The e-commerce environment in China is plentiful of tools and platforms to help you start and manage your business here. You have already found your way to sell your product in China (maybe through Tmall or JD.com ?)but it is lacking in communication and you want to improve it? Among the huge number of competitors in China, you have to ensure two things to succeed in China: the first one is your visibility and the second one is your brand reputation. This article will give you 5 tools to improve your e-commerce business in China.
1 – Leverage Chinese Social Media Apps
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Chinese Social Media Apps are great content-sharing tools and are very useful to complete your e-commerce activities. By presenting your products to your consumer on Chinese social media, you can interact with them so build a relationship based on trust. Chinese consumers like products from abroad but they won’t purchase them if they had never heard about your brand or have no information about your product.
Digital tool 1: Xiaohongshu
Xiaohongshu or little red book is a good example to show the link between social media platforms and eCommerce activities. Red is an app well known (and very popular) for its useful content-sharing platform. It provides consumers with purchasing advice, products presentation, and feedbacks. It gives useful information such as the address where you can find the product presented, their price, their different models (if there is), etc. The little red book also includes in its platform an e-commerce section, there isn’t, for now, a great range of available products like on Tmall, JD.com, or Taobao, but it allows sometimes consumers to buy their needs right after they have read an article on Little red book.
Digital tool 2: Weibo
Weibo is the most used microblogging website (and app) in China. Chinese netizens are very connected to this platform, following the latest news online. A lot of Chinese internet celebrities (called 网红) also own their eCommerce business. In daily life, they interact with their followers through sharing a photo or their activities. When they are launching some new collection, they share the product’s presentation with their followers, with the link to their Taobao shop (most of the time)
To use video streaming and video apps in China is crucial
Videos & live streaming are the most popular marketing tool of the moment in China. Chinese people use their free time to surf on internet and video became very convenient as they can watch it and do other things at the same time. However, not all the videos are concerned, only the short ones which last for an average of 15 seconds to 1 minute. These ones, often based on funny or surprising content are more entertaining and thus raise their sharing on social networks.
Digital tool 3: Douyin
Douyin is the hottest app in China for the moment. It is a platform for fun mini-videos, users can create themselves and upload on the app or they can film directly through the app, based on its BGM (background music). While in the beginning, Douyin is considered only as an entertainment application, now it also influences a lot of business. For example, Peppa pig, a cartoon character, has become very hot through the application. Read this article to get more information about how a cartoon pig was spread on Chinese social networks. Anyway, after Peppa pig got hot, all the stuff related to her (she is in fact a female pig) sells well.
Digital tool 4: Meipai
Meipai is another video app in China, which was very popular before Douyin has taken the ground. Videos on Meipai are a little bit longer than on Douyin. Meipai美拍 literarily means “beauty shoot” and the app provides its users to make beautiful videos with simple tools. A lot of persons on Meipai became KOL (Key opinion leader), posting their creation on its platform, increasing their number of followers. They often lead or influence the taste of young Chinese consumers. Longer videos also enable them to add promotion inside, explaining and presenting some products more precisely.
To use communication App
Nowadays in China, you need to have an online presence to reach your Chinese consumers because they are spending most of their time online. Not only to follow the news but also to search for information on Companies. A lot of brands, even luxury brands, settled their Wechat Official Account, in order to provide their consumers a way to get information. We can say that Wechat is like a window of the official website.
Digital tool 5: Wechat
Wechat is a communication app, which gives you the possibility to interact with your target consumer in a way more friendly and more effective than emailing or calling. Chinese people are accustomed to this app. Even WeChat is also considered as a social media app, I choose to talk about it specifically because its ecosystem is offering a lot of functions.
- You can alert your contact on Wechat about the release of new products through a Wechat group message, through a Wechat post, or through a Wechat Moments (like a post on Facebook). It depends on what type of Wechat account you choose to leverage.
- It is also possible to add a WeChat shop or to do transactions without a platform (allowed by the Wechat Pay system). Otherwise, you can guide your customers to your eCommerce store, by putting your store link in your message.
Learn How to Sell on Wechat as a Foreign brand in China
Chinese consumers are more willing to purchase online because of the convenience and the greater range of available items on e-commerce platforms. Nowadays, Chinese consumers have a huge appetite for foreign products and e-commerce platforms have become the channels of choices for Chinese shoppers looking to purchase such items.
Digital Way 6: GMA, your digital marketing agency
Our agency offers a complete range of services for e-commerce marketers from e-commerce consulting to digital marketing operations. We have developed many successful e-commerce projects because we know how to effectively promote your e-commerce business in China by using the latest digital tools.
At this stage of development, China has a lot of booming industries. This is a promising and huge market with its own culture and way to function. Want to start a business in China? Do not hesitate to contact us. Gentlemen Marketing Agency is specialized in digital marketing in the Chinese market.
