The joint venture features AliExpress, Mail.ru Group, MegaFon Russian Direct Investment Fund
The operation to establish a joint venture in Russia signed Alibaba Group – which will bring together e-commerce platforms, social media and popular games for the benefit of the country’s consumers and will offer Russian small and medium-sized enterprises greater access both locally and locally international markets – it’s a done deal.
First announced in September 2018, the joint venture features AliExpress, the leading Russian Internet company Mail.ru Group, the Russian mobile telecommunications operator MegaFon and the sovereign wealth fund Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF).
After the federal anti-monopoly service of Russia authorized the JV to move forward last June, now AliExpress Russia JV is owned by the majority of Russian shareholders, with a board of directors composed of RDIF executives, Alibaba Group, MegaFon and Mail.ru Group. Group CEO Mail.ru Boris Dobrodeev is the chairman of the board, while AliExpress Russia’s chief Liu Wei and the first deputy general manager of the group Mail.ru Dmitry Sergeev will serve as co-CEO of the JV.
Alibaba remains focused on fulfilling its basic mission
“Alibaba remains focused on fulfilling the mission ‘to make it easy to do business anywhere.’ “AliExpress Russia JV is an important part of Alibaba’s globalization strategy and a key step towards our long-term goal to help 10 million small businesses achieve profitability and serve 2 billion customers worldwide,” he said. Daniel Zhang, Executive Chairman and CEO of Alibaba Group.
“Together with Mail.ru Group, RDIF and MegaFon, we are committed to accelerating the development of the digital economy of consumers in Russia and the CIS countries, allowing regional brands and SMEs to reach and serve their target consumers through our unique and innovative shopping experience, “said Zhang.
The JV group and Mail.ru will conclude a strategic cooperation agreement related, among other things, to traffic and product initiatives. The JV will also promote its services on the Mail.ru Group platforms through exclusive solutions for product integration and marketing.
Mail.Ru Group has 100 million Internet users
Mail.Ru Group has 100 million Internet users through its social media properties, messaging, e-mail and online games, with 90% of all Internet users in Russia using at least one of its properties every month. The two largest Russian social media sites of Russia VKontakte and Odnoklassniki and its main email service are all owned by the Mail.ru Group.
In addition to combining social media and e-commerce, the joint venture will work to support the upgrade of consumption in Russia by offering a greater selection of high-quality products on the market. For Russian small and medium-sized enterprises it is an opportunity to tap into a new connected ecosystem in the domestic market, accessing over 600 million consumers using Alibaba platforms, including China, Southeast Asia, Turkey, Europe and India.
The joint venture also plans to participate in the acceleration of the Russian digital economy, exploiting the respective strengths of the parties in electronic commerce, social and digital media, logistics and the local market and helping to build the future commercial infrastructure in Russia and in the world.
The new Indian rules for e-commerce companies could have to do with the fall in investments
E-commerce giant Amazon has invested $ 395 million dollars in its market unit in India this year, which is one-third of what it did in 2018 with $ 1.3 billion, according to local newspaper Economic Times. With only three months to go to the end of the year, it seems likely that this will be the first time since 2012 that Amazon’s annual investment in India has fallen.
Analysts tracing the history of Amazon India have mentioned that over the past seven years, its investments have steadily increased year by year with a phenomenal peak in 2018. This level could be attributed to Amazon’s entry into the food sector in India.
Amazon’s sharp decline in India has attracted the attention of Indian and US lawmakers
The news of Amazon‘s sharp decline in its investments in India has also attracted the attention of Indian and US legislators. During the Indian summit of the World Economic Forum held in New Delhi, Indian trade minister Piyush Goyal and US trade secretary Wilbur Ross had a long debate on this issue.
Ross asked Goyal for the new guidelines for e-commerce in India regarding its foreign direct investment (FDI) rules, which in the past had put a strain on foreign-funded e-tailers.
India, on the other hand, seems to have become a land of conquest for many Chinese investors. From Tencent to Alibaba, up to pass for Xiaomi.
The decision has also created controversy after local institutions and Amazon
“India is very clear on domestic and political compulsions. We welcome all e-commerce companies that want to work in India as agnostic platforms. We do not want to look at structures that fall within the scope of the law, but in a sense to break the spirit of the same. This is the clear position of the government and we have been clear for decades regarding the BJP” Goyal told Ross.
In his response to Goyal, Ross claimed that Amazon would have spent much more in India if it had not experienced a decline in growth due to e-commerce policies. “It is more important to obtain the most efficient form of retail trade. The demand for a country like India must balance those economic benefits for the population as a whole, even going against the special interests of the retail segment or competitors. nationals, “the US trade secretary said.
With over 500 million monthly active users in 154 countries worldwide, TikTok is rethinking its future
TikTok, the ByteDace app that deals with short videos, has labeled the United States, Japan and India as strategic countries to favor its expansion abroad, according to Chinese media reports LatePost.
While the United States and Japan have already been popular markets for TikTok, the Beijing-based startup has increased its emphasis on the Indian market, where the company has increased the number of active daily users (DAUs) by 50 million units in 2019 .
The number of new users of TikTok and its Chinese version Douyin reached 188 million in the first quarter of 2019, with an increase on an annual basis of 70% and half of them came from India, as reported by the analysis organization Sensor Tower app. The Indians also installed the TikTok app 89 million times in the first quarter of the year, more than eight times last year’s number. By comparison, the United States has gained around 13 million installations over the same period of time.
To continue its growth in the Indian market, TikTok will join Vigo
Due to this rapid growth, India has been updated to the list of strategic countries, although it had previously been ranked lower in terms of average revenue per user (ARPU), an indicator applied internally by the company to differentiate the markets.
The move also comes after a backlash that the company faced in April, when the Indian government ordered TikTok to be removed from Google and the Apple App Store for two weeks. The sanction came due to alleged encouragement to obscenity and other illegal content. After the reversal of judicial prohibition, the app quickly returned to the country’s main downloads.
To continue its growth in the Indian market, some sources have reported that TikTok will be joining Vigo, another video-sharing app owned by ByteDance.
TikTok continues its rise in the world, with a special focus on South America
But between the new frontiers of the app there is not only India, Even the Brazilian market, in fact, has attracted the attention of TikTok’s plans. Everything comes from when its competitors, including the Kuaishou platform (marketed outside China as Kwai) and the live streaming app YY, are growing rapidly in many South American countries.
Tiktok, meanwhile, removed the UK from selected strategic countries. The Chinese company has been under investigation in the United Kingdom since February, due to the way in which it collects and uses the personal data of young users, with particular attention to the safety of minors present on the platform
China has been leading the world in innovation for the E-commerce industry. One area that we’ve seen Chinese e-commerce take the lead in is the creation of Chinese E-Commerce Festivals. Single’s Day (Double 11), Chinese New Year, and 6.18 are just a few of the major shopping holidays that consistently break records for E-commerce sales in China.
Most of these holidays were created by the major E-commerce platforms to offer discounts and drive sales during these periods. The largest shopping holidays were created by Alibaba and JD.com, showcasing how powerful these companies truly are. While the West has similar holidays like Black Friday & Cyber Monday, these pale in comparison to the scale of the Chinese E-Commerce Festivals.
In this blog we’ll take a look at the largest Chinese E-Commerce Festival, Single’s Day (Double 11), to help businesses obtain a greater understanding of this holiday and make the preparations necessary to take advantage of it.
What is Single’s Day (Double 11)?
Single’s Day is the largest Chinese E-commerce Holiday by far. The event was started by a group of university students in the early 1990s at Nanjing University. With many Chinese university students unable to find romantic partners during their studies, the holiday was created to celebrate being single.
The date, Double 11 (11/11) was chosen as the number “1” looks like a person who is single or alone. The holiday quickly spread from Nanjing University to various locations around Mainland China. With the rise of social media, the holiday became even more well-known across the country.
Nanjing University, the rumored birthplace of Single’s Day
While businesses had begun celebrating the holiday with discounts and promotions to cater to these single consumers, the holiday’s significance changed significantly with the launch of Alibaba’s Single’s Day E-Commerce Festival in 2009.
While the initial event only included 27 brands on the Alibaba platform, T-Mall, the discounts and promotions soon spread to Alibaba’s other platforms like Taobao. Brands on Alibaba’s platforms often offer discounts of up to 80% during this period, giving singles a reason to splurge and treat themselves.
The first Double 11 shopping festival generated a measly USD 7.5 million in sales, but by 2017 sales had eclipsed both Cyber Monday and Black Friday combined with sales reaching USD $25.3 billion. While growth has finally started to slow for the holiday due to increased competition, the shopping holiday remains the largest worldwide in terms of total sales.
Why Has Single’s Day Been So Successful?
While new Chinese e-commerce holidays have appeared throughout the years a survey by Nielsen China revealed that 81% of respondents said Single’s Day is still the one they’d most like to participate in. For every company selling their products into China through E-commerce Double 11 should be an important part of your yearly marketing strategy and be featured prominently in your calendar.
Many attribute the reason for the success of Double 11 due to its inherently selfish nature. Double 11 is a celebration of being single and treating yourself, encouraging shoppers to buy things for themselves rather than for others as is custom with more traditional holidays like Chinese New Year.
Alibaba’s focused on the holiday in its early days by launching the slogan: “ Even if you don’t have a boyfriend or girlfriend, you can at least shop like crazy.” (就算没有男女朋友，至少我们可以疯狂购物).
However, there were a lot of factors that contributed to the astounding success of Double 11 including Alibaba’s logistics network and its investment in promotional activities.
The Evolution of Cainiao: Alibaba’s Logistics Arm
The rapid growth of Double 11 required Alibaba to develop a strong logistics network to handle the massive scale of the holiday. Alibaba’s logistics arm, known as Cainiao, has done a tremendous job in keeping pace with the holiday and ensuring that deliveries go out on time despite the massive amount of orders.
In 2015 alone, the number of orders processed through Alibaba’s platforms reached 467 million, representing a 65% increase in order volume over 2014. To cope with this large growth Cainiao utilized technology to forecast order volume, handle warehousing, and make the necessary preparations to handle this increased volume.
Through this experience, Cainiao has become one of the most efficient logistics providers in the world. Even with the number of orders increasing massively each year, Cainiao has continued to improve in terms of speed and efficiency. In 2018, the total number of Double 11 orders exceeded 1 billion, with the logistics provider completing deliveries for the first 100 million packages within just 2.6 days as compared to 9 days in 2013!
Cainiao also was able to offer same day/next-day delivery to customers living in China’s larger cities. One of the first orders placed on Double 11 in 2017 was fulfilled just 12 minutes after the launch of the Chinese E-Commerce festival.
Promoting Single’s Day: Galas, Movies, and Advertising
Alibaba realized they were onto something when they launched the Single’s Day shopping festival in 2009 and invested in a range of different marketing strategies to drive growth for the event.
After running the event twice, Alibaba began to take the focus off the original holiday Single’s Day and began promoting the idea of Double 11 as the ultimate shopping holiday, rather than a day to celebrate singleness.
While the event had seen tremendous growth due to marketing efforts and more brands joining on the holiday, Alibaba recognized that the event could be even bigger. In 2014 Alibaba finally went public raising an unprecedented 25 billion USD in the world’s largest IPO. With a now overflowing war chest, the company began to invest heavily in marketing for Double 11.
In 2015, Alibaba launched its first Double 11 Gala event broadcast live on national TV. During the gala, Alibaba invited celebrities from all over the world to participate in games, events, and challenges meant to entertain and further drive sales online. Due to the success in viewership for the first event, it has been repeated each year since 2015.
Daniel Craig was one of the many celebrities invited to attend the first Singles Day Gala
While the event is primarily for entertainment purposes, the guests, celebrities, and hosts always remind the audience to go online to check out the deals available for purchase.
This has made the event more than just a shopping festival and made it seem like a real holiday. In many ways, it is similar to the Spring Festival Gala, a star-studded event hosted during the Chinese New Year period, further strengthening the festival’s connection to true Chinese holidays.
Marketing for Single’s day has gotten a bit outlandish at times as well, such as in 2017 when the company released a 24-minute Kung Fu Movie on Double 11 featuring Alibaba CEO Jack Ma and Kung Fu Star Jet Li. You can check out the subtitled version of the trailer below if you want to see Jack Ma showing off his kung fu moves.
Alibaba’s Last Year in Review: More Records Shattered During Single’s Day 2018
Finally, onto the most mind-blowing part of Double 11, the sales.
Alibaba had an absolutely incredible year in 2018, with sales reaching USD $30.7 billion throughout the course of the event, representing growth of 27% compared to the previous year. The first double 11 generated a mere USD 7.5 million dollars in sales. If we look at the growth from 2009 to 2018 this represents an approximately 40,000% increase in sales over the course of the 10 year period.
These numbers completely blow other shopping holidays out of the water. Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined weren’t even able to reach USD $15 billion in sales in 2018. This means that Alibaba alone had more than double the total sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. If we count the sales of other Chinese E-commerce platforms alongside Alibaba these two events look rather minuscule in comparison.
However, It’s not just the amount that’s amazing, but also the speed. Sales on T-Mall had reached 10 billion RMB just 2 minutes after the launch of the Chinese E-Commerce Festival.
In terms of deliveries, Alibaba received over 1 billion orders, representing a significant increase over the previous year when orders just barely broke 800 million.
Over 180,000 brands participated in the event in 2018 with 237 of them exceeding RMB 100 million in sales during the event. These 237 brands included some of the more popular international brands in China, like Apple, Dyson, Nestle, Nike, and Adidas.
While overall growth in sales has slowed down to 24%, the growth in sales of imported products was much greater reaching over 63% according to Syntun. Many newer brands to the market had spectacular years with brands like MartiDerm, Moony, and Schiff achieving positions among the top-sellers in China. According to Alibaba, over 40% of its customers made a purchase from an international brand during the 2018 double 11 event!
Other Chinese E-Commerce Platforms Cashing in on Double 11
While Double 11 was started by Alibaba, other Chinese E-Commerce platforms have been cashing in on the holiday as well. JD.com, VIP.com, Pinduoduo, and Suning, were some of the larger players participating in the event as well. Although Alibaba trademarked the name “Double 11” in 2014, preventing other platforms from using it in their advertising, plenty of other platforms try to get in on the action for this shopping extravaganza.
Spending on E-commerce during the 24-hour event reached a total of nearly USD $45 billion. As stated, before Alibaba captured the lion’s share of this spending but other players are beginning to take a larger slice as they also invest in promotions during the period.
JD.com was the closest competitor to Alibaba in 2018, with the total transaction volume on JD.com reaching RMB 159.8 billion (USD ~$23 Billion). Unlike Alibaba’s single day sales promotions, JD.com’s discounts are spread over an 11 day period. Although JD.com was only able to capture 17% of market share on Single’s day itself it’s total sales volumes from the event were truly impressive!
Nearly all of the E-commerce platforms recorded strong gains. Netease’s Kaola reported that its sales multiplied 2.4 times in 2018 while Pinduoduo saw its orders triple year on year.
This just goes to show that even if your brand isn’t on T-Mall you can still cash in on the Double 11 craze!
How To Get The Most Out of Alibaba’s Single’s Day
No matter what platform you’re selling on in China you’ll definitely want to take advantage of the Double 11 extravaganza.
Other than the traditional channels available to brands such as paid advertising and KOL promotion there are some extra steps you should take to ensure that you get the most out of the Chinese E-Commerce Festival.
We’re going to break this part down into two sections, Preparation and Promotion, to help brands at various stages take advantage of this holiday.
Preparation Strategies for Alibaba’s Single’s Day
Preparation for Single’s Day Tip #1. Reputation Management
Chinese consumers tend to do quite a lot of research before making a purchase online. In the months leading up to Double 11, you should ensure that your company has a positive brand image to foster trust among users.
A negative reputation on the Chinese internet can severely hinder your sales potential, so take the steps necessary to improve your ratings, reviews, and mentions across search, social media, and in the news. While a negative reputation is something that brands should try to fix immediately, brands with no reputation at all should also get to work on building social proof and building their brand to help Chinese customers make their decisions.
Simply putting out a few press releases or working with a few trustworthy KOLs can put your brand in a positive light and prevent any negative information from putting a damper on your sales. If there’s no information about your brand on the Chinese internet shooting off a press release or two can at least ensure that there’s some information about your brand in Baidu search results.
While this kind of marketing might not be the most exciting as it’s unlikely to directly drive sales on its own, it’s an important step to making sure that there are no barriers to purchasing for your target audience.
Preparation for Single’s Day Tip #2. Perfect Your Product Descriptions
If you’re familiar with Chinese E-Commerce you already likely know that product descriptions in China are incredibly long.
Chinese consumers are by nature very distrustful and typically spend long periods of time in the consideration stage of the buyer journey. Chinese consumers want to be sure they are getting value for their money and are not buying something that doesn’t live up to its promises.
It’s due to this reason that most brands create extremely detailed and thorough product descriptions on E-commerce marketplaces to ensure that the answer to every question a potential customer might have is readily available. Having it available at the point of purchase also results in an increased chance of conversion.
Even for something as simple as shoes, product descriptions on T-mall can be absolutely huge.
While you might think your product descriptions are adequate, make sure you check out your competition to ensure you’re not lagging behind. It seems in the world of Chinese E-commerce that there’s seriously no such thing as TOO much detail when it comes to product descriptions.
Preparation for Single’s Day Tip #3. Scout Out the Competition
This is probably the most crucial step for preparing for the Double 11 Festival. There were over 180,000 brands that participated in the festivities in 2018, so it’s very likely you’ll face some serious competition.
Don’t just do a cursory glance at the competition, analyze each and every aspect of their business and products to determine where your advantages and disadvantages lie.
Are the competitors’ product descriptions more compelling? Are popular KOLs recommending their products? What is their pricing strategy? What social media platforms are they leveraging?
All these are good questions to look into prior to the start of the event and honestly just for doing business in general. This might seem like common sense, but you’d be surprised how many companies don’t take the time to do an in-depth check on their rivals.
You can even just check on T-Mall to see some top-level information on how well your competitors’ products are selling, customer feedback, and more!
Once the countdown to the event gets started it’s a good idea to check out the promotions they start running in the lead-up to the event. Closely monitoring your competitor’s activities can give you the information you need to adjust and counter their strategies to ensure you stay on top!
How to Promote Your Brand and Drive Sales During Single’s Day
Single’s Day Promotion Tip #1. Show Off Those Discounts!
This is one of the most common strategies for promoting your deals during the Double 11 festival. Most brands begin showing off their deals for the holiday nearly a month in advance to build excitement and get customers thinking about purchasing. A survey by Nielsen China showed that this is the most enticing method of promotion for Chinese consumers.
While this tactic has been around for decades, it’s still one of the best ways to show the potential savings a user can receive if they purchase during the Double 11 holiday. Brands both big and small take advantage of this tactic to create urgency and show users how much the product normally sells for.
Showing the before and after price can be done in a number of different ways. Many brands choose to use digital advertisements to showcase their discounts while others simply keep it on their product descriptions. Depending on the price sensitivity of your target audience this can be an incredibly effective method for boosting sales during the Double 11 holiday.
Another reason this simple method is so effective is the tendency of Chinese consumers to make impulse purchases during the holiday. While Chinese are traditionally research-driven in their purchasing behavior, large discounts encourage users to make impulse decisions for trial purchases.
Single’s Day Promotion Tip #2. Offering Discounts in Exchange for Pre-Orders
Another method that’s become incredibly popular in recent years is a focus on pre-ordering. As mentioned previously, brands often begin displaying their discounts and promotions for the Double 11 holiday nearly a month in advance. For 2018, pre-orders on T-Mall became available on October 20th, giving users nearly 3 weeks to pre-order their desired items.
Since brands are already releasing this information quite early, it makes sense that they would begin to accept pre-orders. To further encourage this behavior many brands now provide additional discounts to customers who choose to pre-order before the arrival of Double 11.
If users deposit RMB 100 towards the purchase of this computer before the start of Double 11, they can receive RMB 300 off during the shopping festival. Users can also win a free gift!
This not only helps brands to lock in sales early, but it also helps them to forecast their sales volume and make preparations accordingly. According to Nielsen China, offering discounts in exchange for pre-orders is the 2nd most popular method for promotion during the Double 11 holiday.
One brand that took advantage of this strategy was L’Oreal. L’Oreal allowed users to deposit money in advance and receive coupons with greater value during the Double 11 event. For example, users who deposited 50 RMB were given 70 RMB to spend during the Double 11 event. Customers who had deposited money into this scheme were also given a chance to win free gifts through lucky draws, further encouraging users to deposit money in advance.
Single’s Day Promotion Tip #3. Coupons, Coupons, and More Coupons
Coupons are incredibly popular across all Chinese e-commerce channels; however, this is taken to an extreme during the Double 11 holiday. Nearly every brand issues coupons for use during the period, however, a few have been trying new tactics with some success in recent years.
One of the more recent trends in terms of coupons for the Double 11 holiday is brands not simply issuing coupons for free but selling them for later use. Many brands sell these coupons for an absurdly cheap price (e.g. RMB 0.5), as once users have taken the steps to purchase a coupon, they are more likely to actually use it and make a purchase.
Through selling coupons for use during Double 11, brands can make more accurate predictions and forecasts for their sales volume during the holiday allowing them to prepare and ensure that they have adequate stock to meet consumer demand.
Whether you offer coupons for free or sell them for small amounts, brands have recognized that this is an effective method for driving sales during Double 11. This is something that will likely continue to be used by brands during Single’s Day for years to come.
Single’s Day Promotion Tip #4. Leverage Social Media
In China’s fragmented internet market social media is king. Brands all across China leverage social media to build awareness, drive sales, and promote their offerings. However, many brands go into overdrive during the Double 11 season to drive traffic to their e-commerce stores.
Chinese E-Commerce platforms themselves even advertise their offerings through China’s social media platforms. For example, T-Mall ran a massive campaign leveraging WeChat and Weibo in 2018 to boost their red packet campaign in 2018. Through this campaign, Alibaba rewarded users with money for logging into Alibaba apps and visiting chosen brand stores.
There are many ways brands can leverage social media to drive traffic and boost sales during the Double 11 holiday. Brands can choose to collaborate with KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) to gain greater exposure and build trust among consumers or work directly with platforms to access paid advertising.
The ultimate goal of using social media is to find your target customers where they are. Brands should promote their offerings across various social media platforms and forums to reach out to their target audience in a way that shows they understand their audience.
Single’s Day Promotion Tip #5. Release New or Exclusive Products
While this might be something more exclusive to larger brands, releasing exclusive products for the Double 11 holiday has proven to be incredibly effective for many different brands.
Dyson saw great success with this strategy last year with the release of its Airwrap hair-curler which launched exclusively on T-Mall during Double 11 2018. By advertising the product on social media and limiting purchasing exclusively to T-mall the brand was able to sell over 1,500 unites within just 3 minutes of the product launch.
Budweiser’s Special Edition Cans Released Exclusively for Double 11
Budweiser, the American beer brand, also launched exclusive packaging for the event. It was able to sell all 30,000 special edition packs that day! Both of these cases show how releasing exclusive or new products can result in a drastic spike in sales.
Conclusion
Double 11 is definitely a holiday that both shoppers and sellers need to pay attention to. However, taking advantage of the largest Chinese E-Commerce festival isn’t easy. Competition is fierce, and brands need to take the necessary steps to ensure that they are able to fully take advantage of it.
This guide should offer most brands a good place to start, but brands should conduct adequate research into their industry and competition to determine the best means of promotion during this period. We hope this guide helped and best of luck to all our readers for the Double 11 shopping festival in 2019!
The goal of the partnership is to support the use of WeChat Pay for Chinese tourists who visit Japan and at the same time provide LINE Pay to local users in Japan
Tokyo and Beijing are getting closer. Nowadays, Beijing and Chinese customers are extremely important for Japanese companies. Chinese love “made in Japan” products: Japanese cosmetics and Tokyo fashion are a real trend in China. As a result, Chinese tourism in the Land of the Risen Sun is growing so that many shops in Tokyo, Osaka or Kyoto started to use Alipay and WeChat Pay to please Chinese customers.
Thus, WeChat Pay and LINE Pay agreement had not surprised experts. Bilateral trade and investment have kept China and Japan closely integrated in recent years. Moreover, China and Japan are pursuing greater cooperation on a number of fronts, from economic development to international trade and currency internationalization. Now fintech too.
According to WeChat Global, on September 11th, WeChat Pay and LINE Pay have decided to further deepen their cooperation in the field of mobile payments. To this end, WeChat Pay will be integrated with LINE Pay merchants in Japan. Thanks to this cooperation, WeChat Pay users will be able to scan a QR code of the LINE Pay merchant to pay with their WeChat Pay.
According to the company, LINE Pay now has about 32 million registered users in Japan
LINE Pay offers easy payment services in partnership with global credit card brands and cooperation with WeChat Pay dates back to November 27, when the two companies decided to hold a press conference in Tokyo, Japan, announcing that the two sides would cooperate to promote mobile payments in Japan.
LINE Corporation was founded on September 4, 2000, as a Hangame Japan as a part of Hangame, a South Korean game company owned by NHN at the time. LINE Pay is its payment service released in December 2014, which allows users to pay through the app in affiliated online stores and after registering their credit cards.
WeChat Pay’s cross-border payment service has now reached 49 countries and regions outside of mainland China in accordance with local regulations
As already happened with other Chinese brands, such as Alipay, for foreign operators to allow the use of payments with Chinese software is a great way to increase tourism and sales. Furthermore, with the development of the Chinese economy and the increase in outbound travel, WeChat Pay has become one of the main objectives to increase its market share outside of China.
To add, that the number of Chinese tourists visiting Japan continues to grow and the service will make it even more convenient for Chinese tourists visiting Japan. According to data from the Japanese tourist agency, in 2018 8.38 million Chinese tourists visited Japan, making it the largest group of international tourists in the country.
With over 50 million buyers, Lazada, a Singapore e-commerce company founded by the German Rocket Internet in 2011 and controlled by the Alibaba group since 2016, can now be defined as the e-commerce leader in Southeast Asia
South-East Asia has an e-commerce leader. In fact, Lazada, which operates in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, with over 50 million buyers can claim the role of e-commerce leader in Southeast Asia.
To clarify the numbers of success is Pierre Poignant, CEO of the Lazada Group, who said that the company manages the best e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia with over 50 million active buyers every year.
In June 2017 Alibaba Group increased its investment in Lazada by increasing its stake from 51% to 83%
Poignant said in an interview: “We are growing at triple digits for the past three quarters, which has really sort of defined our position as number one. We’re very happy about the progress of where we are.”
In particular, the comment of the managing director comes as a denial of some voices that saw the rival platform of Lazada, Shopee, managed by the Internet Sea company, as the most popular e-commerce platform in the region.
However, a clarification is needed. According to the online shopping aggregator iPrice, in fact, Shopee has the highest number of monthly active users, downloads and site visits in the region starting from the second quarter of this year. While, Lazada, guided in terms of monthly active users in four of the six major e-commerce markets in the region: Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines.
In March 2018, Alibaba invests another $ 2 billion in the company and replaces Lazada’s CEO with Peng Lei
The Southeast Asian market is increasingly sought after. In fact, the region can count on an increasingly rich population of over 600 million people. Furthermore, it is a relatively new region for online shopping, so it has great potential for growth.
To make Lazada grow, Alibaba replaced Max Bittner, then CEO of Lazada, with Lucy Peng Lei, a co-founder of Alibaba who previously served as executive chairman of Ant Financial Services.
Alibaba also made changes to the business model, launching LazMall which offered branded products and “premium services”. In addition, the platform has become more “asset-light” as Alibaba’s Taobao Marketplace and Tmall e-commerce platforms, serving primarily as a transaction platform for third-party sellers and buyers.
UCWeb will work with Flipkart and Paytm Mall to offer online purchases this year
Alibaba Group, through its subsidiary UCWeb, aims at the Indian e-commerce market. The occasion could be the country’s next public holiday, which will begin in the coming days, and seems to entice Jack Ma. Huaiyuan Yang, vice president of global activities at UCWeb, said the company should be able to launch the service “within this ‘year”. The Chinese company plans to collaborate with India’s leading online marketplace Flipkart and Paytm Mall, an Alibaba portfolio company in India.
However, UCWeb would not want to start an end-to-end e-commerce service immediately, but would initially test the market. Yang confirmed that the products will be integrated by “different platforms which people can browse through and share, but if people have to make an actual purchase, the engine will lead them to the actual website for the purchase to happen”.
UCWeb is entering more and more into the Indian market, full of regulations
Yang sees India as one of the key markets for UCWeb and Alibaba, as around 40% of the population is already connected to the Internet. UC Browser, the web browser platform, has been present in India since 2009 and the company claims to have 130 million active users in the country, with a total of 1.1 billion users globally, excluding China.
In India, recently, this work focused on creating video content for users of level 2 and 3 cities. “We are trying to provide content in many local languages to the local users apart from the 15 languages we already offer,” he said. Yang.
For Yang, UCWeb has collaborated with 120,000 bloggers or content creators and boasts 700 media organizations on its platform. By demonstrating its commitment to the Indian market, it is slowly respecting local rules and regulations. To begin with, UCWeb is already storing most of the Indian user data in the country, as requested by the government for foreign companies operating in India.
UCWeb uses a combination of controls to ensure the security of the contents
Reportedly, the Ministry of Electronics and Computer Science (MeitY) of India is creating a draft of guidelines for content-based social media platforms and wants to “develop mechanisms using AI (artificial intelligence) to find out accounts transmitting illegal, inflammatory or any content which could disturb law and order or threat to national security, and then take them down” a senior government official told the Economic Times.
In this sense, Yang stated that UCWeb uses a combination of machine control and manual control to ensure that this trash and violating rule is not published on its website.
Thailand’s number one duty-free chain is using WeChat Mini Programs to meet Chinese tourists. But this decision would bring it access to a much wider audience
Two decades ago, 10.5 million Chinese tourists made overseas trips, in 2018 the figure rose to 149.7 million, a 1326% increase. It is no wonder that retailers are striving to attract this audience.
Thailand’s biggest duty-free chain found the perfect solution to fight the price war betting on customer experience. King Power Duty-Free has thus landed on WeChat, developing its own Mini Program store to cater to visiting Chinese tourists.
With nine stores in the country, King Power International Group has been the sole duty-free store provider at major airports in Thailand, a Southeast Asian tourism destination that attracts more than 38 million visitors a year.
However, although Thailand is a recognized gem among worldwide travelers, over half of its revenues come from Chinese tourists. Therefore, to enhance their experience at the airports, at the beginning of the year, King Power finally joined other travel retailers, such as DFS Group, in creating a WeChat Mini Program store. The only difference is that tourists have to pick up their products at stores in Thailand’s airports.
But how is this improving the customer experience? First, by introducing its Mini Program store in WeChat, King Power has shown dedication to the Chinese customer base. Then, it gives them the chance to browse and choose products without the feeling of rush caused by the flight departure. In this way, the buyers do not even have to deal with lines or with the sold-out inventory at the offline store.
Moreover, not only customers can pay online with WeChat Pay without having to switch currencies but retailers can also market them before they even arrive in the country. This opportunity thus truly gives retailers the chance to provide a better customer experience for the Chinese customer.
“Since duty-free stores tend to sell the same brands and products that other retailers do, they can choose either to compete on price or customer experience. Creating a better customer experience prevents them from having to rely on price wars to survive,” writes Marketing Specialist Ker Zheng, of China cross-border e-commerce solutions provider Azoya Group.
The convenience of WeChat and its all-inclusive ecosystem is partly why Chinese internet users spend a third of their online time in WeChat on a given day.
If WeChat is the most popular social commerce platform in China, boasting over one billion users, its Mini Programs have been taking the Middle Kingdom’s e-commerce industry by storm.
The Mini Programs are actually mini-apps within WeChat’s platform that customers can use without leaving the app. By using them, users can book movie tickets, order food delivery, and buy items online. Therefore, they have become one of the most important channels for retailers to engage with the Chinese audience.
In particular, according to data provider ALDZS, of the 2.3 million Mini Programs on the market, 18% are dedicated to e-commerce. The group-buying platform Pinduoduo, which grew its user base to over 300 million within three years on the back of its wildly successful Mini Program, is one example.
The recipe for success is a combination made by the ease of accessibility and social sharing features. Customers can discover, browse, and pay for items all without downloading any other app or loading a page on a different browser. In addition, according to data, 35% of users access these items because they are shared by other users.
For brands and stores, it means having all the freedom and independence of a proprietary website while benefitting from WeChat’s massive user base. Moreover, here, they are able to reduce new customer acquisition costs as the social nature of WeChat and Mini Programs means that Chinese consumers are more likely to share e-commerce promotions and items with friends and family.
As mentioned before, the number of Chinese tourists abroad are increasing year after year. Ctrip figures show that nearly 7 million Chinese tourists went overseas during this year’s Chinese New Year. The Shanghai-based online travel agency reported that people from over 100 Chinese cities had booked to travel to nearly 500 destinations across over 90 countries and regions. Moreover, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation, Chinese tourists overseas spent $277.3 billion in 2018, up from around $10 billion in 2000.
In this scenario, as the perfect cross-border social commerce platform, WeChat represents a powerful tool in helping travel retail players market to and retain outbound Chinese travelers. Thanks to WeChat Mini Program stores, these companies can sell to Chinese tourists both before and after their trip.
The relevance of Daigous and Chinese Key Opinion Leaders show how travel retail is important for brands to be discovered in the Chinese market. Indeed, many of these influencers have built their fan base mainly by blogging reviews of overseas’ products. Trough WeChat, brands and retailers can attract the attention of those Chinese outbound tourists looking for foreign products and then keep that attention alive. WeChat Mini Programs thus acts as both limelight and a cross-border sales channel that makes the purchase experience easier and rewarding.
Indeed, although it can take time to build brand awareness or customer loyalty, engaging with Chinese tourists after they return home can add a substantial amount of value. Moreover, this way, the spread among potential customers in China is ensured by WeChat’s social sharing feature.
As a result, an increasing number of retailers abroad are starting to enter the Wechat ecosystem to cater to visiting Chinese tourists, just like Thailand’s King Power Duty-Free. Tencent now plans to expand its growing list of merchants in Europe and in all the continents soon.
Its European merchant network was 3.5 times larger in April 2019 than the year before, and the company has recently signed deals with an array of retailers and at destinations that see a high volume of Chinese tourists, including Paris department store Galeries Lafayette Haussmann and Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.
Here, many offline stores even allow payments with WeChat Pay to meet the Chinese audience, allowing also to pay in Chinese yuan, which can be automatically converted into local currency. Moreover, WeChat GO Mini Program in Europe also allows businesses to be discovered by around 5 million Chinese customers who travel to Europe each year.
If global acceptance for WeChat Pay is one of Tencent’s long-term ambitions for the platform, the use of its whole ecosystem has become a must for international retailers that want to reach the Chinese market. Especially for what concerns those tourists that have a shorter time to spend on shopping.
It is now obvious how using Chinese platforms is crucial to deal with Chinese tourists and King Power Duty-Free got it right. With the developing of its Mini Program not only it eases the shopping experience for Chinese tourists but it now also belongs to that ecosystem that will make the store’s name spread among China’s consumers, building the store’s awareness in the Asian country.
The goal is to direct users to East Asia, allowing brands to extend their marketing campaigns
TikTok, the short video sharing platform controlled by Bytedance, tested a network for advertisers. The goal is to direct users in East Asia by allowing brands to extend their marketing campaigns, according to AdWeek.
Bytedance has thus sought to accelerate monetization in foreign markets, while competition within China’s content market becomes even more fierce. The company has made numerous changes to the staff, while experimenting with several new advertising functions for TikTok, thus trying to facilitate the process.
Wide choice for buyers of advertising space
The vast network of audiences linked to TikTok will allow buyers of multimedia content to choose between full-page mobile video ads, premium video ads or promotional videos that users have the chance to watch in full in exchange for in-app prizes.
The network, for the moment, offers ads only to users in China and Japan, as can be seen from the documents intended for product developers. Media buyers can also choose apps to avoid for ad distribution.
American based e-commerce giant is entering in already crowed business. Amazon is trying to beat Alibaba, but Jack Ma is once again well ahead
Actually 40% of the Indian population is digitized and in just a few years has become the second digital market in the world, second only to China. This country on the rise is embarking on a digital race with unprecedented speed and has thus become the most attractive market for international digital giants, starting from e-commerce companies. The cake looks tasty. In fact, India has 1.3 billion inhabitants, half under 25 years of age, a GDP increasing at rates of 6-7% per year, a growing middle class, tax reforms and investments in infrastructure for a quick modernization of the country.
Amazon and Alibaba, after winning in many international markets, they now elbow their way into positions of India. But Alibaba is once again well ahead and now Amazon is trying to enter in already crowed business: food delivery. As reborted by local media, Amazon will launch its own food delivery service in October during Diwali festival, one of the most popular in the country.
Its food delivery operation will be launched first in Bangalore before expanding into the country’s other top metros. Amazon will launch its restaurant order delivery service through Prime Now, its very own grocery delivery platform, sources say, while in the interim, is also in preliminary talks with Ola’s Foodpanda and UberEats separately to explore a partnership which could be developed into an acquisition, according to sources with knowledge of the matter as quoted by multiple local media.
Amazon is following Alibaba steps. The move comes at a time when the US e-tailer keeps on entrenching its Indian business by diversifying its offerings in one of the world’s largest retail markets.
However, the first big Amazon’s competitor in the country is certainly Alibaba. Hangzhou-based company is already winning the Indian market with Lazada, but the two international e-commerce giants have launched different strategies in India. In fact, it was the diversified approach and the capillary investments that brought Alibaba ahead of its American counterpart. Jack Ma’s company aims to replicate the success achieved at home by entering the Indian startup Paytm in 2015, the most used digital payment platform. And Paytm already launched Paytm Mall.
Alibaba, which with its affiliate Ant Financial now owns 40% of Paytm Mall, does not stop there. Faithful to its investment strategy to fund high-frequency use and high-level of user engagement sectors, it is also supporting the online grocery app BigBasket and the food delivery service Zomato. Basically two main indian food delivery services. The past few years have seen the Indian food-tech industry growing rapidly.
Amazon’s grocery services, including Prime Now and Amazon Pantry, haven’t really taken off amidst cut-throat battle with local competitors like Bigbasket and Grofers.
The sector, according to a report by local market researcher RedSeer, has seen an overall grand merchandise volume (GMV) growth of around 140% and an order volumes growth of more than 176%. Market size of the sector is estimated to reach USD 5.7 billion by 2022, according to Statista.
Thus, is quite difficult to understand why Amazon decided to enter in such crowed market such as food delivery, where companies like Swiggy, BigBasket or Zomato are top players. Moreover Amazon’s grocery services, including Prime Now and Amazon Pantry, haven’t really taken off amidst cut-throat battle with local competitors.
Despite challenges, Amazon believes that the food delivery addition to its Prime program will help it build up an ecosystem with various offerings that would not only grow its premium customer base but also increase transactions through high-frequency services such as food delivery which drives repetitive orders. By the way, Amazon is always ahead. China and India share a fast digital and technological growth, albeit with different times and own individual ways.
With this background, Alibaba has a great advantage over the US competitor and a little extra kick compared to other international players.In this context, in fact, experts believe that it will not be Amazon and Alibaba to fight over the Indian market. China will thus become the sole interlocutor of the digital conversation in India.
ECommerce Nest 
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