Thanks to the data published by JD on Imported Liquors, we learned:
- Who are the main consumers of imported liquors in China
- What is the new usage of imported liquors in China
- How is JD helping a leading Chinese company for wine import
In this article, we explain all the A to this important Q, and also to another fundamental one: “why should your brand invest in digitalization to enter the Chinese market?”.
Who is the main target of imported liquors in China?
The White Paper stated that the main target of imported liquors in China is Millenials, married male,s and people living in second Tier cities.
However, the youngest seems to be the consumer group growing faster. It’s not the first time this generation is interested in a kind of product produced abroad.
But also, unmarried females are becoming more and more an interesting target for foreign liquor sellers.
What are the imported liquors preferred by the faster-growing consumer groups?
While Gen-Z is willing to taste any kind of new product, females basically drink cocktails, sake, rum, and fruit wine. But, even if the youngest is willing to taste everything, we could still identify some products they seem to appreciate the most and are sake, liqueur, and fruit wine.
In addition, it is necessary to highlight that the youngest generation in lower-tier cities generally buys less alcoholic imported liquors.
What’s the new usage of imported liquors is in China?
Among Chinese imported liquors are recently seen as precious objects to show. According to this, collecting limited edition and smaller size products has become a new trend. And also gifting drinks such as whiskey, brandy, and cocktails is very common.

How is JD helping a leading Chinese company for wine import?
JD is one of the most important B2C e-commerce platforms in China, so can be the perfect partner to sell your product in the country considering the great importance e-commerce has in China at present.
Grande International Spirits and Wine, which understood the leadership of e-commerce Giants in the Chinese market, decided to start a partnership with JD Super. The partnership has been useful to act a digital transformation and an omnichannel strategy, both essential decisions to be competitive in China since costumers are more and more used to do shopping online and competitors more and more inclined to use big data to understand their target.
Then, JD Super lets Grandgle access the big data in its online store to understand how to enhance the shopping experience. It also helps the company to create customized products and chose the Irish Whiskey brand Dubliner, targeted to young Chinese, for being the unique sales platform in China where Chinese can find it.

Why should a brand of imported liquors be online to sell in China?
Be online is essential to selling for two main reasons:
Chinese consumers always check information about brands online before buying, and distributors only want to sell well-known brands because they want to sell fast without any effort. This also implies that distributors are not interested in doing Branding.
How can imported liquors brands work on their online reputation in China?
- First of all, a company needs a Chinese website to sell in China. The website should be customized to Chinese taste, so have a nice graphic, be fresh, have a high-quality image, and be in the Chinese language. It also should be hosted in China and has a Chinese domain in order to let Chinese customers find it.
- SEO is the most important thing to do if you want to be reached by the Chinese. Optimize your website with backlinks in forums, social media, and other blogs or important websites is fundamental to the first position of the most important Chinese search engine, that is BAIDU.

- To be visible on BAIDU you can also choose a Paid advertisement. PPC and banner, for example, are a good way to be visible in a short time.
- Chinese forums and Q&A forums like Zhihu are other important tools for letting your customers find you on the internet. Chinese, in fact, check information about a company on other platforms rather than on the company’s owned website.
- Another fundamental platform is social media, there is an infinite number of social media in China. So, you need to choose the perfect ones according to your target and/or your goal.
How can your brand of imported liquors use social media in China?

If your goal is brand awareness
To create brand awareness, you can choose Weibo that is an easily accessible platform and very popular among KOL, Key Opinion Leaders. According to this, you can create a marketing campaign that includes Weibo, an event, and the right KOL for your target in order to reach a number of potential customers that you even can imagine.
If you want to nurture your audience
To nurture your costumers, you can open an account on WeChat, all Chinese has it! It is difficult to do branding on it because it is a closed system, the consumer can easily find you, but you cannot easily reach him. By the way, you can use it to inform your followers about coupons and discounts, write incredible articles to update them about any news, or even better: create avatars, games, or applications to keep them always connected with you.
If your target is Gen-Z
Xiaohongshu is instead very popular among young Chinese, then you can let this target find you through Key Opinion Consumers (KOCs) or creating reviews about your products. In the beginning, the platform was a UGC (user-generated content platform) but later has also become an e-commerce platform. Young Chinese generally buy foreign luxury and fashion products using this platform, but also check information about all kinds of lifestyle topics and products.

GMA is a marketing agency focus on Chinese market. We can help your company to enter the Chinese market through an omnichannel digital strategy.
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