Cross-Border E-commerce: Is Your Brand Ready to Enter China?

Cross-border e-commerce is a good opportunity for foreign brands to enter the Chinese market even without setting up a local business entity in China. However, is your brand ready to enter China market? Here are some free tools that can help you analyze your China entry strategies.

A friend of mine from Vancouver Canada was so excited to hear that cross-border e-commerce (#CBEC) is a good opportunity for foreign brands to enter the Chinese market even without setting up a local business entity in China.

Stacey is the Chief Scientific Formulator of Planet Earth Supplements (or #PES) which is a healthcare brand selling extremely good in North America and Europe. She told me that the health supplements, made with pure and natural ingredients, are planted on their own organic farms - probably the only natural supplement company in the world to develop products in such traditional way. She expressed strong confidence that natural herbal remedies should be well accepted by Chinese people.

A good product sells itself?

It is widely believed that merely making one’s brand available to China’s enormous consumer base will automatically translate into sales. This perception is often based on the outdated idea that the Chinese consumers are eager to buy any products simply because they are ‘Western’.

However, due to the advent of cross-border e-commerce, a large number of foreign merchants and brands have already entered China, creating an unprecedented competitiveness and over-saturation of foreign products in the Chinese online shopping.

I discussed with Stacey about the opportunities and risks of entering China, and I think it might be help if you are also interested in this.

Growth of Cross-Border E-commerce In China

Foreign companies are often tempted when presented with the figures about China’s quickly expanding consumer population, though the growth numbers only reflect a part of the reality of taking one’s business to China.

According to a study released by #eMarketer, the scale of China’s cross-border e-commerce retail sales was 110 billion USD in 2017. By 2020, 292 million Chinese online consumers will purchase goods from abroad, with sales expected to surpass 157 billion USD.

In emerging markets, especially with a huge domestic market such as China, a vastly growing middle class with increased exposure to the internet and foreign products, which are often considered of higher quality and status, the Chinese demand for overseas goods steadily increases every year.

Chinese consumers directly purchase from overseas websites or domestic online marketplaces, such as #Daigou (#代购）or #Haitao (#海淘）to purchase these foreign products that are often unavailable or e