Brand builders? Chinese health products distributor Ecmoho’s big plans following NASDAQ listing

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Ecmoho has helped firms amass 7.6 million users on major e-commerce and social-commerce platforms in China as of Q3 this year. © Getty Images

China company Ecmoho is looking to work with more supplements and functional foods brands, strengthen its offline distribution and increase repeat purchases after its publicly listing on NASDAQ.

The Shanghai-headquartered firm provides marketing and online distribution services for health and wellness products.

As of Q3 this year, it has amassed 7.6 million users on major e-commerce platforms JD, Tmall, as well as social-commerce platforms Pinduoduo, and Little Red Book.

Partnering with the likes of Abbott, Gerber, and Wyeth Nutrition, the firm has so far sourced around 5,500 SKUs of products from about 40 brands.

In response to queries from NutraIngredients-Asia, CEO Zoe Wang said following the NASDAQ listing, the firm has identified six key plans.

Of which, it aims to expand the product offerings and the types of services, strengthen its offline distribution, help Fortune Global 500 firms enter lower tier cities.

“We believe that going publicly listed will increase our level of transparency and raise investors’ confidence in us as a reliable partner,” Wang said.

Other plans include pursuing strategic cooperation, investment, and acquisition opportunities.

The company also aims to leverage on its market leadership in China’s non-medical online health space to further expand and improve the industry.

She pointed out that China’s non-medical health sector was experiencing swift growth but remained highly fragmented and involved multiple players.  

According to the company, sports nutrition, mother-and-infant nutrition, nourishing, beauty and anti-ageing are identified as the more popular categories.

It recently started working with infant formula firm BabyNes and Jiangzhong Food Therapy.

Moving forward, it hopes to work with new dietary supplement firms that can complement its existing offerings.

Encouraging repeated buys

The company has already in place a precision marketing system, which helped the average consumers’ repeated purchase rate increase by 35%. 

As such, the other plan that the firm has is to continue investing in consumer profiling and data analytics to boost repeated purchases.

“With China witnessing a consumption upgrade and the promotion of the ‘Healthy China’ policy, preventive medicine, an area which ECMOHO has been focusing on and is a leading player, has become the fastest growing market with the biggest potential,” Wang said.

IPO proceeds use

The company intends to use a large majority – over 80% of its IPO proceeds as working capital to expand its product and service offerings.

As part of the plan, Wang pointed out that the firm would deepen cooperation with existing brand partners, while working with new brand partners as well.