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A screenshot of Yihaodian's milk promotion. Photo: SCMP Pictures

Milk flies off e-commerce shelves as site sets a new Guiness World Record

Shanghai's largest imported foods website sells 600,000 boxes of milk within one hour

Yihaodian, the largest imported foods website in Shanghai, set Guiness World Records this week by selling 30 containers, or 600,000 boxes of milk within one hour.
Yihaodian's logo. Photo: SCMP Pictures

The e-commerce site began selling varities of imported milk from Poland, Belgium, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, the United States and the United Kingdom at 10:00am on March 18. 

"We are very confident that through this event, we can provide customers with affordability and convenience and work together with them to create history," Yihaodian's promotion read.

The milk was promoted at half price and the sale was expected to take a full day to set a new world record. 

Yihaodian is the largest imported milk seller on the mainland. Photo: SCMP Pictures
But thanks to a sudden deluge of orders from netizens eager to take part in Guiness history, all 30 containers of imported milk were ordered by users by 10:53am - less than an hour after the sale's start. 

Prior to the end of the sale, Charles Wharton, Records Manager of Guinness World Records, said that he was "looking forward" to the challenge. 

"We believe that if this challenge is successful, it will be the best proof of China's growing purchasing power and economic condition," Wharton said. "It will also [be proof] of China's e-commerce miracle."

Yihaodian's sales of imported milk account for around 40 per cent of China's total, making the dealer the largest imported milk seller on the mainland.

The site is only one of several heavy contributors to China's thriving e-commerce sector, which is expected to deliver 2.8 trillion yuan (HK$4 trillion) in revenue by 2015.

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