Co.Media

Alibaba’s Single Day (November 11th) sales have become an annual event for Chinese of all ages, while cross-border e-retail companies bring Black Friday and Boxing Day discounts to China. In 2015, the transaction volume of e-commerce was US$3.8 trillion, almost 6 times higher than the same number of Black Friday weekend in U.S (US$655.8 billion).

Tmall, the B2C unit under China’s largest e-commerce company Alibaba Group, said it would offer over US$50 million worth of cash vouchers and encourage consumers to share gift coupons with friends to allow more participants at its annual shopping spree on Single Day this year.

Consumers will be encouraged to distribute their vouchers with friends through social networking, such as microblogging site Weibo and instant mobile app WeChat, therefore more people will receive the benefits immediately.

In addition to sales on Single Day, Alibaba Group finished the fiscal year on a very strong note. From March 2015 to March 2016, a shopping volume of US$485 billion was processed via Alibaba shops and platforms – several times what Amazon generated (US$137 billion in 2016).

The company also said it aims to double the capacity of its Internet servers to prepare for the large influx of visitors to its sites from both desktop PCs and mobile devices.

Last month, the online retail giant has now unveiled an even more ambitious plan to transform 10,000 mom-and-pop convenience stores across China into a vast network of Tmall.com brick-and-mortar outlets, where consumers can shop, pick up packages, make orders online, or even apply for and receive small loans.

Tmall aims to better connect brick-and-mortar stores with its online operation for a win-win strategy.

Tmall is making a huge aggressive progress to make consumers to engage with its online store. The link between social media and online stores keeps evolving fast, and it is necessary for its partnership to drive online business, but not the only one.

Just as Tmall mentioned, better aligning with brick-and-mortar stores is a high priority. This connection will be important for both Tmall and brand owners with a network of physical stores to boost their business productivity. Also, with more creative contents and marketing campaigns on promotion, it could arise a massive amounts of potential customers to stop by both online and offline stores.

If you’d like to see your business experience the same leap in success and go even further, let us know, we’ll help you get there.

The modern Chinese consumer seeks to invest in high quality products that improve their livelihood. In this regard “Made In the USA” has been the preference of choice. A U.S. brand with strong North American presence is the perfect candidate to reach a new level of success by strategically expanding into the Chinese market.

In the United States, Amazon.com is the tour de force of e-commerce. If your product shows up 1st in the search results with the highest ratings, your brand is guaranteed success with this model having catapulted numerous smaller brands into household names.

The 4+ star ratings are quite valuable in that they are a collective of “word-of-mouth” testimonials between consumer peers, the most valuable marketing there is.

The Chinese middle class seeks brands that hit on the above key points and with this subset of the national population projected to grow to over 550 million people by the year 2022, more than the entire current U.S. population, your brand can become a powerhouse overnight with exposure on the proper Chinese channels, such as Taobao (Iskyan) .

One U.S company that realized it could expand upon its local Amazon.com success and leap into China is Timeless Skin Care.

Their high-quality, natural skin-care products with competitive pricing are a hit on Amazon.com with over 31 products offered, most having hundreds of ratings over 4.5 stars.

Due to such high demand from Chinese consumers, Timeless has had to increase its staff from 1 to 20 and were featured at the Alibaba Gateway ’17 event in Detroit, MI, hosted by Alibaba founder, Jack Ma. (Timeless Skin Care Facebook)

In addition to Taobao, brands can increase awareness by creating company pages on Weibo and WeChat. Collaborating with Chinese Key Opinion Leaders on these sites who can promote the products as lifestyle enhancers is crucial in tapping into the millions of Chinese followers that seek to emulate the KOL’s.

If you’d like to see your business experience the same leap in success and go even further, let us know, we’ll help you get there.