers.

To make this happen, people have to place an order on Tmall.com, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's business-to-consumer shopping website.

Tmall.com recently promoted a food campaign with the United States Department of Agriculture's trade office in Shanghai. The campaign, which began on June 27 and ran until Monday, featured more than 60 different items, including Boston lobster, Alaskan wild salmon and cod, Sun-Maid raisins and fresh Northwest cherries from the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Utah, according to Keith Hu, international marketing director of Northwest Cherry Growers.

Hu said that geographical advantages and advanced scientific research have made Northwest cherries increasingly attractive and well known in China.

"China is the top export market for Northwest cherries outside of North America," he said.

More than 2.2 million boxes of Northwest cherries were sold to China in 2012, up from 30,000 boxes in 2005.

Hu said he believes that cherry exports to China will continue to increase.

"The demand is there, especially in the second-tier cities," he said.

Hu praised the efficiency and affordability of the pre-order model that Tmall.com has created, because it allows the Chinese to buy highly perishable, high-value food items.

In the pre-order system, users pay a small deposit on a selected item for later delivery. That way, US companies can accurately estimate demand and ship only the products that are ordered. At the same time, the prices that people ultimately pay can decrease as the volume of orders rises. Northwest cherries, for example, were initially priced at 179 yuan ($29) a kilogram, but dropped to 89.5 yuan/kg after nearly 19,000 customers pre-ordered the item.

"I paid half price on Tmall.com to get the same kind of US cherries sold in my local supermarket," said Fu Chen, who works for a PR company in Beijing and was one of the 19,000 customers.

The goal of the joint campaign was to give Chinese customers access to a variety of US products.

"In the first half of 2013, we saw a 500 percent surge in sales of imported food items on Tmall.com," Daniel Zhang, Tmall.com's president, said in a news release. "And we're thrilled to have collaborated once again with the US Department of Agriculture to meet the increasing needs of our users."

"The pre-order model has revolutionized the traditional imported food supply chain," Zhang added. "It not only passes cost savings to buyers and suppliers, but also ensures that consumers receive the freshest produce possible, directly from the source."

According to the USDA, agricultural exports from the US to China were at $546 billion in 2012, up 34 percent year-on-year.

E-commerce has become a relatively easy way for US producers to gain access to the Chinese market.

Keith Schneller, director of the USDA Agricultural Trade Office in Shanghai, called Tmall.com "an excellent new channel" that provides a chance for small and medium-sized US food and beverage producers to access millions of people in China.

"Tmall has provided new channels for our products we never dreamed of. We hope to increase cooperation and the range of US products in the future," Schneller said.