Best of British back in fashion

The recent Queen’s diamond jubilee celebrations and a summer full of sporting events like the Olympics are driving up demand for goods associated with “Cool Britannia”. According to China-based online marketplace Alibaba.com, its website experienced a year-on-year increase of 2,450 percent in global searches for diamond jubilee memorabilia and a 321 percent year-on-year rise in global searches for Queen Elizabeth-related paraphernalia.

The research also indicates that people all around the world are developing an appetite for British biscuits, cakes and pastries, with searches for British baked goods soaring 17 percent year-on-year on the Alibaba marketplace.

In addition, as the UK prepares for many sporting events this summer, small businesses around the world are sourcing merchandise related to British sports. The Alibaba.com report shows that there has been a dramatic increase in global online searches for English football merchandise, rising by 800 percent year on year, with the most popular searches being for English football shirts, badges and mobile-phone cases. Global online searches for cricket-related products have also seen a rise of 286 percent with English willow cricket bats being one of the most common search terms. India (20 percent), Pakistan (15 percent), UK (15 percent) and USA (11 percent) were the nations that searched the most for cricket goods.

Overall, customers from the US searched for more British goods than any other country with a 35 percent share of all searches in the past year, followed by the UK (33 percent), China (18 percent), India (7 percent) and Canada (7 percent).