Pharmacy Online and Azoya Launch Live Streaming Campaign to Boost Cross-Border Sales of Australian Products in China During COVID-19

Sydney, 28 April 2021 – Azoya, a leading cross-border e-commerce enabler, today announced the successful launch of a live streaming campaign in China for Pharmacy Online and Pharmacare, to tackle COVID-19 challenges and meet consumer demand for high quality and authentic healthcare products from Australia.

Using the latest live streaming features in WeChat’s Mini Program platform, Pharmacy Online hosted the joint campaign on 7 April 2021 with Pharmacare, one of the largest Australian health products groups, with brands including Nature’s Way, Bioglan, Kids Smart, Redwin, Norsca and others. Viewers were given an exclusive tour around Pharmacare’s Sydney office.

Pharmacy Online leveraged the large number of fans from its official WeChat account, driving nearly 6,000 views from existing subscribers. The event resulted in three to seven times higher sales for Pharmacare’s various product lines in China, compared to an average content marketing campaign in WeChat.

“With China’s live streaming industry growing significantly over the past few years, it’s become an essential tool for Australian brands and retailers to directly reach Chinese consumers and promote their products,” said Apple Yuan, managing director of Australia for Azoya. “They love to buy Australian made natural and healthy products from an authentic retailer, even if it means they have to wait longer to receive a parcel shipped from Australia.”

Due to the success of the ongoing campaign, Pharmacy Online is welcoming other Australian healthcare brands to co-host live streaming campaigns to help them expand into the Chinese market, establish brand awareness and leverage the pharmacy retailer’s traffic to increase sales of their products.

Launched in 1998 as the first online pharmacy in Australia, Pharmacy Online has over 750,000 customers in more than 65 countries. The pharmacy retailer first entered the Chinese market in 2015, with a fully managed e-commerce platform developed by Azoya. Within five years, the company has generated more than one million orders, along with solid growth in new customer registrations and WeChat subscriptions.

“The past 12 months has certainly been challenging for our business in China due to travel restrictions and disruption to international logistics,” said Marc de Leeuw, CEO of Pharmacy Online. “While our e-commerce platform remains core to our business, we needed a new approach to be more present for our digital savvy customers, who have an increasing purchasing power. Our live streaming strategy developed by Azoya has given us the forum to reach them directly, build loyalty and extend our presence in the market.”

Leading up to this event with Pharmacare, Azoya and Pharmacy Online held a series of trial events at the end of 2020, which resulted in a 36 percent increase in the average order value of customer transactions, with sales contributing almost half of total sales. The page visit depth by unique visitors (PV/UV) in the WeChat Mini Program is 112 percent higher than all of Pharmacy Online’s channels and growth of new users is 100 percent higher. In addition, WeChat live-streaming generates a high purchase conversion rate of 25 percent, which is significantly higher than average.

“The Chinese Internet ecosystem is very different than that in Australia, and it’s evolving faster,” said Mr de Leeuw. “It’s important to look at all opportunities when planning to enter the Chinese market, as well as work with a trusted partner like Azoya to navigate through the options and avoid all the nuisances arising from traditional international expansion, such as setting up local business entity, confusion over government policies and market adaptation.”

To enable Pharmacy Online to keep its high service standard despite the challenges to international logistics this past year, Azoya developed an alternate logistics strategy incorporating alternative flights and routes for shipments into China. This enables the pharmacy retailer to successfully fulfill and deliver orders.

About Azoya

Azoya helps international retailers and brands set up and operate e-commerce stores in China. As a borderless e-tailing group that has helped over 30 different retailers and brands enter and operate in the China market, Azoya's seasoned e-commerce teams can provide a wide range of different solutions that include IT, marketing, logistics, payments, customer service, and more. For more details, visit http://www.azoyagroup.com/