130+ countries and regions

270,000+ square metres exhibition area

3000+ business and organisations exhibitors

200+ World Top 200 enterprises

100+ events, seminars and activities

On 5th November 2018, the China International Import Expo kicked started her 5 days massive trade show which is expected to be even bigger than the World Expo Shanghai in 2010. The CIIE was proposed and announced by the Chinese President Xi in 2017. It is viewed by some observors as a counter measure for China response to US led Trade War, by promoting China’s market and replacing products formely imported from the US with products imported from other countries.

President Xi of China delivered a key speech at the opening ceremony of the First China International Import Expo, CIIE in Shanghai on Monday.

Here are the highlights of the speech which represent the highest level of China  ‘s attitude towards global trade strategy.

“The Chinese economy is a sea, not a pond. Storms can overturn a pond, but never a sea.”

More opening-up

The China International Import Expo is a “trail-blazing” move in the history of international trade development. The CIIE is the first-ever import-themed national-level expo.Economic globalization is an irreversible historical trend and provides strong momentum for the world economic development. All countries should be committed to opening-up and oppose protectionism and unilateralism in a clear-cut stand. All countries should stick to innovation and accelerate the transition with traditional growth drivers being replaced by new ones. All countries should uphold the principle of inclusive development and shared benefits, in order to realize common development.

China will not close its door to the world and will only become more and more open.

Measures to promote opening-up

1. Imports

China’s initiative to expand imports is not a makeshift, but long-term consideration of embracing the world and future while promoting common development.

2. Market access

China’s imported goods and services are estimated to exceed $30 trillion and $10 trillion, respectively, in the next 15 years.

Measures announced in April to relax market access have been so far implemented. China has further simplified negative list of foreign investment, reduced investment limits and lifted the level of free investment.

China is taking solid steps to expand financial opening-up, continue to advance opening-up in the service sector, deepen opening-up in agriculture, mining, manufacturing, and accelerate the opening-up process of sectors including telecommunications, education, medical treatment and culture.

3. Business environment

Every country should strive to improve their own business environment and solve their own problems.

4. Free trade port

China will speed up the exploration of the building of free trade ports with Chinese characteristics.

5. Multilateral, bilateral cooperation

China will push forward multilateral and bilateral cooperation in pursuit of development.

China’s economic prospects

A fully optimistic attitude can be held toward the prospects of China’s economic development.

The Chinese economy is a sea, not a pond. Storms can overturn a pond, but never a sea.

Shanghai’s role in opening up

China will give better play to the important role of Shanghai and other regions in opening up.

Sources: chinadaily.com.cn/Xinhua

About WeChat apply

WeChat apply is an award winning China WeChat digital marketing agency based in Sydney.Working across all aspects of the marketing solutions like WeChat promotion, WeChat Official Account Registration, WeChat KOL, WeChat Mini Program Ad. and so on, we will ensure you have a solid marketing strategy together with perfectly delivered campaigns. Wechat apply  will transform your China online marketing to increase your lead generation, brand awareness and market engagement.

The post President Xi Keynote Speech Highlights at Import Expo Shanghai appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.

The 8^th August every year is the National Fitness Day for China. 2018’s one is the 10 year anniversary since the setup of the National Fitness Day. Variety of national fitness activities have taken places throughout the country to encourage more people to join the national fitness program. In the past, people are showing off food and selfies, it is now more of fashion to show off the hiking routes, running maps and real-time competitions at WeChat friends moment. The sports and fitness lovers have integrated their sports and fitness hobbies into their travels, greatly enriching their travel experience.

Fitness tourism is the most popular

According to a report by Donkey Mum Travel Network that in the first half of 2018, the number of people who chose sports tour products increased significantly, which was about 24% higher than the same period in 2017. 2018’s World Cup in Russia pushed Chinese sports tourism to a new peak. During the tournament, more than 100,000 Chinese tourists traveled to Russia.

In sports tourism, fitness related is the most popular category, accounting for 70% of the total Chinese visitors; the extreme sports account for 20%, and game watching is 10%. Fitness tourism represented by

Bushwalking, mountain hiking, bike riding are widely welcomed most of the tourists and have become the main stream fitness activity nation-wide because these activities are experience oriented, relatively low cost, easy to participate. According to the data of the mother, the number of fitness trips in the first half of this year increased by 35% compared with the same period of last year, and the public’s awareness of fitness increased

The data shows that Mountain attractions such as Huang Mountain黄山,Mount Tai泰山, Mount Heng衡山, Mount Emei 峨眉山and Tianmen Mountain天门山 are the most scenic spots for hikers. Participants’ age group spread out from primary school students to the retired elderly. They all participate in the love of the majority of tourists.

Sports tourism is growing rapidly and has great potential

With the enhancement of people’s physical fitness awareness and the enthusiasm for sports events, the market for sports tourism has expanded year on year.

According to the forecast released by the National Tourism Administration, by 2020, the total number of Chinese sports tourists will reach 1 billion, accounting for 15% of the total number of Chinese tourists, they are expected to spend over 1 trillion yuan (200billion Australian dollars) yearly.

With the rise of the middle class, China’s tourism pattern has been shifting from traditional sightseeing to combined tourism model that takes into consideration leisure and fitness.

In recent years, China has vigorously developed sports industries, and sports facilities and conditions have been greatly improved. The infrastructure improvements have paved the pass ways for the rapid growth of fitness tourism. Zhao Yong, deputy director of the State Sports General Administration, said that accelerating the development of the sports tourism industry is a key measure to implement the Strategy of Nationwide Fitness, promote people’s livelihood and increase people’s happiness level.

Australian or foreign brands should seize the opportunity of this round of growth.

Celebrities are massively influential, however, it could backfire and hurt the sponsoring brands, particularly we have seen some backslashes historically. The latest backslahs was a headline news Swisse had to suspended the sponsorship of Fanbingbing, Chinese highest paid actress after she confessed to paying a huge tax bill in this October. Brands do need to be cautious of the risk to engage those high price asking celebrities under China’ current tensed political attitude towards the entertainment industry.

While selecting sports and fitness stars to work together on a Big Health or National Fitness Concept is what Chinese central and local authorities are welcoming. It is not only politically right but also it fits in Chinese market organic demand of combined lifestyles of leisure and fitness.

Compared with millions of dollars commitment fees for those sky-high pricy entertainment stars, those Chinese Sports and fitness famous are a really good value for money with everything welcomed by the market.

Want to find your perfect matching Sports or fitness famous to represent your brand to attract the massive consumer crowds? Come on to talk to us.

About WeChat apply

WeChat apply is an award-winning China WeChat digital marketing agency based in Sydney. Working across all aspects of the marketing solutions like WeChat promotion, WeChat Official Account Registration, WeChat KOL, WeChat Mini Program Ad. and so on, we will ensure you have a solid marketing strategy together with perfectly delivered campaigns. Wechat apply  will transform your China online marketing to increase your lead generation, brand awareness, and market engagement.

The post National Fitness Program Drives Explosive Growth in Chinese Sports Tourism appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.

2018 China GDP September quarter was reported at 6.5% growth rate, significantly slower than the average rate of the past 30 years. Retail shopping has slowed with it. The stock market is slumping. China’s currency has lost some of its value. The trade war launched by US President Trump has left many Chinese feeling less optimistic than before. Anxiety, aging issues, sky-high housing prices are among the frequently referenced terms.

Welcome to China’s “consumption downgrade”,  a potentially worrisome development for Beijing and the world. For years, the conversations in China were about “consumption upgrades”. As the economy took off, China’s middle class — now more than 400 million strong and still growing —  spent those bigger paychecks. It traded up from local brands to Nikes, from cheap phones to iPhones, from tea to $5 Starbucks lattes. Not to mention those security guarded long queues in front of Chanel Louis Vuitton and Gucci stores in Hongkong, Europe, and Australia.

Multiple aspects of consumption downgrade 

There isn’t a universally agreed definition about the term among Chinese media and business landscape. There are indeed some aspects of consumers behavior change.

Buy cheap to save money. Consumers choose the products with cheap price and average quality. Taking a comparative example here in Australia, A mum may be more inclined to take one dollar bottle water Woolworth’s brand water off the supermarket shelf than two-dollar Mount Franklin bottled water. In this scenario, the quality level drops as prices drop.

Be selective on what to spend what not.  Economic conditions are not ideal, people have to be more diligent on living expenditure, choose cut consumption items, or be selective on what to and what not to. For example, those “monthly emptiness”, referring the people running out their money before their next salary pay, may not turn up at a friend gathering of spending over 150RMB, 30 dollars. In this scenario, experience level drops as prices drop.

Consuming concept changes. Some consumers are no longer have the strong willing to pay a premium price for premium brands. Interestingly, this kind of mindset shift occurs after the increase of living standard. Initially, consumers are not used to or have not purchased those premium brand products, they believed the pricier the better. Until they realized that quality of premium priced product and mid-level priced product are not much different. Therefore they changed their mindset and are more inclined to make purchases of higher quality-price ratio. Coach bags have gained much more growth comparing with Chanel bags in China for the last 24 months.

Consumers buy in different ways.  Consumers would buy in group purchase model to gain an advantage of low price thanks to the mobile app technology which is making the group purchase with anonymous people a no-brainer task.

Winners of Consumer Downgrade

Consumption downgrade is a change in the buying structure, habit and shopping concept for some consumers not for everyone. However, it is not that scary as it may sound to brands and manufacturers. It occurs at the same time while some customers are upgrading.

On the flip side, consumption downgrade creates massive commercial opportunities, especially for China’s hugely populated market. Who are the winners in the wave of consumption downgrade?

Pin Duo Duo, a group buy APP.

Pinduoduo is a group buy App,  users can launch group buys with friends, families, workmates or neighbors or even the people unknown, to buy stuff at cheaper prices. Pinduoduo’s daily active users, daily transactions surpassed JD.com, becoming the 2nd largest Chinese eCommerce platform next to Alibaba.

65% of Pinduoduo sales come from regional areas and 3^rd tiered cities and below where 50% JD.com’s sales come from 1^st and 2^nd tier cities.

To most city dwellers, it is a comprised action to cope with ever-increasing economic pressure by shopping on Pinduoduo. While those consumers in rural areas have benefited from gaining cheap, affordable access to a variety of products offered across the country which would have been impossible without Pinduoduo’s group buy model.

MINISO fast fashion store chain.  While you probably like shopping in 2 dollar stores in Australia for Halloween, Christmas or birthday party gigs, China’s counterparts have gone far massive scales. MINISO is known to sell a majority of its products priced at 10 RMB. The brand expanded to 2000 stores in China within 3 years, sales reaching 10 billion RMB, 2 billion Australian dollars.  It is a legendary record in the retail industry. 50% of their 5000 categories of product are priced under 10 RMB.

Many companies are trying to grab the commercial opportunities driven by so-called “ the era of consumption downgrade”.

Conclusion

Chinese consumers are now away from a single-minded direction. It can be complicated, it can be a mix both consumer upgrade and consumption downgrade, and even in different dimensions.

We have heard optimistic comments made by marketing peers and some Australia brands that that mid-class, residents in tier 1 and tier 2 cities and post 90, and post 2000, they are in the process of consumer upgrade, so they are going to welcome foreign goods, particularly Australian consumers goods are highly appreciated. This insight is only partially true, idealism and romantic. Simply putting up a shingle and yelling your brand offers Australian premium made product hoping to have people lined up to pay a higher price, has become a naive imagination.

Australian businesses need to put in more effort to dig further about Chinese consumers behaviors and reconsider the core of business: to provide value, scalable and affordable product and services to your customers. We, WeChat Apply team are the specialized experts who know what’s happening in China with first-hand insights, feel free to get in touch with us.

About WeChat apply

WeChat apply is an award-winning China WeChat digital marketing agency based in Sydney. Working across all aspects of the marketing solutions like WeChat promotion, WeChat Official Account Registration, WeChat KOL, WeChat Mini Program Ad. and so on, we will ensure you have a solid marketing strategy together with perfectly delivered campaigns. Wechat apply  will transform your China online marketing to increase your lead generation, brand awareness, and market engagement.

The post Consumption Downgrade in China appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.

Mum and Child market in China has been top hunter-fields for those overseas brands in the health sector. putting extra fuel in the fire, China as a whole nation is promoting Big Health strategy. Post-90s, a Chinese way to label those who were born after 1990, have entered the birth-giving age range. What is the trend of China’s Mum and Child consumption market?

In recent years, China’s population suffers declining newborn numbers and ratios,

while new births are not obvious after abolishing one child policy 3 years ago, and any birth stimulation measures will not take effect in short term.

While young families are more and more hesitant to raise more than 1 child due to complex reasons, Parents do really have stronger willing and financial ability to spend more on high quality for their sole child.

China consumer market appears stable, Mum and Child market continues to grow 

According to the data released by the China Statistics Bureau, the Consumer Confidence Index for the 1st quarter of 2018 was 115, and by the 2nd quarter of 2018, the figure was 113. Despite a slight decline, the overall trend was stable. In 2016, China’s Mum and Child market grew by only 3.9%. In 2017, it reached 123.3 billion yuan, an increase of 11% year-on-year. As researchers are talking more about consumer downgrade trend in wider sectors in China’s economy, consumption upgrade and the acceptance of new products are the two core drivers for the sales of Mum and Child consumer goods.

Compared with other matured markets, China’s per capita consumption of Mum and Child consumer goods remains at a low level with a large room for growth. In baby formula sector, the consumption per capita is in the US is 7 times more, France is 2.2 times more and Spain is 1.4 times more than China’s.

More high-end consumptions, led by post-90s mums

According to Nielsen’s research, the proportion of sales of cheap products in Mum and Child consumer goods categories has been decreasing; mid to high priced products are significantly growing. Post 90s’ consuming characteristics are reshaping Mum and Child market.  They want to try new, value their own personality. Their purchases are more ignited by environment and surrounding. They are tech passionate, service oriented. These are their key points of difference from their previous generations.

The brands knowing their post 90s customers characters have used New product launch as their key driver of the sales growth with systematically planned and executed marketing activation campaigns.  They try to match their consumer’s demand with the new concepts such as gut caring, organic certified. these hot spots are where the future growth comes from.

In 2018 We have seen an accelerated trend of new products releasing from Australian Child former makers’ camp. Nestle, Bayer, Wattle Health, Aptamil, A2, Bubs, all of which have launched their new product series in the year targeting the post 90s mums and to-be mums. In particular, A2 has been focusing on an organic concept with a carpet sweep style advertising campaign both in Australia and in China. Their premium baba formula market share has improved significantly.

Online and offline integration is the trend

According to Nielsen data, the growth rate of brick & mortar Mum and Child stores has maintained a double-digit growth with 13% in 2015, 10% in 2016 and 11% in 2017. However, the fragmentation characteristics of the Mum and Child stores lead to fierce competition and short life cycle.

The advantage of the offline Mother and Child stores are their experience and professionalism. They provide consumers with a one-stop service with a full range of categories, fine environment, and personal warm assistance. At the same time, the current online channels also have the advantages of being conveniently accessible, price comparability and richness of marketing means. The amalgamation of online and offline is the trend of the industry.

For baby formula products, genuine quality and safety is two undebatable priorities for a brand to survive in China market. Utilizing WeChat moment ad, banner ad, online store voucher, drive online traffic to the physical stores, convert office customers to be the loyal and repeating customers by offering online content engagement and interesting online theme campaigns.

Key influencer testimonials, live streaming on a brand event, WeChat content push message, WeChat moment sharing, user experience share at e-Commerce sites,  all of these have been influencing consumers behaviors,

Conclusion

Chinese consumers in Mum and Baby sector have become more mature as purchase capability increasing, which helps to fire up sales growth and expansion of premium segment. The market still has a good space to grow. WeChat is one of the key gateway connecting brick & mortar stores and online world. Manufacturing brands need to make effective WeChat presence, making sure their WeChat assets continue to bring value to the supply chain and supporting your resellers, paving well distribution network, adding more consumer value when building and growing your China brand and market share.

Talk to us about how to make most value out of your WeChat assets today.

About WeChat apply

WeChat apply is an award winning China WeChat digital marketing agency based in Sydney.Working across all aspects of the marketing solutions like WeChat promotion, WeChat Official Account Registration, WeChat KOL, WeChat Mini Program Ad. and so on, we will ensure you have a solid marketing strategy together with perfectly delivered campaigns. Wechat apply  will transform your China online marketing to increase your lead generation, brand awareness and market engagement.

The post Post-90s becoming main buyers, Where does the China Mum & Child market go? appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.

Somethings your business needs to know about the Chinese language

Whilst English is the most widely used language in the world, Chinese has the largest number of speakers. It is therefore important for companies looking to market in China to have a strong grasp of the language and its variations.

1900, BeijingEight Power Allied troop (Britain, France, US, Germany, Austria, Italy, Japan, Russia), conqured the capital city of China.They cut a ceasefire deal with then defeated Tsing Dynasty, the last monarch regime of China, for 450 million taels of silver worth reparations. It was an unprecidented financial punishment that symbolized every living China at that time had to contribute 1 tael of silver in order for the whole country to pay off the debt to the Eight Power. It was the one of the darkest moment of modern Chinese history, deeply carved in to the nation’s memory.

The war and the aftermath buried the Dynasty and marked the beginning of half a century-long revolution, struggles, suffers, and nearly national subjugation and genocide, however, that ultimately led to the new China’s birth in 1949. Then China becomes what it is now, the second largest economy on the planet, it is not surprising that China is the market that almost all businesses would like to explore. Nowadays large international corporations probably are aiming to a revenue per capita in a different way though, more peacefully and more of civilization nature but with the same purpose – profit extracted from the single largest market in the world 118 years ago and now.

If every breathing Chinese person contributed $1 profit to their business, the owner of the business would become a billionaire. However, this huge opportunity comes with hidden dangers as well. Aside from the cultural differences and conflicts of tradition, the language can be the first barrier for international companies.

Despite the fact that almost 20% of the world’s population regard Chinese as their native language, it is more complicated as a language than you might think. Mandarin only became the official legal language in China relatively recently, whilst the well-known Cantonese is just a dialect. Simplified Chinese is not Mandarin (although it is often confused as such), and Cantonese isn’t equivalent to traditional Chinese either.

What do you need to know if you are targeting the Greater China Region? Well, like almost all languages, Chinese has both spoken and written versions.

SPOKEN CHINESE

Mandarin, also known as standard Chinese, is a relatively ‘young’ language. I use the word ‘young’, not ‘new’ because Mandarin is actually based on a local dialect which originates not far from Beijing.

As the official spoken language, not only in mainland China but also in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore, Mandarin has become increasingly widespread. It is worth mentioning that Mandarin in Taiwan and Singapore can actually be quite different from Mandarin in mainland China, due to differences with proper nouns. Despite the difference, most of the time people won’t find it too difficult to understand each other.

We need to thank pioneer migrants and Bruce Lee for the popularity of Cantonese. As the official spoken language in Hong Kong and Macau, Cantonese is also spoken in the Guangdong (Canton) province in mainland China. Cantonese can be considered as a dialect of Chinese rather than a separate language.

WRITTEN CHINESE

People in mainland China started to write with simplified Chinese in 1956, as it had fewer strokes and was much easier to write, compared to traditional Chinese – see example below.

However, people in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan still use traditional Chinese as their written language. Due to simplified Chinese being based on traditional Chinese, these two languages have many similarities. Yet, if you combine the different uses of spoken and written languages, you need to be careful, as people across the Greater China region have formed different habits.

MOTORCYCLES & FREE DELIVERY

If you ask a New Yorker and a Londoner where the subway is, you may get two totally different answers. The same could also happen in the Greater China region, as if you use the wrong terms in the wrong place, people will have no idea what are you talking about.

For instance, ‘motorcycle’ has three names in the Greater China region: ‘mo tuo che’ in mainland China; ‘din daan ce’ in Hong Kong and ‘Ji che’ in Taiwan. To complicate matters further, both the pronunciation and written words are very different, as shown below.

If you are a retailer, the term ‘free delivery’ often draws a lot of customer attention. However, in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, ‘free delivery’ is expressed in different ways. If you target people who grew up in Taiwan and the Hong Kong region with the term ‘Bao You’, they may have no clue what you are talking about, as ‘Mian Yun Fei’ is the acceptable way to express ‘free delivery’ in these two areas.

Though people from mainland China are more familiar with ‘Bao You’, they can also understand the term ‘Mian Yun Fei’.

At WeChat Apply, we know the difference. If you want to find out more about marketing in China, feel free to contact us.

About WeChat apply

WeChat apply is an award-winning China WeChat digital marketing agency based in Sydney. Working across all aspects of the marketing solutions like WeChat promotion, WeChat Official Account Registration, WeChat KOL, WeChat Mini Program Ad. and so on, we will ensure you have a solid marketing strategy together with perfectly delivered campaigns. Wechat apply  will transform your China online marketing to increase your lead generation, brand awareness, and market engagement.

The post Somethings your business needs to know about the Chinese language appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.

Cash  Vault Opens for WeChat Min Program Developers

The latest update released by WeChat Ad Module in the final week of March has further enriched the category promotion capabilities. Advertisers are able to advertise their min program at WeChat Moment Ad. Mini program Advertising has fully supported the following 4 objectives: Branding, E-commerce sale, Fans growing and App download.

Collect sales leads

WeChat advertising has introduced “collecting sales leads” to help the advertiser to achieve lead generation objective. WeChat Moment Ad, Bottom Banner Ad at WeChat articles, and video ads of public articles have added support to achieve the goal of collecting sales leads

Crowd targeting further refined

Advertisers can activate “custom crowds” in the “targeted crowd” setting during the creation of an advertisement, adding a number package. The crowd management system has added support for mini program advertisements and in-between text advertisements, and assisted advertisers to achieve more precise marketing goals.

It is widely believed by the industry that this move opens up a new vault for WeChat Official Account Runner and Mini program developer.

Mini Program eligible for ad placement

Ad can be appearing any WeChat mini program as long as the developer of the program applies to activate the Ad place plug in. This round of update is absolutley a good news for those developers the developer for they can automatically sell ad place and cash in the advertising revenue.

About WeChat apply

WeChat apply is an award winning China WeChat digital marketing agency based in Sydney.Working across all aspects of the marketing solutions like WeChat promotion, WeChat Official Account Registration, WeChat KOL, WeChat Mini Program Ad. and so on, we will ensure you have a solid marketing strategy together with perfectly delivered campaigns. Wechat apply  will transform your China online marketing to increase your lead generation, brand awareness and market engagement.

The post Cash Vault Opens for WeChat Min Program Developers appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.

Walmart and Tencent Alliance in China may cross anti-monopoly line

Let go Alipay and Welcome WeChat Pay

Walmart has stopped accepting Alipay at its 90 supermarket stores and started taking on WeChat pay at all stores located in the Western region of China including Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, and Chongqing, according to China Daily’s report.

Walmart China has confirmed they reached a deep partnership with WeChat and there will be more exclusive benefits and discounts coming up soon. The two will also collaborate in big data analytics and precision marketing, the multinational retailer said it has ended the partnership with Alipay the two formed in 2015 and that it was a business decision.

Behind the scene

Walmart is JD.com’s third-largest shareholder with just over 12% of shares, and the two formed a strategic partnership back in 2016. WeChat Pay’s operator Tencent is JD.com’s largest shareholder with over 21% share. Therefore it is not hard to figure out that Walmart has become a part of Tencent’s blueprint to enter new retail.

Turf War – Gain upper hand by controlling traffic entry point

The Alibaba-Tencent turf war isn’t new and neither is Tencent’s exclusive right to its competitive strategy. Last September, Starbucks announced that it would start accepting Alipay rather than WeChat pay, 10 months after it had reached a deal with WeChat Pay.

WeChat Apply believes that in the new retail era, the situation where Double Ma devouring market has already formed, related players in the field need to choose which side to go with. The core competition is about who is grabbing the online and offline traffic entry points.

Not only in supermarket chains, we would anticipate more “choose a side” to occur to those high-frequency payment scenarios where these two giants are wrestling such as services like share bikes, shared car and food takeaway.

Detriment of Consumer Benefit?

Some specialist stated the move by Walmart may draw consumer watch dog ‘s investigation on whether the move was an act of monopoly nature.

Some consumers are complaining that not able to use Alipay has created inconvenience when shopping at Walmart stores in question. They are used to Alipay, and their WeChat wallets don’t have enough credits.

WeChat Apply team appreciates the Walmart regional’s strategic move was a strong win for Tencent and WeChat while we also took a dialectical view that the Walmart China’s move may cause some kind of anti-unfair trading and anti-monopoly law in China.

From a micro perspective, removing Alipay from their cashier could be detrimental to consumer’s freedom of payment choice. From a macro perspective, it can be viewed as an action to undermine the fair trade. It is allegedly to take advantage of its market position by limiting a certain condition of transactions, it could cause a distortion of the free market. However, it is subject to the law reinforcement and judge’s call to observe, investigate and decide.

About WeChat apply

WeChat apply is an award winning China WeChat digital marketing agency based in Sydney.Working across all aspects of the marketing solutions like WeChat promotion, WeChat Official Account Registration, WeChat KOL, WeChat Mini Program Ad. and so on, we will ensure you have a solid marketing strategy together with perfectly delivered campaigns. Wechat apply  will transform your China online marketing to increase your lead generation, brand awareness and market engagement.

The post Walmart in China South West turns to WeChat Pay from Alibaba appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.

4 Ways to Gain WeChat Followers without Spending Big

In 2018, not only online traffic tends to become more pricy, but also the cost of acquiring new social fans will go up. Acquiring new fans at controllable cost has become a challenge that the brand marketing manager must overcome.

While those premium brands with big marketing dollars have a lot of more liberty on buying driving traffic, other brands will have to leverage some light investing and smart ways to attract followers to fit in their limited marketing budget.

WeChat Apply, as a service provider for Tencent social advertising, has been living and breathing in the new media era. We want to share with you the 4 most frequently used methods to increase followers for WeChat official accounts without spending big.

WeChat Ad

It is a display programmatic type Ad offered directly by WeChat. Advertiser is able to do two types of Ad: Official Account Ad and Moment Ad

The Official Account ad appears at the bottom of WeChat articles in the WeChat Eco System. It offers the advertiser the option to build ad to for the purpose ranging from following, App download, pick voucher and other promotion. It supports the ads in multiple formats of landing pages.

The Moment Ad used to be the luxury play only affordable to those deep pockets couple of years ago.

BMW China used to burn RMB1 million (AUD $200k) a day on WeChat Moment Ad nationwide in China.

Since the beginning of 2018, Tencent has lowered the entry bar to those medium brands. An anonymous source from a household mobile phone company tells WeChat Apply that their mobile phone. The brand launched a WeChat Moment Ad campaign targeting all WeChat users located in Australia on Valentine’s day 2018, it received 1 million impressions and 10%+ CTR. IT was an absolute killer result.

Cost of fans acquisition:★★★★★

Effectiveness:★★★★☆

Retention: 40% ~ 60%

Scope of Application – all kind of official accounts

WeChat Wi-Fi

WeChat Wi-Fi provides Wi-Fi beacon device and developer ports integrated with WeChat official account. The set up can provide free Wi-Fi to people around shop, pop up store, cinema, exhibitions, train station, airport, shopping Centre and other public space as such.When users are promoted to follow the WeChat official account in order to connect to Wi-Fi.  The new fans number increase can be significant however it is kind of all cover approach other being selective on target audience.

Cost of fans acquisition  ★★★☆☆

Effectiveness: ★★★☆☆

Retention: 20% ~ 35%

Scope of Application: Telco, Travel and Transport type with national or regional presence

 WeChat Payment

WeChat Payment has become a standard-to-have way for Chinese consumers nowadays to pay for their goods and services. It is applicable both online purchase and offline store visiting. User were by default “forced” (if they do not untick) to follow the official account after the payment is completed.

It is really a good tool to capture those real paying customers and nurture them in the subsequent community managing and social influences with the aim to get their repeating purchases.

Cost of fans acquisition ★★☆☆☆

Effectiveness: ★★★★☆

Retention: 50%~60%

Scope of Application: eCommerce, Finance and Investment management type

Doll Machine & Photo printer

Users are attracted to scan QR code attached to the Doll Machine or Photo Printer in order to get free use. It is an effective way to attract new followers in public space.It fits to those brands who are not very critical about segmentation of audience. Retention rate is not very high, people tend to follow when they want to use and unfollow afterwards. However it can work well for those brands selling kids products/services.

Cost of fans acquisition ★★★☆☆

Effectiveness: ★★★☆☆

Retention 25%~40%

Scope of application: Entrainment, Photography, Cultural and lifestyle.

About WeChat apply

WeChat apply is an award winning China WeChat digital marketing agency based in Sydney.Working across all aspects of the marketing solutions like WeChat promotion, WeChat Official Account Registration, WeChat KOL, WeChat Mini Program Ad. and so on, we will ensure you have a solid marketing strategy together with perfectly delivered campaigns. Wechat apply  will transform your China online marketing to increase your lead generation, brand awareness and market engagement.

The post 4 Ways to Gain WeChat Followers Without Spending Big appeared first on WeChat Official Agency.

China’s Four Great New Inventions in Modern Times

A number of China’s technological innovations have been making their moves in the world. Among them, four stand out with a reputation of China’s “four great new inventions” in modern times, which have made the daily life of the public more convenient. They are not actually inventions in technical term, however thanks to China’s huge scalability, the following 4 phenomenon have been pushed to a whole new level leading the world.

Dockless Shared Bicycles

There are over 30 bike-sharing companies in China that operate around 10 million bicycles for shared use to individuals in dozens of Chinese cities.

Although the service of shared bikes originated from Western countries, China surprised the world with a business model of station-less shared bikes that spearheads the sharing economy.

Compared with traditional shared bikes, dockless bikes allow users to simply pick up or park a bike anywhere on the street, instead of at designated docking points.

By combining GPS, smartphone apps, mobile payment and Internet of Things technology, China’s system of dockless shared bikes provides the public with a convenient and affordable transport alternative.

To unlock a bike, you need to scan a QR (Quick Response) code on a shared bike through a smartphone app. To finish riding, you manually lock the bike and pay for your ride though mobile payment services that are connected with the bike app, such as AliPay and the WeChat wallet.

China’s two leading bike-sharing operators, Mobike and Ofo, have been gearing up for global expansion.

Mobike entered Singapore in March and Manchester, Britain, in June. Its distinctive orange bikes can also be spotted on the streets of Florence and Milan, Italy. This September, Mobike is set to land on the soil of London. Ofo, similarly, has begun operating in the United States, Britain, Singapore and Kazakhstan.

In the financial market, the two rivalries have also gone neck and neck. In June, Mobike raised $600 million in a Series E financing round led by China’s Internet titan Tencent, the largest in the global bike sharing industry to date. Now, the company’s total funding has reached nearly $1 billion. In February, Ofo also raised $450 million, which valued the company at $1 billion.

High-Speed Train

Boasting low cost and quick delivery, China has built the world’s longest high-speed rail (HSR) network. Branded as a “name card” for China, HSR runs at speeds of 250-350 kilometers per hour (km/h).

By the end of 2016, China had a 124,000-km railway network, which had the world’s largest HSR network of more than 22,000 km. It had operated 2,595 high-speed trains by 2016, which took up 60 percent of the world’s total high-speed trains.

HSR service debuted in China in 2008. Since then, the country has witnessed an average annual growth of over 30 percent in passenger trips, according to statistics from the China Railway Corporation. By 2016, there had been more than 5 billion passenger trips on China’s bullet trains in eight years.

Currently, China is working on next-generation bullet trains with a maximum speed of 400 km/h. By 2020, one fifth of the country’s 150,000-km railway network will have been HSR, linking more than 80 percent of major cites across the country, according to data from the National Development and Reform Commission.

China’s HSR has also gone global. In 2014, China completed the construction of its first overseas high-speed rail in Turkey. In June 2015, China and Russia inked deals for 770 km of track connecting Moscow and Kazan.

In October 2015, China and Indonesia signed a joint-venture agreement on the construction of a high-speed rail between Jakarta and Bandung. Besides, the China-Thailand railway is currently under construction.

Alipay and WeChat Pay lead China’s move to a cashless society, so customers can scan for purchases. FENG YONGBIN / CHINA DAILY

Alipay, , is China’s leading mobile and online payment service, established in 2004 by China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba Group. During the online transaction process, Alipay acts as a third-party platform, on which buyers pay for their goods by imputing payment passwords or scanning payment code on the Alipay app installed on their mobile devices.

Mobile Payment

Besides, Alipay can also be used for transferring money from one Alipay online account to another account, or from the online account to a bank account by binding a debit card to the online account. It is such convenience that enables China to edge its way towards being a cashless society.

On top of that, users can pay family or personal bills through Alipay, such as water and electricity bills.

Alipay also supports cross-border online and in-store payment, which allows users to make purchases on international websites and apps with Alipay.

Far back in 2013, Alipay exceeded PayPal as the world’s largest mobile payment platform. Thanks to the massive user base and various payment scenarios in China, online and mobile payment has enjoyed absolute advantages in market competition.

In the first quarter of 2017, the market share of Alipay and its major rivalry Tenpay (Wechat pay) reached respectively 54 percent and 40 percent, according to Chinese market research and consulting company iResearch.

E-commerce

With around 731 million Internet users, China has been the world’s largest and fastest-growing e-commerce market. In 2016, online shopping in China saw a growth rate of 26.2 percent, generating 5.16 trillion yuan ($767 billion), according to a report on China’s economic data by the National Bureau of Statistics.

Last year, Chinese people bought more food online with a growth of 28.5 percent. Clothing sales rose by 18.1 percent in the year, while items like mobile devices took up nearly 12 percent.

E-commerce now accounts for 15.5 percent of the total retail sales in the country. Thanks to lower costs and fewer licensing requirements, the bar for individual merchants to open an online shop in China has been set lower than the threshold for opening a physical retail store.

E-commerce has also injected fresh vigor and vitality into the economy of rural China in recent years. In 2016, e-commerce created more than 20 million jobs in rural villages, with over 8.1 million online business owners. Rural buyers also contributed 894 billion yuan ($131 billion) to China’s e-commerce sales last year. Leading operators in China’s e-commerce market include JD.com, and Alibaba’s Tmall and Taobao.

About Wechatapply

Wechatapply is an award winning China WeChat digital marketing agency based in Sydney.Working across all aspects of the marketing solutions like WeChat promotion, WeChat Official Account Registration, WeChat KOL, WeChat Mini Program Ad. and so on, we will ensure you have a solid marketing strategy together with perfectly delivered campaigns. Wechatapply  will transform your China online marketing to increase your lead generation, brand awareness and market engagement.

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While the last 2 years have witnessed brutal for brick-and-mortar stores worldwide, China’s retailers have experienced a “new retail” revolution, driving an increasingly stronger national consumption.

It is fueled by pioneering technology companies like Tencent, Alibaba, JD.com and involves traditional shopping center owners, Wanda, Suning, etc. A key milestone erected near end of 2017, Tencent, who owns WeChat, becoming the first Chinese firm to be worth more than $500 billion and surpassing Facebook to be the world’s fifth-most valuable company.

New Retail is merging online, offline and logistics all together create a dynamic new world of retailing.

The changes that initially predicted by Jack Ma of Alibaba are arriving so swiftly and so dramatically that each month seems to bring with it a big new preview of what retailing will look like everywhere, as China sets a pace for the rest of the world. Indeed, with millions of mom-and-pop stores now taking on new life as order-and-delivery stations for e-commerce, with food delivery platforms such as Meituan 美团fulfilling more than 18 million orders per day, and with more than 60 times more mobile payments than the US, wherever retailing is headed, China is already there.

For international brands hoping to sell in China, survival means moving equally fast to capture this future ahead of competitors, both incumbents and digitally savvy upstarts. It won’t be enough merely to keep up. Brands will be required to get ahead and help shape the vast changes, even as they completely overhaul the rules of engagement.

Consumers

People are no longer viewed only as consumers. The most forward-thinking brands now also see them in the role of co-producers. In the past, with relatively limited consumer insights, it was sufficient for a brand to identify target consumers and determine their needs. Now, armed with a comprehensive—and dynamic—profile, brands have new missions, such as finding ways to stimulate consumer needs, identifying look-alike consumers and turning consumers into brand ambassadors who effectively co-create the brand.

Merchandise

Products are advancing from commodities to being part of the consumption process and an integrated consumer experience. As the old business-to-consumer (B2C) model evolves from the simple goal of meeting mass demand to a world of consumer-data-inspired personalized products and delivery, the best brands are determining how to integrate products with the overall experience of not only shopping but learning about a product, using it and recommending it.

Stores

Stores have extended from online-only or offline-only into a seamless Omni channel experience that’s fully integrated, in which people shop while enjoying content or while spending time on social networks, for example, as well as in stores or on e-commerce platforms. Among the new moves that winning brands are making to get ahead: creating occasions beyond the constraints of time and location.

How should brands change?

The strongest positioned brands take a systematic approach to outpace rivals to outpace rivals in New Retail. They are gaining an edge by using the emergence of New Retail as an occasion to build a new consumer-centric model while at the same time creating operations that are more efficient. 

Build a new framework with customers and data

The best brands start by acknowledging—and acting on—two fundamentals of New Retailing. They need to put customers at the heart of their operations, with full consideration of the end-to-end customer experience, from awareness to purchase to referral. In addition, they commit to embedding data and smart technology into their operations, breaking down the data silos within their organization for cross-function interconnection and extending their links with the broader ecosystem. In the past, they may have used internal CRM data to provide insights that informed functional business decisions. Now they need to continually refine the data and engage in test-and-learn exercises to develop and act on broader, deeper and constantly changing consumer insights.

Develop new flexibility and efficiency in R&D, supply chain, marketing and distribution

New Retail is having a big effect on every corner of a brand’s operations. Yet companies can transform those operations to take advantage of retailing’s new realities while making them more efficient in the process. For example, as they continually hone products to serve personalized consumer needs, brands must adapt to shorter R&D cycles. Pioneering companies now take an interactive approach to R&D that allows for timely changes in design and planning based on real-time consumer behavior. Importantly, they also view their consumers as participants in the R&D process, engaging with them early in product development, conducting consumer testing before production and connecting frequently before a product launch to enhance loyalty.

Similarly, brands are reinventing supply chains, making them flexible enough to adjust to real-time frontline sales results and the more accurate estimates enabled by artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, block chain and other emerging technologies. Companies selling in China are at the forefront of this movement to use smart technology.

The most advanced among them integrate with all parties in the supply chain, analyzing the full spectrum of available data to improve visualization, analysis and supply chain automation. They make the required investments to choose the right service providers, manage the data and improve the operating efficiency of their supply chains.

Nestlé has reaped significant benefits from its “One Set Inventory” unified supply chain, which serves different channels (business to business, business to consumer, offline to online and others), sharing both logistics service and inventory. From a single hub, Nestlé ships to different channels instantly, choosing the destination based on insights generated by real-time data. The move has dramatically improved turnover efficiency, with the online product shortage rate dropping from 22% to 5%. It has lowered logistics costs, reducing cross-region delivery from 60% to 10%. In addition, the new supply chain setup has improved delivery timeliness for Nestlé. Now nearly 80% of orders are delivered the same day or next day.

New Retail changes the game in marketing and consumer management, too. The digital ecosystem that encompasses purchase, payment, delivery and all the other customer touchpoints provides the opportunity to reach consumers whenever and wherever they are online. That is why winning brands have extended the horizons for digital marketing. For them, online is not limited to a sales channel but becomes a consumer-centric closed loop for unlocking business potential. These companies collect data whenever a consumer uses an app to hail a taxi or process a payment. They integrate offline and online data. From this composite of transactions they gain insights that help them develop and deliver personalized marketing messages to the same customer touchpoints, constantly refining what they learn and how they market. It’s a shift in philosophy that turns marketing from a brand expense to a brand asset.

Finally, distribution is being reinvented with New Retail. Under the old and painful multilayer network, stores—especially traditional trade—had limited control and transparency, there was a lack of sufficient data and the costs of distribution were high for limited channel penetration. Leading brands now rely on streamlined electronic route-to-market (e-RTM) models that help them reduce costs with fewer levels, expand their coverage, and gain visibility into real-time inventory and sales data while improving point of sale and channel relationships. A key lesson they’ve learned as they build and adapt to these new digital route-to-market approaches: honing brand strategies to gain the most from e-RTM and thoughtfully selecting business partners based on the unique characteristics of their product categories.

Transform the organization and operating model for digital

Building a framework and operations around customers and data are critical for brands hoping to master New Retail. However, those big moves will not yield sufficient results without redesigning the organization to make full use of New Retail’s power. Among the most important considerations: The organization structure needs to allow for seamless coordination among functions, something that traditional organizations rarely accommodate. Also, the organizational design needs to reflect the company’s stage in its digital transformation. For example, in a company in early days—in which digital’s major role is that of a new sales channel—the digital team will be most effective if it operates within the sales unit. However, for companies much further along on the digital transformation, digital should be a standalone business unit that integrates resources across all functions, with a decentralized and agile operating model that fosters fast decisions.

While the ultimate goal is to be able to move quickly, brands need to recognize that developing enterprise-wide agility does not happen overnight. It is a multistaged journey that typically takes two to three years to complete.

Many brands entered the era of New Retail not only with limited capabilities for acquiring and analyzing data, but also with organization structures and operating models that make it difficult to share and act on insights gained from that data. Winners understand the need to organize for data.

As New Retail takes root, the brands that thrive will acknowledge that the changes they make today—the new capabilities they develop and the operating model they devise—won’t necessarily help them a year from now. New Retail is a work in progress that will require brands to constantly refine and reinvent themselves for new occasions, new formats and the steady flow of new ideas that will define retailing tomorrow.

About Wechatapply

Wechatapply is an award winning China WeChat digital marketing agency based in Sydney.Working across all aspects of the marketing solutions like WeChat promotion, WeChat Official Account Registration, WeChat KOL, WeChat Mini Program Ad. and so on, we will ensure you have a solid marketing strategy together with perfectly delivered campaigns. Wechatapply  will transform your China online marketing to increase your lead generation, brand awareness and market engagement.

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