Listed specialty retailer Aumake International (ASX: AU8) is experiencing early success with its new online platform, acquiring 8,500 new active online users and total online Gross Merchandise Value of $1.32 million in its first month. This is a monthly increase of more than 500 and 210 percent respectively when compared to its combined Broadway and Aumake Online platforms.
The platform is the foundation of Aumake’s new social e-commerce marketplace, which directly connects Asian influencers with high-quality Australian brands and products.
In an update to the market, Aumake said 30 percent of its new active users had already made repeat purchases and 80 percent had mainland China registration details.
Commenting on the growth of the new platform, Executive Chairman, Keong Chan said, “We are delighted with the response we have had from our customers to the first stage of our new online social e-commerce marketplace. We have leveraged Asian social media networks to cost-effectively acquire more active users, who in turn are buying more products than ever before. Our database of influencers has been increasing daily and will continue to accelerate as we activate our pre-existing 40,000 unique visitor database and further expand our marketing activities in mainland China.”
“We are also encouraged to see that many of our new customers are already displaying repeat buying behaviour, and we expect this will increase as we expand our range with exciting new products. We are also seeing a material shift to increased purchases of health supplements and skincare products.”
“Significantly, our targeted marketing approach has so far yielded a high proportion of new active users with mainland China registration details, providing an early indication of a large and significant source of Chinese influencer traffic. Based on analysis of influencer data, we believe that COVID has not resulted in a reduction of Asian influencers, but instead we believe that many have returned to Asia from Australia. Our ability to directly market new brands to influencers that have returned home as well as attract new Asian-based influencers, provides us with a significant advantage to our competitors in Australia and offers long-term growth potential for our platform.”
“The strong registration uptake and initial GMV through our new marketplace concept, has firmed our view that demand by Chinese consumers for quality Australian brands and products remains very strong.”
“In terms of the future, Aumake is continuing to invest and rapidly advance our broader online strategy underpinned by an innovative “new brand” business model which incorporates social marketing functionality and profit-sharing mechanism that has the potential to dramatically evolve our industry. In addition, recent public discussion of possible vaccine candidates for COVID-19 has instigated encouraging discussions with our travel partners, which has created a positive outlook for the return of international students in the near term and international tourists in due course. The return of both will further strengthen the dynamic growth we are already seeing online, given our unique position to convert this significant offline traffic to our online platform.”
