Thorne China Successfully Launches on Tmall with a Pattern Partnership
Welcome to our blog series called, “Why Brands Work With Pattern.” Each week we discuss why the top brands in ecommerce turn to Pattern to drive global, profitable growth and control. This week we are highlighting Thorne who with Pattern's team of ecommerce experts, successfully launched on Tmall. See what we accomplished together below.
Why Thorne worked with Pattern: Competitive and challenging vitamin and supplement industry in China, no brand awareness in China
The vitamins and supplements category is very popular in China, but also highly competitive. Thorne did not have any brand awareness as it had no official stockists in the country. Thorne also wanted to launch on Tmall quickly, ideally before the peak trading period around Double 11; but did not expect to have built enough awareness to be able to participate with a formal Singles’ Day promotion sanctioned by the marketplace.
What Thorne and Pattern accomplished together:
Pattern developed a 3 part strategy:
- Navigating Chinese vitamin and supplement regulations
- Producing high quality product content
- Training customer service agents
This strategy would allow for Thorne to successfully launch on Tmall.
3 strategic pillars that helped them grow
1. Navigating Chinese vitamin and supplement regulations
The Chinese government has placed very strict regulations on the vitamin and supplement industry and it can be very hard to navigate without proper experience. Pattern provides this and helped Thorne to make sure their products went through the proper testing and met local standards so they would not face any legal issues during the launch.
2. Producing high quality product content
Next, Pattern and Thorne worked to make sure the Tmall store was created to a very high standard, with much time and effort put into the product content, as the content and product descriptions are designed to give Chinese customers peace of mind that they are buying from a highly-regarded Western brand.
3. Training customer service agents
In China, customers value interacting with brands they are interested in buying from so it was important that Pattern and Thorne put quality customer service agents in place. Customer service agents were given particular training so they understand the products and can help advise customers using Tmall’s Live Chat feature.
Results
Because of the hard work that Pattern and Thorne put in to get this store together, Thorne had a very successful launch on Tmall. Thorne's Tmall Global store has had sales from its first day of trading, despite the lack of brand awareness, and we have doubled sales projections based on the performance from its first couple of weeks of sales. Thorne has now been invited to officially participate in Double 11, with a promotion agreed by Tmall, as the marketplace was impressed with its initial sales performance.
One team: Pattern & Thorne
After developing a strategy centered around these 3 pillars: navigating Chinese vitamin and supplement regulations, producing high quality product content, and training customer service agents, Pattern helped Thorne launch successfully on Tmall. Working together in an aligned fashion with the Thorne’s team helped us achieve these results together.
Partner obsession is in our DNA—we win when our partners win. If you are facing similar ecommerce challenges, Pattern can help. Our global platform and services don’t cost you anything—that’s right, $0 out of your pocket. Schedule a demonstration of the Pattern platform and services here to learn more.