Amid Flood of Traffic from China, UK Wine Site Responds with Chinese Version

decanterchina.com, click to enlarge

We recently pointed out figures from Analysis International which said that Chinese consumers are expected to buy $2 billion in wine, beer, and spirits from online e-commerce sites by 2012. Naturally there have been a number of companies springing up to capitalize on this trend, particularly online wine retailers.

Two weeks ago Chinese site Jiumei (aka WineNice.com recently revealed a series B funding round worth $15.8 million. And the week before that it was wine and spirits vendor Jiuxian.com which wrapped up series C funding worth almost 32 million.

Understandably, Western sellers also want a piece of the action, and as Jing Daily points out, Decanter.com doesn’t intend to be left out. Indeed the UK-based wine magazine notes that in May of this year, Chinese visitors to its website outnumbered visitors from both the UK and US, and now make up a third of its readership.

If that’s not a good reason to start a Chinese version of your site, then I’m not sure what is. And indeed, that’s what Decanter has done launching DecanterChina.com in both Chinese and English. The website isn’t outstanding, and I found it a little clumsy to navigate. Decanter China also may want to rethink using Flickr for their photo gallery, given that it’s blocked.

But thankfully Decanter has also taken to Sina Weibo as well, and plans to interact with fans there too.

The launch of the website coincides with Decanter’s Asia Wine Awards in Hong Kong this month.