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Chinese E-Commerce Plateforms eCommerce Marketing TaoBao

Ecommerce Chinois et ses changements

Une nouvelle loi d’ecommerce en Chine a pris effet dès le 1er Janvier 2019 renforçant les contrôles sur le marché du luxe en ligne en Chine. Si ces nouvelles régulations sont plutôt favorables, elles vont certainement changer le fonctionnement des marques en Chine.

La loi augmente la limite pour l’exonération d’impôts sur les achats en cross-border. En effet, la limite d’achat unique pour une personne augmente de $288 (RMB 2000) à $720 (RMB 5000) et le montant annuel augmente de $2900 (RMB 20 000) à $3780 (RMB 26 000). Les achats cross-border sous les nouvelles limites d’achats seront exclus de la taxe d’importation et recevront 30% de réduction sur les impôts liés à la consommation et la TVA.

Comment ces changements vont-ils se traduire pour le e-commerce shopping in China ? Comment les marques peuvent-elles s’adapter ?

Les plateformes d’ecommerce sont des gardiens

cross border ecommerce buyers china

L’un des principaux objectifs de cette nouvelle loi du ecommerce est de rendre le commerce cross-border plus homogène. Le gouvernement Chinois a demandé aux plateformes d’ecommerce Chinois de renforcer les mesures d’entrées, avec plus de vérifications et de conditions afin de limiter le plus possible les activités frauduleuses (ex. Daigou).

Les Daigou sont des individuels, voyageant à l’étranger, qui achètent de nombreux produits de luxe, pour ensuite les revendre en ligne à un prix plus intéressant que le prix local Chinois de la marque.

Dans le passé, les faussaires sur les sites d’ecommerce étaient les seuls tenus responsables pour imiter les biens, à présent, les plateformes vont partager cette responsabilité. Si une plateforme ne parvient pas à identifier et arrêter le faussaire par elle-même, elle paraît être confrontée à une pénalité allant jusqu’à 2 millions de RMB, d’après Xinhua News.

Les sites d’ecommerce plus larges sont déjà préparés pour ces changements avec des protocoles demandant aux consommateurs de donner leur accord que les produits achetés sont uniquement pour leur propre usage et non la revente.

Le but est de simplifier la tâche au gouvernement Chinois pour identifier et collecter des preuves contre les daigou et les fraudeurs fiscaux.

Dans les faits, cela va permettre de réduire le nombre d’online stores sur les différentes plateformes donc moins de compétition.

Le Social E-commerce va se populariser

Les mesures répressives contre les Daigou seront bénéfiques pour les marques en Chine sur le long terme car elles seront en mesure d’avoir une meilleure image, plus d’authenticité mais aussi de couper les moyens d’acheter des marques en-dehors des canaux autorisés.

De plus en plus de plateformes ecommerce vont avoir recours à des KOLs (Key Opinion Leader) et à leur fanbase pour la commercialisation de produits. L’avis de ces personnes d’influences sera un véritable facteur de vente.

Taobao, la plateforme d’Alibaba, est déjà un pionnier vers le social e-commerce grâce à son rachat de Little Red Book (Xiao Hong Shu). En effet, les vendeurs sur Taobao ont la possibilité d’accepter les avis sur leurs pages produits. Cet ajout a grandement encouragé les achats sur la plateforme.

Little Red Book est un acteur indispensable pour les avis lorsque les consommateurs chinois veulent acheter des produits étrangers de luxe car ils peuvent bénéficier d’un avis expert.

WeChat avec sa fonction « Recherche » et l’accès à JD est également un pas en avant pour les utilisateurs. Le contenu mis en avant sur WeChat, Little Red Book devient plus orienté vers la vente de produits plutôt que de créer du trafic vers des marques.

 

En conclusion, cette nouvelle loi est jugée bonne pour tous les partis : le consommateur, les impôts, les marques avec des règles communes pour chacun.

Cependant, cela va accentuer la compétition entre les marques en même temps. Les consommateurs chinois sont habitués à avoir de nombreuses informations sur leurs produits mais aussi des garanties d’authenticité. Ils vont se concentrer de plus en plus à acheter des produits de luxe en Chine pour bénéficier des avantages fiscaux mentionnés plus haut tout en attendant plus de la part des marques.

Il est, actuellement, difficile de rentrer sur le marché Chinois mais il deviendra de plus en plus difficile d’y entrer et d’y rester surtout en cross-border.

 

Source image: Alizila.
Categories
Apps platforms WeChat

WeChat Mini-Programs: 5 Key Insights

WeChat Mini-Programs, despite existing for a while now, became a thing in 2018. We saw thousands of new Mini-Programs being developed and shared by brands for the main use or for games and specific events.

They are easier, faster, cheaper and lighter (size file) for brands to release. Nowadays, it’s rare to see a brand without its own WeChat Mini-Program. It’s a key attraction point for consumers: have fun with us, buy with us!

A new survey co-conducted by Tencent Research & Development and by Chinese Research Agency Kueclub (酷鹅研究院) details the use of Wechat Mini-Programs by Chinese consumers and what are the effects on brands.

8 000 Mini-Programs users were surveyed. 40% think Mini-Programs will replace traditional Apps on the long-term and 70% are favorable to the development of Mini-Programs within WeChat.

5 Key takeaways from the survey:

1 viagra générique en ligne belgique. Encourage users to stay within a mini-program

2. Difficulty to find Mini-Programs and limited use

3. Group coupons and discounts within Wechat facilitate and encourage users to shop

4. Focus on functionality and entertainment Mini-Programs

5. Identify a user’s genuine interest: financial benefits for downloading Apps have low retention rates

New developments?

TENCENT announced in their last report a new scoring system for their WeChat Mini-Programs and an “Outstanding Mini Programs Initiative” to facilitate the access and use of these by WeChat users.

Developers of Mini-Programs will also benefit from more advanced tools, new APIs and enhanced cloud services to pursue the development WeChat Mini-Programs.

In Conclusion

WeChat Mini-Programs are slowly, but surely, taking over Apps downloads on both iOS and Android systems. There are no limits with both systems as WeChat operates freely on both. TENCENT is accessing, understanding and answering their customers’ needs before anyone else.

What kinds of Mini-Programs do you use? Are you still using apps that you could use in WeChat Mini-Programs?

Image credits: Le Wagon 
Categories
Marketing

Between Tradition and Modernism for Brand Strategy in China

Brand strategy in China recommendation: Are traditions still playing a huge role in China? What are the DO and DONT’s? 

tradition and modernism in China

Traditions in China

Traditions in China still play a huge role in people’s lives. They have been existing for centuries and got passed down from one generation to another.

What we call traditions goes beyond a simple behavior. They also include history, traditional buildings (for whose still existing and being rebuilt), language (traditional and simplified characters) and culture.

China exists today thanks to their long-lasting history and it’s an essential part of them.

While traditions are important, so is the future in consumers’ eyes.

 

Chinese consumers

DO in your brand Strategy

China is a vast market and so is the type of Chinese consumers there.

They all have one thing in common: love and pride for their country.

It is foolish to think that Chinese consumers don’t know you are trying to target them and making advances to them every time you are releasing a new product. They love to remind foreign brands a single misstep can cost a lot: say goodbye to the 元 or at least make them suffer lower sales.

Here are two main recommendations to take into account your brand strategy in China:

  • Yes, China has a great and long history! But it also has a powerful present and future to pay homage to. All the heads of Chinese people and government are turned towards the future. Follow in the same direction, don’t stay stuck in the past.
  • Collaborate and collaborate. Nobody knows better China, Chinese culture and Chinese history than a Chinese person. There are so many Chinese artists (Painters, KOLs, Superstars…) out there to help you to touch Chinese people with your brand.

We can see a lot of brands currently use celebrities in their marketing strategies. Celebrities have the power to influence sales on the short-term. You also can influence your sales by creating a story with your brand.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

  1. What’s left of your brand image once your collaboration with a celebrity ends?
  2. Are you simply that foreign brand who collaborates with celebrities? Or are you a brand telling a story to its Chinese consumers?

Palace Museum

It all started from a Wechat announcing the released of the new lipstick collection called Palace Museum. Keys to the success are:

  1. The brand is local, from Beijing – Bloomage Biotechnology Corp. Ltd.
  2. Inspired by the Palace Museum (Chinese history)
  3. Used traditional elements into today’s age products
  4. Respect of Chinese style without clichés

One WeChat user comments: “It’s impressive to see Chinese style done right. The colours are trendy … I am excited to get more home-grown brands.”

While the products are already sold out and receive countless praises, a lot of users also commented that they do not trust fully the quality of the lipsticks and need to be careful with what is made.

DONT for your brand in China

We saw above the DO in China. It’s time to go over the major DONT that most foreign brands go across.

  • Recognition of the growing sensitivity to Chinese consumer abuse.
  • Being a foreign brand is not a free-pass for Chinese consumers.

As mentioned earlier, Chinese consumers are not fools. They are aware you are here to target them to sale. They will pay extra attention to everything you do: your brand image, your products, your marketing, incidents in stores… and one single misstep can lead to a boycott partial or total.

Let’s say that will give you the first warning for one incident but you won’t have a second and third warning (especially if they are about similar issues).

Being a foreign brand comes with a double-edge: it can help your sales at first but they will scrutinize you the whole time.

Moreover, the younger generation has been exposed to foreign brands their whole lives. Being “foreign” is no longer a selling point for them. You can be replaced easily by another foreign brand or better, they will buy local, China.

DOLCE&GABBANA

There is no better example than DOLCE&GABBANA to explain the two points above.

The First Incident

This picture is from a campaign DOLCE&GABBANA made in Beijing in 2017. This campaign consists of showing Chinese models with locals dressed casually in the street.

These pictures were heavily criticized by Chinese netizens for not representing the reality, the clothes’ design and more importantly not showing important and good features of Beijing. Besides undermining the rising image of China.

Such comments as below were left:

  • “Isn’t this an insult to China? Why don’t they go to places like Sanlitun and Guomao instead? Why do they go find an old uncle that collects garbage to be part of their photo shoot?”
  • “This is not Beijing.”
  • “Chinese people don’t like this kind of clothing that show many different colors on it at once”
  • “I don’t like it, there is no culture on display”

With this campaign, Dolce&Gabbana ignored the concept of “Face” in China. Always putting a good face is primordial even in difficult situations. Ironically this campaign is part of “DG loves China”.

The Second and Last Incident

dolce&gabbana latest chinese campaign

Moving on to the last controversy created by Dolce&Gabbana.

The picture on the left is from one of the videos that the brand released showing a Chinese model trying to eat Italian dishes with chopsticks and.. struggling.

These videos are “straight racist and a terrible insult to Chinese people and culture” in the eyes of Chinese consumers worldwide.

Furthermore, to add fuel to the fire, screenshots of a conversation between one of the brand’s main designer and a person spread where he openly calls “China the country of poop” and he “doesn’t care”.

The brand’s designers apologized in a video a few days later. The damage was already done and their excuse was seen unconvinceable and insincere. All the Chinese models and celebrities endorsing the brand pulled off their contract and affirmed never buying the brand again. Non-celebrities appraised them and followed.

Such comments were left by celebrities and the Chinese Youth Party:

  • “foreign companies must show “respect to Chinese people” if they want to invest in China” (China’s Communist Youth League)
  • “The motherland is above everything. We are deeply proud and confident about Chinese culture and spiritual aesthetics.”
  • “We don’t care for Italian food cause it tastes like sh-t.”

 

DOLCE&GABBANA’s missteps in their brand strategy in China concludes this article. They are not the only ones: BALENCIAGA also received the first warning last April 2017 for the incident at one of their stores in Paris.

The main conclusion to this article is to not fall into clichés about a country where you wish to do business. China is much more than red lanterns and chopsticks: if a brand really wants to succeed in China, it needs to understand the country and its culture. This advice is also applicable to individuals.

Have you already tried to use these recommendations for your brand strategy in China? Comment below further advice for foreign brands doing business in China.

Image copyright: Audrey Yu