Biscuit manufacturing group United Biscuits (UB) has launched an eCommerce store for Chinese consumers on Alibaba Group’s Tmall Global platform.

The store launched in time for Alibaba’s 11.11 Global Shopping Festival on 11 November, an annual shopping event in China which has been known to outperform Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the USA.

UB said China, the fourth largest consumer of biscuits, is a strategic target for the company and that the Chinese were willing to pay a premium for the high food safety standards of it imported lines. It launched its

McVitie’s Digestives there in 2012 through traditional retailers and claims the biscuits have proved very popular.

The launch adds to UB’s portfolio of eCommerce stores, which including the McVitie’s Sweeet Shop in the UK and the North European Delacre Mailbox. Both of these offer point-of-sale product personalisation and UB said this could be a template for future development of the Chinese store.

Marcel Willems, regional general manager, Greater China, at UB, said: “China is a very important market for United Biscuits and we have high expectations of our flagship store on Tmall Global.

“McVitie’s is an iconic British brand and via our Tmall Global store, we are making the brand accessible to another 386 million potential consumers across China, who all now have the opportunity to buy the Original McVitie’s Digestives in British packaging, directly from the source.”