Review: Innovation Made in China #1 - How Chinese innovations are shaping global e-commerce
Shortly after the Spring Festival, with the beginning of this important and very busy new year, we conducted our first online event together with Berlin Partner, the “Innovation Made in China” series #1, which was designed in particular to inform companies in Berlin about business and technology trends in China and to provide new impulses and inspiration. This time with the focus on the latest e-commerce development in China
After the greetings and the introduction of the BBDC services and offers for Berlin Companies, our “Berlin Ambassadors China”, Damian Maib and Tilman Lesche, who are very active in the eCommerce business in China, shared their insights about this industry with us. It has been a great experience and very informative knowledge sharing session.
Damian delivered very valuable first-hand learnings and advice regarding the e-commerce market entry processes of German companies in China and highlighted “six winning ingredients for German companies in the Chinese e-commerce sector” as well as “the 5 biggest trends” that are reshaping the Chinese e-commerce retailing market.
The huge sales potential and scalability in the Chinese e-commerce market not only gave rise to giant online platforms providers such as Alibaba, Tencent and JD, but also provided immense development capacities for individual influencers and traders. Here, Tilman Lesche is one outstanding example.
Especially the live streaming sector with a market volume of EUR 177 bn in 2020 and an expected CAGR of 58% including 2023 still offers a lot of opportunities, also for foreign brands.
According to Tilman Lesche, some of the most successful influencers (supported by a team) can generated even more sales per year than the largest shopping malls in Beijing or Shanghai. For example, the top KOL in China, Austin Li, has reached a sales volume of 167 million RMB with his Livestream on one day within 12 hours. Livestreaming sales activities, also called Live Commerce, can be extremely successful in China and could also emerge as the next trend in Europe.
However, success doesn’t come easy. According to Tilman, basic trust of viewers in the influencer (credibility) and her or his product selection, the right timing (trending product category), swift logistics and customer services as well as a lower product price compared to all other platforms are some of the key success factors.
Below, we also share some Do’s & Don’ts for e-commerce and Livestreaming which Tilman compiled for us. We hope that this information is helpful for everyone who wants to be active in this business.
We sincerely express our thanks to everyone who joined us during the event, and again to Berlin Partner, Damian and Tilman for setting up this event together with us. We are looking forward to more “Innovation Made in China” events coming up soon.
