How this Gold Coast millennial is using Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba to sell coconut oil to the world
BRYNLEY King is still pinching herself. The 25-year-old's family has made millions from an obscure but popular product.
Dana McCauley
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BRYNLEY King is still pinching herself.
The 25-year-old has seen the family business grow from a tiny operation in her Gold Coast garage to a multi-million dollar operation that has propelled her into an international coconut oil mogul.
Banaban Virgin Coconut Oil products can be found on department store, health food and supermarket shelves in Hong Kong, Germany, Poland, Malta, Hungary, Taiwan and even Mongolia - all thanks to Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.
Founded in 1999 by entrepreneur Jack Ma, Alibaba is now the largest retailer in the world and is poised to expand its presence in Australia with a branch in Melbourne opening later this year.
The company, whose debut on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014 marked the largest IPO in history, consists of e-commerce, cloud computing, payments, marketing, media and entertainment companies with a combined value of US$257 billion -Dollar.
Brynley King is taking the cooking world by storm.Image John Gass
Ms. King and her family quickly embraced Alibaba's business-to-business selling platform and are now turning over nearly $6 million a year selling to far-flung regions of the world.
"For us from the Gold Coast, I don't know how we would have ended up selling to a place like Mongolia," she said.
"How the hell did someone from Mongolia find us? It's just the power of Alibaba."
Banaban now produces more than 90 coconut food and personal care products, and overseas markets account for about 30 percent of sales.
After launching a mini-website on Alibaba.com three months ago, allowing potential retailers to easily find their products, the company recently secured a deal to supply a major Spanish supermarket chain.
"This is a major milestone in our business," said Ms. King. "We're pinching ourselves."
South Korea is next, with China and the United States on the horizon.
"ALL ON LINE"
Brynley King is taking the cooking world by storm.Image John Gass
Banaban started as an eBay store in 2004 when Ms. King was just 12 years old - long before coconut oil became the coveted product it is today.
"I was lucky that my mom was really tech savvy," she said.
"She knew Alibaba and said, 'We could wholesale to the world.' We just made the lists and said, 'Let's just see what happens.' It paid off."
Success was not assured, however, and family friends were amazed when Ms. King's parents announced they were going into the coconut business.
"My parents rescheduled their house and sacrificed everything on a whim," Ms. King said.
Mum Stacey King quit her company job to start the business with her husband Ken Sigrah, a Banaban Islander from Fiji.
"Everyone said to my mom, 'You're crazy, nobody knows what coconut oil is.' But they risked everything. Then one day it exploded and became so popular that our business changed overnight."
When a reporter held up a bottle of banana coconut oil in A Current Affair in 2011, sales went off the charts.
"We went from five orders a day to 200 - it was crazy," said Ms. King.
The company now employs 30 people, including seven Banaban Islanders on the coconut plantation in Fiji.
Ms King is herself a descendant of the phosphate miners who worked on the island of Banaba in the early 20th century when it was still part of the British Empire.
Her family started their coconut oil business with the aim of raising awareness of the plight of the Banaban islanders, who were evicted from their homes by the colonial authorities and resettled in Fiji.
"We're not just another coconut oil," said Ms. King.
FROM AUSTRALIA TO THE WORLD
Banaban is one of over a thousand Australian small and medium-sized companies using Alibaba to access global markets.
Chemist Warehouse was the first retailer on Tmall Global to sell just 46 minutes after midnight on March 11th after the start of sales.
"It exceeded our wildest expectations," said Chief Operating Officer Mario Tascone.
Alibaba is expanding its local operations and will open an office in Melbourne later this year, led by Maggie Zhou, employee number 48 at the company, which now employs more than 36,000 people worldwide.
Australian buyers will be most familiar with Aliexpress, an English-language eBay rival that sells everything from fast fashion to smartphone accessories, children's toys and camping gear.
But it's the business-to-business side of e-commerce where mom-and-dad entrepreneurs thrive.
Ms. Zhou's vision is for Australia to climb the rankings of Tmall Global, where it is currently the 5th largest selling country in the world with 1300 brands represented. It is already number two on Taobao Global, which named to the network of Chinese resellers Daigou accesses.
The most popular Australian products in China are baby products, skin care, fresh food, dietary supplements, grains, beef, dairy, natural skin care, organic products and sportswear, Ms. Zhou said.
She said using Daigou channels was useful because western traders had difficulty understanding the very different Chinese market - even those who spoke the language.
"These resellers have their own loyal customers and know what consumers want," said Ms. Zhou.
Tmall global is best suited for established brands, while Alibaba.com gives manufacturers of lesser-known products access to wholesale markets.
dana.mccauley@news.com.au
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