Partners with First People Digital to Sell Indigenous Products to China
Sydney, June 26, 2017 AEST (ABN Newswire) - SmartTrans Holdings Limited (
ASX:SMA) (SmartTrans or the Company) is pleased to announce a new initiative with First People Digital that will allow Indigenous enterprises to sell products and services directly to consumers in China through the RooLife online marketplaces.
- SmartTrans to partner with First People Digital to add Indigenous products and services to the RooLife marketplaces in China
- Indigenous enterprises will gain exposure to the world's largest online shopping market in China, providing potential new income streams
- Significant opportunities for Indigenous enterprises to offer new products and services to Chinese consumers, including art work, foods, medicines, tourism and traditional products
- SmartTrans continues to add high-quality Australian products and service to RooLife
First People Digital is a digital technology services provider that has been recently established to ensure that Indigenous people, communities and enterprises participate in and benefit from the digital economy. First People Digital is proudly majority Indigenous-owned.
Through this initiative, Australian Indigenous communities will be able to sell their products and services directly to consumers in China through SmartTrans' RooLife online stores across a range of popular e-commerce platforms including Wjike.com, TMall.com, JD.com and WeChat. The stores operate through SmartTrans' established relationships with well-established Chinese companies Wjike and Dodoca.
One of the benefits of this arrangement is that payments to Indigenous enterprises will be settled locally in Australian currency.
The addition of Indigenous products, alongside the existing range of carefully-selected premium Australian brands already available through RooLife, fits perfectly with the RooLife concept of promoting Australian products, services, culture and heritage to China.
With 1.2 million Chinese visitors to Australia in 2016, a 20% year-on-year increase (according to Tourism Australia), there is also an especially strong opportunity for Indigenous communities to generate income by selling unique tourism-related services to Chinese consumers through RooLife.
Australian-made products have a strong reputation for quality in the Chinese market and the RooLife marketplaces provide consumers with a trustworthy and dependable source for genuine, high-quality products from Indigenous enterprises.
The arrangement also supports the establishment of a basis on which two of the world's oldest cultures, Indigenous Australians and Chinese, can develop a deeper understanding of each other to grow and support interactions via trade opportunities.
This new and exciting initiative between First People Digital and SmartTrans is further evidence of RooLife's growing strength in terms of its product range, providing a valuable gateway for Australian companies, brands and communities looking to export to China.
SmartTrans Managing Director Bryan Carr said: "The partnership between SmartTrans and First People Digital further highlights how the RooLife marketplaces are fast becoming the go-to destination for Australian and Indigenous businesses and brands looking to sell products to China.
"In the past, Chinese consumers may have unwittingly purchased lower-quality imitations of Indigenous products, while Indigenous artists and communities may not have realised fair value for their work. The RooLife marketplaces are a trustworthy and dependable way to facilitate the provision of quality products and services and ensure buyer and seller get the best experience.
"In particular, there is a massive, fast-growing and under-served market in China for unique tourism experiences that Indigenous communities in Australia are uniquely positioned to fill and we anticipate tourism will quickly emerge as a major product category.
"We are delivering on our objective to offer more than 100 quality Australian brands through the RooLife marketplaces within the first year of operation and look forward to adding more great products in the near future."
SmartTrans is continuously working to further drive scale for the RooLife marketplaces through partnerships with the vendors of additional premium-quality Australian brands, and will continue to update the market with further developments.
About SmartTrans Holdings Limited
SmartTrans Holdings Limited (ASX:SMA) is a leading Australian technology and software provider that has developed a mobile and online billing and payment platform for the China market The company has agreements in place with China Mobile, China Unicorn, China Telecom CMPay, UnionPay and Alipay. With the growing use of the smartphone as a billing device in China, the company is experiencing significant uptake of its technology in that market. SmartTrans has also developed cutting-edge proprietary logistics software which is used by some of Australia's leading blue-chip organisations who have long term contracts in place with the company. SmartTrans is assessing growth opportunities for its logistic offering in China to complement its mobile and online payments platform.
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