Oftentimes, when looking for new trends, many people tend to look to the west. However, when it comes to e-commerce, one should definitely look eastwards.
– When people ask me why I live in China, I usually turn it around and ask why they have not come here yet, says Filippa Bätjer, a Sweden-born digital marketing specialist now residing in China.
When it comes to everything digital, including marketing, China is many years ahead of the West. There are several reasons for this. Partly, it’s the economic super-growth that created an affluent middle class in China in just one generation, and partly it’s because this coincided with smartphones becoming popular. When all these millions of people wanted to buy gadgets and status, there was no retail market that could sell these to them, neither in physical stores nor online. Instead, creative tech startups were the ones that saw the opportunities with new technologies. This has resulted in China leapfrogging laptops and web shops. “In China no one uses a computer, but people of all ages use smartphones for everything”, says Filippa Bätjer.
“Chinese consumers are not passive recipients of advertising, but instead, ad content here is much more engaging and entertaining. WeChat, also called “China’s app for everything”, really is used for everything and is the primary channel for all e-commerce and marketing today, along with the other major social platforms. Live streaming is very popular, as are QR codes that form the basis of many campaigns and help to tie together the physical and digital world.
This new technology, new behaviors, and new ways of communicating with target groups in China will soon also spread to western countries. Thus, if you want to be successful there in the future, you should observe and learn from what is happening in China today.
Filippa Bätjer has three tips for how to get insight from China:
- Turn towards China. Realize that the future has already arrived there. Make a habit of looking east for new trends.
- Get to know China. Learn more about how Chinese digital platforms work and what the Chinese consumer mindset is all about. Behavior and culture are key to understanding Chinese retail and marketing.
- Go to China. Many people wanting to sell in China or take advantage of the opportunities here have never been in the country. They barely know how Chinese marketing works, and for example how popular QR codes and livestreams are.
Thus, it’s important to get involved, do your homework and then it will be easier to sell to Chinese consumers and be well prepared when these trends are embraced also by the western world.
Malin Herzig, Business Development, Direct Link
Source: DM Magasinet (in Swedish, pdf)
