Want To Buy A Snack in China? Head Online…

It’s a familiar snack scene at local Chinese grocery stores and quick-shop markets; rows of the same chips, peanuts and yogurts and the same mix of local and international brands. Chinese youth today are tired of the monotonous local snack scene so more and more Chinese youth are turning to the Internet to order special snacks, both from different areas of China as well as from other countries.

It’s not only foreign or wacky snacks that consumers are purchasing off of Taobao, a majority remains traditional Chinese snacks. During the first week of September the total sales of Moon Cakes peaked at over 3 million RMB, an increase of over 120% from this time last year, according to a report from Finance QQ.com. Other traditional Chinese snacks are breathing new life into their brands by capitalizing on the prominence of Taobao snack shopping. Brands such as 知味观 (Zhiweiguan), 杏花楼(Xinhualou), 稻香村(Daoxiangcun), 采芝斋(Caizhizhai) all have set up online shopping platforms.

Young entrepreneurs are also beginning to capitalize on this trend. Zhou Luo, a young man from Shenzhen created theB2C snack website 24小食 (http://www.24food.net) to help satisfy his girlfriend’s love of international snacks. Zhou Lou’s business model is not unique of other international product importers, however through a combination of guaranteed 24 hour delivery and the availability of cash payments, after six months, 24小食 is beginning to see a profit and they have a consumer base of over 600,000. (source: sznews.com)