How to expand the Chinese e-commerce market？

China has been the world’s largest e-commerce consumer market for several years.

According to the monitoring data of e-commerce research center, as of July 9, 2018, China’s e-commerce (including B2B, B2C, cross-border e-commerce, O2O, e-commerce logistics) has listed a total of 48 enterprises.Among them, there are 8 B2B e-business, 13 B2C e-business, 9 cross-border e-business, 11 life service e-business and 7 e-commerce logistics.

Table of contents:

1.popular e-commerce platforms in China:

• Tmall (Alibaba)
• Taobao
• JD (partly Tencent)
• Wechat stores

2.some marketing promotion platforms in China

•  WeChat (Tencent)
•  Baidu
•  iQiyi
•  Youku

Here are some popular e-commerce platforms in China:

• Tmall (Alibaba):B2C e-commerce platforms

Tmall is the most important platform in China, but is especially reserved for the most successful players. In most cases, Tmall brands are rejected. Tmall only selects brands that already have a strong image, reputation and substantial sales from China.

• Taobao

A lot of small and medium-sized businesses can be found on this B2C platform. So if you start with a small business, then Taobao is a suitable platform to start with.

• JD (partly Tencent)

This is the second e-commerce platform of China. The advantage of JD is that it has a highly developed own logistics, which store owners can use for compensation. JD (formerly 360Buy) was initially a pure online retailer of electronics, but has expanded in recent years thanks to its fairly well supported and regulated marketplace. JD is comparable with Tmall and therefore also for the larger brands in the market.

• Wechat stores

Another effective alternative to these platforms is the use of WeChat Stores. The WeChat store is the best and most effective tool. These are stores hosted in this app and linked to an official account.

Forget about Google, Youtube and Facebook. In China there is an alternative for each channel. These are not simple copy-cats, despite having similar logos. These channels are smart and innovative ecosystems and are forerunners, both in functionality and design.

The following are some marketing promotion platforms in China:

• WeChat (Tencent)

WeChat started out similar to Whatsapp and is integral to the lives of many Chinese people. It is a mega app that contains various platforms such as online stores, forums, you can also pay with this app. If you are visible as a brand on one of these platforms, it is important to know that entering into personal interactions with the consumer is an important way to create brand preference.

• Baidu

Like Google, Baidu.com has a huge reach in China with 75% of all online search traffic. Baidu is a portal to China. As a company, you must be visible here with a quality site, landing page, content and references from third parties that are displayed when searching on the basis of Mandarin character keywords. A combination of SEA and SEO can yield a lot of quality traffic.

• iQiyi

Here you can stream video content such as documentaries and films. Last year iQiyi signed a collaboration with Netflix. These platforms are comparable, but have different revenue models – Netflix was built as a subscription model and iQiyi as an advertising model.

• Youku

Youku can best be compared with Youtube. It is a B2C and C2C platform where you can create channels and upload videos yourself. On this platform they use prerolls, which, unlike Youtube, are not skippable. It also offers the direct link with e-commerce. Advertisers can place their logo – only in their own video content – that link directly to Tmall or Taobao. The main difference between Youku and Youtube is the ‘see now buy now’ functionality. In the menu a link has been made with online stores. What you see in the video, you can purchase within the same window. Sina Weibo (Alibaba) is a combination of Twitter and Facebook where users can leave microblogs. Every day 100 million messages are left on Sina Weibo, thanks to the more than 500 million users.

The possibilities seem endless.But the downside of using Chinese platforms is that it is difficult to retrieve data from them to better understand the behavior of the target group.

Absolutely recommended to cooperate with digital agents in China.For example, working with Domatters, we help you gain an in-depth understanding of the Chinese market, conduct research and increase the chances of successfully launching a brand in China, and help you carry out various digital marketing activities.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact domatters!