China Post and Tom Group, the media conglomerate controlled by Li Ka-shing, aim to soon turn their joint venture into the mainland's pre-eminent e-commerce infrastructure services provider for online retailers.
'We are offering a unique value proposition to a lot of merchants,' Tom chief executive Ken Yeung Kwok-mung said. 'We're providing the entire infrastructure - e-commerce system, online and off-line store integration, distribution and logistics, as well as marketing and promotion - so that more merchants can participate in the mainland's growing online retail market.'
Beijing Ule E-Commerce, the venture that Tom and China Post set up in 2010, is working with two undisclosed major brands in pilot tests of what Yeung described as the firm's all-encompassing 'e-commerce infrastructure-as-a-service' offering.
'With the resources of China Post, Ule is capable of becoming the ultimate service provider for all e-commerce players on the mainland,' Yeung said.
The mainland postal service has a network of 46,000 post offices, 150,000 postal workers, 36,000 Postal Savings Bank branches, 56,000 delivery vehicles and 17 aircraft.
Tom is providing the information-technology system that runs Ule's e-commerce, which online merchants can plug into like a utility.
'We have a cloud-computing platform that a merchant can connect to over the internet and instantly set up an online retail operation,' Yeung said. 'It is like you're hooked up with a pipe that delivers everything you need to serve customers online.'