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Chinese businesses are facing immense resistance from all over the world. Especially many countries are looking to prepare their alternatives for manufacturing or countries that can produce quality compared to China. They are now stringently cutting down the imports from this country.

What is Cross Border eCommerce?

Cross Border eCommerce involves the import and export of either B2B or B2C products across borders through e-commerce methods. The trend of China Cross Border eCommerce is increasingly seen in the recent past from around 2016. And now the corona pandemic and USA-China fight have just boosted it.

What are consumers buying on CBEC?

China is not just a top manufacturer; it is a top buyer too. Chinese consumers are more increasingly purchasing from foreign countries. This looks to have two reasons behind:

•  The Chinese earning power has boosted and they are ready to shell on costlier products and believe that foreign brands are more quality-oriented compared to the natively manufactured ones.

•  Secondly, the Chinese have been fed up with various scams in their own country which have occurred in the fields of manufacturing of products related to cosmetics, baby foods, and products. Thus, the average Chinese customer’s look now has shifted to foreign products.

Besides, as per the rules of CBEC foreign retailers and manufacturers have to disclose all the specifications and ingredients used in the making of a product. This is what driving trust in Chinese consumers to buy foreign products with confidence.

Now, are only imports gained momentum through China Cross Border eCommerce?

Not really.

Exports through China Cross Border eCommerce

China has revamped its CBEC strategy by adding new pilot zones for the same. Besides, it also expanded its list of products for cross-border eCommerce thus boosting this sector more. This means, the country has now fully understood the power of CBEC and is all geared up to exploit it to the fullest.

Why?

The corona pandemic has hit retailers as much as consumers. Besides, market watchers opine that it may take many months or not surprisingly years too for brick and mortar shops to get back their previous sheen. On the other hand, it is e-commerce that is witnessing a rising trend.

Both the Chinese as well as the global customers are now keen on purchasing via online trade from China. Notably, US customers are ready to purchase good quality products from China via cross border commerce. This trend will increase as per the experts, in the next five years.

Cross Border eCommerce – An opportunity

China is planning to give its retail and small businesses a boost by adding more pilot zones for cross-border e-Commerce. As a part of this, it is looking at cross border logistics, billing, and payment processes, and supply chain methodologies. The country is confident that this will boost its small and medium-sized companies and encourage more entrepreneurs in the coming times.

The Ministries here are especially focusing on methods to boos their exports through CBEC. They are planning to include more and more products into the CBEC eligibility kitty that can provide a higher profit margin when exported through e-commerce.

What is the future?

China has taken to cross border eCommerce as part of the revamping strategy of its manufacturing and retail business. This has further widened the products that are eligible to reach global customers from its mainland.

This trend is now adding more energy to China-based e-commerce websites such as Kaola.com, T-mall Cross Border, Xiahongshu, Yangmatou, We Chat store and many others.

The shopping trends via these portals reveal interesting statistics. Most shoppers who prefer cross border e-commerce products are male in the age group of 30 years. This is proof that the Chinese are now able to spend more on their lifestyle and are ready to shell out more dollars to provide quality products to themselves and their families.

Conclusion

The trend of China Cross Border eCommerce is here to stay and rise. It is the time for business expansion in China and focuses on attaining the attention of global customers through cross border eCommerce. Also, the country’s eCommerce policies are just boosting the spirits of enthusiast cross border traders, which means this is like a time now or never for business expansion through cross border e-commerce in China.

China’s government has made tight control and restrictions on selling foreign goods to Chinese customers to protect its domestic market. Mostly the information to sell to China online and the legal process are in Chinese; therefore, most of the investors aren’t aware of the basic requirements needed to sell in China.

Get Selling In China

Chian e-commerce industry is one of the largest e-commerce markets. 40% of the world’s e-commerce transactions currently taking place in China. Before your products sell to China, first familiarize yourself with the Chinese digital market. Selecting a few of the most suitable Chinese channels to market and sell your goods to Chinese customers is key to ensuring your investment wisely. Here are a few options.

Chinese E-Commerce Platforms

TMall(Alibaba)

56% of the customers in China use TMall for shopping. TMall has a high demand for foreign goods, and it mainly focuses on clothing, household items, accessories. TMall is a premium version of Taobao and has a higher barrier entry level for sellers. Advertising on TMall is a good way to attract more customers in China and popularized your brand.

Taobao(Alibaba)

Taobao follows the consumer-to-consumer model and is a great platform to sell foreign products directly to the customers. It even allows a small business to sell products online. Not only is it an ultimate go-to platform for low and medium-end consumers, but it is easy to create an account on Taobao and sell online goods.

JD.com

JD.com covers 25% of the Chinese market and uses the B2C e-commerce model. It is the second-largest e-commerce market in China and mainly focuses on online retail. If your brand deals with selling home appliances and electronic equipment, then JD.com is the best platform to sell to China online.

Similar to TMall, JD.com also follows strict rules and legal documents to sell foreign goods in China.

WeChat

Wechat is one of the famous platforms to sell your products in China. It covers more than 1 million users as Wechat is a big part of your marketing strategy when it comes to selling products to China.

Due to its more number of potential customers, it helps to drive traffic to your website and create more leads for the business and increase brand awareness. To sell foreign goods through WeChat, you have to set up a WFOE(Wholly Foreign-Owned Enterprise) for the full benefits of WeChat.

Weibo

Weibo is a Chinese version of Twitter in China. It is mainly used as an entertainment and news platform. Have gripping in the Weibo app, it is essential to publish quality content to gain visibility and brand recognition in China. More than 50% of the users in Weibo are below the age of 25.

Key Opinion Leader

Kols is another Chinese version of “Influencer market” and has more number of young audiences. Celebrities mainly use Kols or social media influencer who has a large number of followers. More users buy products that are recommended in Kols.

WeChat and Weibo are two major social media platforms used for Kol. Targeting a broad audience through Kols through WeChat and Weibo is possible, mostly if you are selling luxury or cosmetic items.

Baidu

Baidu is one of the successful platforms in China. It helps in promoting millions of businesses through its platform. Creating a business account in Baidu includes search marketing, content network marketing, and it can allow you to reach 700 million users.

As a foreign seller, you can use paid Ads as an effective way to enhance your brand recognition and increase traffic through Chinese customers. Setting up and advertising on Baidu is a little complex as it requires a WFOE document.

Toutiao

Taotiau is a social media platform like Wechat and Weibo. It is a news and information content platform offering personalized content to each of its users with full of Ads. It has more than 120 million daily active subscribers and can be an exceptional platform to advertise your product.

Most of the users in Toutio are from 18 to 30 years of age and sell to China online products easy on this platform, along with brand recognition.

If you are planning to promote your business in China, Baidu SEM or Baidu PPC can provide your business with a great avenue for advertising in China. According to Statcounter, the search engine market share of Baidu in China is 69.55% where Google’s market share in China is just 3.76%. It is no surprise when you consider that Google is banned in most of China.

Also, the search engine marketing landscape is a bit different in China. This is mainly due to the attitude of Chinese consumers. Where in the western world most people ignore online ads, the Chinese like to click on paid ads.

According to a report, 47% of Chinese consumers don’t mind being targeted daily for online advertising. In fact, if Chinese users cannot find you in Baidu, they will not place much value on your brand.

There are more reasons why you should invest in Baidu SEM (adstochina.westwin.com/baidu-sem). Some of them are listed here:

Baidu SEM is conversion-focused

Baidu ranks PPC listings over organic listings in terms of keywords search. This means that when Chinese users search for products and services using keywords, they get to see the PPC ads on top of Baidu search engine result pages.

Baidu PPC works similar to Google Adwords. You have to bid on keywords to display your clickable ads on Baidu search engine result pages.

The position of PPC ads depends on several factors like bidding prices, quality score, Baidu’s trust score of your company, and user behavioral data of the searches.

A good Chinese SEM agency having knowledge and experience of Baidu and the Chinese market can help your PPC ads achieve top spots in searches made by your targeted consumers. This not only increases the visibility of your brand but also augments the money-making potential.  

As users click on the PPC ads, they are taken to conversion-driven landing pages, sales pages or websites. This means the content will appeal to visitors and there will be special offers. Chinese consumers place a lot of importance on special offers. Also, because Baidu SEM allows you to reach targeted consumers, conversions happen more easily.

Baidu SEM offers flexible budgeting options

Baidu PPC is prepaid. The search engine offers a lot of flexibility in the budgeting of your ad campaigns. You can set up a daily budget at the campaign level or at the account level.

At the campaign level, you can choose a daily budget for each campaign based on the average amount you plan to spend per day. This is useful because at the start you don’t know which campaign will perform well. Once you know, you can change budgets for campaigns according to performance.

Also, you can set up your daily budget at the account level. This is useful when you have several campaigns within the account and want to control the total spending on all of them.

When it comes to SEM, sometimes the biggest hesitation is the cost. You might feel that the price of PPC ads will outweigh the benefits. But Baidu PPC is cost effective. Even small businesses can invest in it.

Not only can you set different budgets for your campaigns depending on performance but you can also set the time for running campaigns and use geo-targeting to choose the location where your ads will make a greater impact. 

You can measure the results

Website traffic tracking and PPC conversion tracking is possible with Baidu’s Analytics. You can also add Google Analytics. This allows you to accurately measure the results against the investment you are making.

The Chinese market is ever expanding. And a better understanding of how PPC ads work will enable you to establish your business firmly in the Chinese market. 

Also, the results are immediate. It doesn’t take a long time to create ads and targeted users start clicking on your ads as soon as they find them on top of search results.

Long story short, PPC ads can have a huge impact on your bottom line. All you need to do is hiring the right China SEM agency to make the best out of Baidu SEM initiatives.

Do you have any questions?