Ethiopia’s Roasted Coffee Sold Out Within Seconds of Debut on China’s Largest e-Commerce Platform of Alibaba Group

• On the live stream event, the Ethiopian roasting company of Arada Coffee sells more than 11,200 bags of its coffee in one second, which set a record on the Alibaba online shop, Tmall Global.
• The Government of Ethiopia and ECA has joined efforts with China’s Largest e-Commerce Platform Alibaba Group, to bring more quality African products to one of the largest markets in the world today.
• The launch will set in motion a community project on Tmall Global whereby, for each bag of coffee sold, a special donation will be made to purchase school supplies for Ethiopian primary school students.

Imagine using one second to sell more than 11,200 bags of Ethiopian coffee. That is what happened on January 19, 2022, during the Ethiopian Coffee Brands Launch on China’s Largest E-Commerce Platform, Alibaba (Tmall Global), in a joint effort with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the Ethiopian Government.

Ethiopia’s coffee under the brand of Arada set a record on the Alibaba online shop, Tmall Global. The Ethiopian roasting company Arada Coffee, which offered its price at a promotional rate, said that the sold price of coffee was about five folds that of the green coffee price. On the live stream event organized by promoter Li Jiaqi, a prominent live streaming e-commerce influencer, almost five tons of Ethiopian coffee were sold within five seconds.

It is to be recalled that when Jack Ma, founder of the giant e-commerce platform, Alibaba, visited Ethiopia, he had promised Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed that his platform would facilitate Ethiopian goods and services to be sold on the online platform. However, this faced a setback owing to several reasons but primarily due to the global pandemic. However, recently the relevant government bodies including the Office of the Prime Minister and Ministry of Trade and Regional Integration have created a conducive environment in collaboration with Alibaba for the Ethiopian major export commodity, coffee, to be sold in different trading platforms of Alibaba. For the trial, selected companies have started selling their roasted beans through Alibaba’s trading platforms mainly on Taobao and Tmall.

Ethiopian Coffee Brands Launch on Alibaba Group

The Government of Ethiopia and ECA has joined efforts with China’s Largest e-Commerce Platform on Alibaba Group, to bring more quality African products to one of the largest markets in the world today — the Chinese online market. Through this partnership, the electronic World Trading Platform (eWTP) has successfully onboarded three Ethiopian coffee brands, namely Wild, Arada, and Hedero.

ECA, AntGroup from Alibaba Group, and the Ethiopian government exclusively featured freshly roasted authentic coffee produced by small and medium-sized Ethiopian businesses at a live stream event to promote the launch of new Ethiopian coffee products on Tmall Global. Using AntChain’s track and trace technology, all coffee on display was airlifted from Ethiopia; thus, guaranteeing a safe and transparent journey from departure to arrival.

The primary objective of the initiative is to leverage the infrastructure provided by the electronic World Trade Platform (e-WTP) in creating an enabling environment to promote e-commerce and tourism for African entrepreneurs, whilst bringing quality African products into the Chinese market.

The initiative is expected to enable other African countries to participate in and benefit from inclusive global trade. China-Africa trade was worth $192 bn in 2019, up from $185 bn in 2018. Ms. Songwe said:

“This trade initiative aims to ensure that Africa can bring back the balance of trade. We are delighted to work with the Government of Ethiopia on this real opportunity, to see how this partnership will continue to improve the livelihoods of citizens in Ethiopia, by offering an interoperable platform for trade.”

Eric Jing, Alibaba Group Director and Executive Chairman of AntGroup, said “Through coffee, we will build a bridge fostering China-Africa economic and trade cooperation, and stimulating economic recovery,” as he rallied the support of First Joint Promotion of Ethiopian Coffee and Cooperation on African Public Welfare.

“Success recorded in exporting Ethiopian coffee to China will provide a roadmap in leveraging the export potential for other ten African countries, where ECA is working this year, to provide more export potential from Africa to China,” said UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive of the ECA, Secretary Vera Songwe.

Arada roasted coffee sold out within seconds

According to Capital Ethiopia, the live-streaming online event that was held on Wednesday, January 19, the product of Arada Coffee which was established in 2016 as a value-added coffee producer and exporter sold within record durations for the volume of Chinese customers. Addis Belay, CEO, and founder of Arada Coffee said that his company and the other two local roasters had sent their trial product.

“For the upcoming Chinese New year market, the influencer’s team selected our coffee for promotion and in three weeks’ time we have shipped five tones or 12,000 bags of packed coffee through Ethiopian Airlines,”

He told Capital that 11,292 pieces of coffee that were in stock sold in about ten seconds. “The previous record was seen when Rwanda’s 3,000 bags of coffee sold in two minutes. Now our product sales speed surpassed the record seen in 2010.”

On his Twitter post-Teshome Toga, Ethiopian Ambassador to China who attended the live event said “Surprised that more than 11,000 bags (a single bag is one pound or 454 gram) of Ethiopian coffee in stock were sold in 5 seconds in Shanghai in a live-streaming online event where the most influential promoter, Li Jiaqi and I promoted Ethiopian coffee via Tmall Global platform.“

“This launch demonstrates the benefits that, not only Ethiopia, but Africa can reap in harnessing digitalization,” stated H.E Gebremeskel Chala, Minister of Trade and Regional Integration, Ethiopia.

Wu Peng, Director-General, Department of African Affairs at Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, tweeted that, Teshome Toga (Amb) participated in a live-streaming event and 11,000 bags of Ethiopian coffee were sold in 5 seconds. “From January to November 2021, China’s import of Ethiopian coffee has increased by 196 percent. In coming years, China will import more African agricultural products,” stated Wu Peng.

Addis disclosed that his coffee was sold at a promotional price with a 30 percent discount to that of its regular price. He said, “Even though we provided the product at discount; it is still 500 percent higher in value as compared to green coffee.”

He stressed that the current success is beyond value-adding that, “the incident promotes the country and Ethiopian coffee.” Addis, who previously was engaged in network engineering as his profession at one of the corporate companies in the US, said that starting from 2008 on his return to Ethiopia he engaged himself in agriculture, transport, and other investments. “I have a deep love for coffee but the coffee taste that I got from my parent’s home was not consistent with what I was having, and often I would carry the roasted coffee beans with me on my visits. It is for this reason that I embarked on the journey of producing high standard value-added coffee from the top quality beans that we provide to the world,” Addis said whilst he disclosed the reason for his entrepreneurial journey.

“I started the business as a responsibility to uplift our quality product for the international customers and to show that we can provide better, Ethiopians are drinking coffee and they also like to roast it by themselves which makes it difficult to crack such a strong culture.”

He added that despite this, his product has got acceptance on international markets like Germany, the US, and the Philippines, although the COVID 19 pandemic has totally crushed the market. “Now we are getting orders from Germany,” he said by adding the latest online sales is compensation for his tireless effort to promote value-added Ethiopian coffee.

A special donation for Ethiopian primary school students

The launch will set in motion a community project on Tmall Global whereby, for each bag of coffee sold, a special donation will be made to purchase school supplies for Ethiopian primary school students. H.E Gebremeskel Chala, Minister of Trade and Regional Integration for Ethiopia indicated that “through your purchases, support, and the power of e-commerce, the cooperation will benefit coffee farmers, SMEs and students in Ethiopia.”

First proposed by Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma in 2016, the eWTP has been recognized by the G20 and launched in China, Malaysia, Belgium, Rwanda, and Ethiopia. It is a private sector-led, multi-stakeholder initiative offering SMEs easier access to new markets via simple and straightforward regulations. It also offers training and support in areas such as e-commerce, logistics, financing, cloud computing, and mobile payments.

source Capital Ethiopia and ECA