New Zealand Post is facilitating talks between New Zealand companies and the Chinese online giant Alibaba in a bid to get a foothold in the delivery of goods.
The postal operator says it is looking to open up trade lanes to New Zealanders shopping online and to New Zealand companies selling overseas.
Alibaba accounted for 80 percent of all of China's online shopping last year, clocking up more transactions than Amazon and eBay combined, and is likely to list on the New York stock exchange shortly.
A business and development team from Alibaba will be in New Zealand next week.
New Zealand Post chief operating officer of mail and communications, Ashley Smout, said e-commerce was booming and the postal operator had a great opportunity to participate in that.
He said Alibaba was an extremely well known business in China and its business-to-consumer website Tmall which had nearly 300 million registered users.
Mr Smout said New Zealand Post was using its connections to Alibaba to host a visit to New Zealand and meeting up with more than 150 companies to introduce them to the opportunity to access the market via Alibaba.
Mr Smout said he expected to see revenue uplift from the move in the 2015 financial year.
