What is chaoshi.tmall.com

 

The convenience of online shopping has long since reached groceries. Many major supermarkets and even some smaller stores allow their customers to browse their online catalogue and order home delivery.

 

However, there’s another category in online grocery shopping: supermarkets that are entirely online, with no physical stores. Tmall’s Chaoshi is one of them.

 

 

Chaoshi at a glance

Chaoshi is how you pronounce the Chinese characters 超市, and they mean supermarket (translated by globaleyez). Chaoshi is a part of Tmall, which is owned by Chinese e-Commerce giant Alibaba.

 

 

Screenshot of https://chaoshi.tmall.com/?targetPage=index

 

 

True to its name, the store sells groceries, everyday beauty products and other household items like homeware. Customers can access the product catalogue on a desktop computer or via the Taobao app (a platform also owned by Alibaba). Chaoshi offers same or next-day delivery and is available to almost all customers in China.

 

Looking at Chaoshi’s numbers, it seems that Chinese consumers have wholeheartedly adopted the idea of online grocery shopping. With an annual net sales of $13.82 billion, Chaoshi must certainly be popular amongst shoppers.

 

The marketplace works with third party sellers who, based on their industry, are charged a basic fee for using the platform. For example, vendors of the general category owe 50,000 RMB (around $7,000 according to September 2024 exchange rates) to Chaoshi for its services, while homeware sellers must pay 100,000 RMB (ca. $14,000) and those working with beauty care products have to pay 300,000 RMB ($42,000).

 

Vendors wishing to sign up with Chaoshi must meet certain entry requirements. These include restrictions on branding. For instance, sellers with a name resembling, but with no proven connection to a well-known brand or person are not allowed to set up shop on Chaoshi.

 

In addition, existing vendors must act according to the marketplaces’ rulebook. This contains rules about marketing, product packaging, warehousing, delivery and after-sales services as well as potential sanctions in case a vendor breaks any of the rules.

 

 

Online shopping - locally

Shoppers on Chaoshi have to pick their city, even the actual district/neighbourhood of the city they want their shopping delivered, allowing the platform to narrow down product selection to what’s available in the shopper’s vicinity. This is obviously important, since most groceries are perishable and can’t be shipped around for a long time without endangering their quality.

 

 

Screenshot of chaoshi.tmall.com displaying a drop-down menu for customers to pick out their district within Beijing. Translated by Google Translate

 

 

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What is Tmall

As a part of Tmall, Chaoshi belongs to one of the most popular online marketplaces in China. Tmall is responsible for about 50% of all B2C e-Commerce transactions in China. Tmall’s branches include Tmall Global, a platform for international vendors to sell to Chinese consumers and Tmall Luxury Pavilion, a space that caters to luxury brands and their customers.

 

Interestingly, Tmall (originally Taobao Mall) itself started off as an exclusive B2C subsidiary of Taobao, a platform that allows both B2C and C2C interactions.

 

Find out all about Taobao and Tmall’s merger and subsequent separation!

 

 

The business of online supermarkets

Although European shoppers certainly don’t shy away from ordering groceries online, the market is nowhere near as popular here as in other parts of the world.

 

Currently, the market is worth around $78.6 billion, with projections to reach $150.9 billion by 2029. In comparison, the same market in China is valued at $266 billion and is projected to reach $327.9 billion by 2029.

 

For many European consumers, grocery shopping is a chore but it’s also something that is better done in person. How do you ensure the freshness of your perishables if you can’t see, smell and touch them before purchase?

 

 

Illustration of a shopper inspecting vegetables in a supermarket

 

 

In this regard, the grocery market is quite similar to that of beauty products where physical inspection of the products is often necessary before picking out a new eyeshadow, face cream or perfume.

 

As for logistics, online supermarkets have to work with serious location and time challenges.

 

Global marketplaces may work with non-perishable items that can spend a week or two in a container while travelling to their destination several thousand kilometres away. But fresh produce and meat can’t wait that long to reach their buyer, which means that online supermarkets have two main roads ahead of them.

 

They can either make themselves hyper-local and serve an area where they can deliver fresh groceries without endangering their quality, or, like Chaoshi, work with a network of third party sellers that serve their own neighbourhoods.

 

Unfortunately, this latter choice poses its own dangers for brands and consumers alike.

 

 

IP issues in online grocery shopping

Counterfeit and other bad quality products always have a better chance of entering a marketplace when third parties are able to sell there without a central authority first checking the origin and quality of the goods. And this is practically impossible in e-Commerce, where sellers are often located several continents away from the offices of the marketplace they’re selling on.  

 

In the case of edible goods, this issue becomes even more problematic. Since fake products often contain bad quality, sometimes even toxic ingredients, ingesting these in counterfeit groceries can cause serious health issues, even death to consumers.

 

 

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Another problem may be caused by sellers entering a market where they’re not authorised to sell. Given the highly localised nature of online grocery shopping, it’s quite likely that sellers authorised in a certain location could try to sell in different regions for a lower price, thus creating a grey market and eroding your brand’s price structure.

 

Then there’s the issue of product presentation. While it matters with every product, in case of food this is actually a crucial issue.

 

 

Illustration of a carefully presented dish

 

 

Illustration of a simple dish on an old tray

 

 

How you present your food products will convey an idea of quality, taste and feeling to the consumer. If your high-value branded products end up listed next to low quality and cheap fakes, your reputation could suffer quite a lot.

 

Find out all about the importance of clean marketplaces!

 

And let’s not forget about the question of consumer protection. You know who to turn to if your local supermarket sells you subpar products. But what to do when a glocal online supermarket does the same?

 

 

Online brand protection on grocery marketplaces

Regardless of the nature of products concerned, our online brand protection measures work. Our versatile services and solutions can be adapted to the specific needs of any product, market and brand.

 

For example, take a healthy dose of our marketplace monitoring service. We find fake or grey market versions of your products on over 150 marketplaces worldwide, including platforms that sell groceries.

 

Add a dash of image monitoring. This is necessary to catch fake offers that advertise with stolen or copied pictures of your products anywhere online.

 

If you want a taste of the dubious products or find out more about their sellers, we recommend a test purchase. This service collects all the information we need, and even better, provides you with court-admissible evidence in case you want to sue the fraudsters.

 

Finally, as a cherry on top, we can enforce your rights and demand the removal of the infringing listings from the marketplace.

 

 

Conclusion

While not quite as popular as in China, online grocery shopping via platforms like Chaoshi could also become a hit in Europe in the near future. Should that happen, keep in mind that you need to protect your brand’s IP rights in this market segment as well.

 

Get in touch with us and let’s set up a comprehensive online brand protection strategy for your brand!