Alibaba offered the tech world a double-whammy in the last fortnight, first with the ceremonial passing of the torch from chairman Jack Ma in a heartfelt open letter, then with the unexpected signing of a joint venture arrangement with Russia’s leading tech player a week afterwards. The deal...
China’s economy has been on the rise for decades. Improved living standards, a growing interest in tourism and relaxed travel regulations for Chinese citizens has led to a huge rise in the number of outbound Chinese tourists. As of November 2017, 120 million Chinese citizens hold passports which i...
While most of you are using Amazon and eBay, people in China are shopping on sites and apps like Tmall, Taobao, JD, Suning, Kaola, VIP.com, and the very popular new kid on the block, Xiaohongshu. Xiaohongshu (小红书), or Little Red Book, first came to my at...
Any foreigner trying to navigate Taobao for the first time will agree that online retail in China is a world of its own. Where technologies such as mobile payments and live-streaming shopping are still finding their feet in Western markets, they have become integral to the Chinese shopping experienc...
While the majority of luxury brands operating in China have opened WeChat Official Accounts, many of them are still reluctant to run their businesses entirely on WeChat, instead opting to drive their subscribers to external websites and e-commerce platforms. In this article, we’ve summarized som...
One of the biggest issues brands encounter when entering China is that they grossly underestimate the budget needed for an effective marketing strategy. Without sufficient funding and/or incorrect budget allocation, they flounder, and fail to gain traction. Why is this such a common problem? Po...
If you want to tap into China's e-commerce market, the first thing you need to know about are the online shopping festivals. You may have heard of Alibaba’s very successful Double 11 Shopping Festival, which is two and a half times bigger than Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined. But that’s n...
China is leading the globe’s cashless trend with its ubiquitous mobile payments. According to Xinhua, the mobile payment market reached RMB 81 trillion (US$12.77 trillion) as of October 2017. Tencent’s WeChat Pay and Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial’s Alipay account for 90% of the industry. The...
China has long been perceived as a “nation of copycats,” where the shanzhaimentality reigned supreme, but, while pirating still goes on there, China has already moved on to the next phase of its development. The same has happened with WeChat. What started out as a Chinese copy of Whatsapp has...
ALIBABA founder Jack Ma brought up the concept of New Retail at the 7th Alibaba Computing Conference 2016. New Retail aims to merge online and offline retail, and use adequate information and Big Data technology to enhance customers’ shopping experience. New Retail – backed by technology and Big...
At Alibaba’s 2016 Computing Conference, Jack Ma focused his speech on five areas that are being transformed by technology. The list included new finance, new manufacturing, new technology and new energy with new retail at the center. Alibaba wants to use data and technology to transform retail, in...
There is no denying that social media is the best way to approach target customers and raise brand awareness in China, as the country has an extraordinarily high mobile device penetration rate. With new social media products and programmes constantly appearing, 2017 witnessed countless innovat...
Today, more than ever, it’s the community that sells. In a little more than ten years, sneaker blog Hypebeast evolved into a publicly traded e-commerce platform. Liketoknow.it, an app for identifying, discussing and buying influencers’ looks, saw $1billion in sales last year. Chanel&nb...
Alibaba is playing a key role changing the face of retail in China and, probably, the rest of the world. During November’s Double 11 Global Shopping Festival, or Single’s Day, Alibaba set a record in total gross merchandise volumes. A more connected retail experience between online and offl...
Recently I saw a guy filming himself with his phone while crossing the street in China. It seemed like he was Facetiming with a friend. But he was actually doing a livestream, an extremely popular hobby for young people in China. China is way ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to embracing...
Sina Weibo, one of the most popular social media sites in China, released its Q4 2017 financial report on February 13th. Let’s look at the key highlights. 1. Steadily growing active users By the end of 2017, Weibo reported 392 million monthly active users (MAU) and 172 million daily active users...
As the second largest economic entity in the world, China is still a relatively unexplored market for many foreign brands. Given the differentiation between Western and Chinese social media ecosystems, many may ask how to approach target audience efficiently within shortest time in China? The power...
You know that WeChat is a powerful channel to market your business and even sell your products. But what else? Some official WeChat accounts are also great sources of information about digital marketing in China. Plenty of WeChat accounts regularly publish informative articles so WeChat is also the...
Wang Sicong, an outspoken blogger and the son of a Chinese billionaire, published a post on Weibo early January, inviting his followers to download a quiz game app called Chongdingdahui (冲顶大会). Since then, live quiz apps have been dominating the mobile apps market in China, with the launch o...
Global market research company Nielsen recently released a report entitled What’s Next for China’s Connected Consumers – A Roadmap for Driving Digital Demand, which reveals how connected devices and digital platforms have led to a consumption boom in China. It helps brands understand consumer...
China’s most popular social media app has always limited its posts’ visibility to the sharer’s friends, or an official account’s followers. While this closed ecosystem limits the potential for content to go viral, it has been an asset for the app’s parent company, Tencent, and for use...