Five more Australian brands have signed up with Chinese e-commerce platform Aomaijia, using the marketplace to access to 30 million potential customers in China.

Kids Smart, Nestlé Australia, b.box and Tasman Ugg have joined several other Australian brands such as Swisse, Blackmores, Devondale, Bellamy’s and a2 Milk.

“The Aomaijia platform was created to give suppliers, like those in Australia, better control of their branding in China but also control over supply chain, distribution, sales volumes and ultimately their profits,” said Aomaijia Group CEO, Maggie Liu, during the recent launch of the company’s Australasian procurement and supply chain office in Sydney.

It’s the fifth such international office with other procurement centres in Paris, Los Angeles, Seoul and Tokyo. Aomaijia has grown exponentially since it was founded in Guandong in 2015 and specialises in offering high quality international brands to Chinese consumers, while acting as a partner for foreign brands entering China.

The launch follows an Alibaba E-Commerce Expo hosted in Sydney in late August, that also sought to attract Australian brands and meet growing demand from Chinese consumers.

Aomaijia PR representative Suki Wong told Business News Australia the group is very open to small Australian brands as they can cater to Chinese consumers who are looking for different lifestyles.

“Our team will help these little brands to enter China, help them to analyse the Chinese market, and help them to establish brand recognition in China and promote their sales,” she said.

The platform sells to consumers via a mobile phone app; an online retail site and a mini sales program operated on the WeChat social media platform; it also has 14 physical stores in key locations across all of China's major first-tier cities.

Aomaijia differentiates itself to consumers as a trusted channel, dealing directly with manufacturers or their appointed distributors rather than daigou – people or small groups who typically buy consumer goods in Australian retail outlets and ship them directly to customers in China.

Group CEO Maggie Liu explained that while daigou have filled a market need in China “they operate a rather unsophisticated and inefficient distribution network”. Unsophisticated, but sizeable: consulting firm Bain & Co put the market at $7.5n in 2015.

The daigou industry has faced a shake up this year as new regulations came into effect in January requiring daigou merchants to register as market entities and pay taxes accordingly.

Sourced from Business News Australia, Xinhua, The Fashion Law; additional content by WARC staff