With numbers of Chinese travellers growing every year, China is poised to be the world’s biggest source of outbound tourists. And just as online shopping within China is booming, Chinese consumers are increasingly looking overseas to shop: valued at $78.5B in 2016, cross-border e-commerce sales are expected to reach $140B in 2020. How can your business capture a bigger share of this important consumer market? Here are some tips on the best ways to be recognized by Chinese consumers:
- Have your website translated into Chinese, and promote it on Chinese search engines. Baidu is the biggest, but Qihoo360 and Sogou are also popular. Don’t forget that few Chinese people will have access to Google, so you’ll need to work with new SEO terms for your website to be truly effective in China.
- Make sure your website is optimized for mobile. There are more than 800 million internet users in China, and nearly all of them go online using their smartphones. It’s even estimated that 20 percent of Chinese people only go online using a mobile device! Chinese consumers won’t visit your website if they can’t access it easily on their phones.
- Use social media platforms strategically. WeChat, for example, has 800 million active users every day, and it provides a platform for Chinese people to chat, exchange messages, share photos and videos, even shop. Other popular platforms include Alipay, a mobile and online payment platform, and Weibo, which is similar to Twitter.
- Strategic marketing to Chinese consumers before they travel will help boost your online presence. Your goal here should be to work with Chinese influencers or Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs), who use their knowledge and expertise on a topic to offer opinions about products or brands in their blogs, videos and live-streamed content. KOLs can have millions of dedicated followers, so the impact on your brand could be significant!
- Strategic marketing to your local Chinese community can also help drive traffic to your business, especially since many Chinese tourists travel overseas to visit family who live or study abroad. Offering Chinese digital payment platforms such as WeChat Pay, Alipay and UnionPay will make your business more popular with the local Chinese community, and using the promotions, coupons and discounts that these platforms offer will boost traffic and sales even more.
In order to build your business in China, you need to embrace Chinese marketing opportunities. With our in-depth understanding of the Chinese consumer landscape—and the key marketing dos and don’ts—OTT Pay can guide your business towards success in this significant market. And as the authorized partner of WeChat Pay, Alipay and UnionPay in Canada, OTT Pay has the knowledge and expertise that will help you leverage all that these platforms offer.
Want to learn more about ways to market your business effectively for the Chinese consumer market? Call us at 1-800-688-9838, or send us an email at info@ottpay.com.