The Australian Wild Abalone supply chain education program is the direct result of Seafood CRC, FRDC and ACA investment over the past 5 years. While there has been significant progress there are several elements that need further research to support commercial roll out of the program. There is a need to gain more insight into the key decision makers and the factors that influence purchasing decisions within the
F&B sector in China and Hong Kong.

According to McKinsey and Co the trend in China now is to use social media platforms in lieu of formalised websites for both B2B and B2C communications and commercial transactions. Over the past three years the uptake of social media within China has been phenomenal (estimated 660million users accessing social media for an average of 4 hours per day). Understanding and utilising Chinese digital media will be a key marketing tactic in the future however very little is known about how best to use it. There are significant cultural and language barriers that need to be overcome so this project seeks to research, trail and evaluate two potential mechanisms to better understand how to incorporate Chinese digital media effectively into a marketing strategy.

The decision behaviour within the China based supply chain remains opaque beyond the importer and their immediate customers. There is a need to consolidate the relationships with the China and Hong Kong based importers and to work with them to penetrate deeper into the F&B sector, in particular to gain a better understanding of how and when purchasing decisions are made. The ways in which consumer behaviour influences those decisions also needs further investigation.

In addition there is a need to research the potential for the AWA program to be expanded into Japan and Singapore as an investment risk mitigation strategy.