China is Building its Hypercar in Italy

The S9 is a joint venture between the start-up Silk EV and the Chinese automotive manufacturer FAW (First Automotive Works). Silk is an international automotive design and engineering company and FAW is China’s largest and the oldest automotive manufacturer (and parent company of Hongqi). FAW currently has joint ventures with Audi and Volkswagen Group, Toyota, GM and many more.  The joint venture with Silk plans to build a full range of models called the S series under the Hongqi brand in Italy and China. 

China’s S9 hypercar is expected to be built in the “Motor Valley” of Italy – Reggio Emilia. The joint venture’s new factory is only 27 miles away from Ferrari and an hour by car from Lamborghini. 

Why would they build it here? Well besides the obvious, that Italy is known for making exotic supercars and hypercars, the most important factor was that Italy was the first G7 nation to endorse China’s Belt and Road Initiative. 

The S9 is special and here is why

The S9 isn’t the first super/hypercar to come out of China. The NIO EP9 and the Qiantu K50 have already made little waves in the automotive world. However, the NIO EP9 isn’t street legal and the Qiantu K50 has already gone bankrupt. 

Also both are full electric. The S9 is going to be a plug-in hybrid and is expected to use a newly developed 4-liter V-8 with electric turbocharged gasoline engine capable of 880 hp. It is also expected to have two electric motors to further boost its combined output up to 1,400 hp. 

What makes the S9 special is China is willing to compete in the internal combustion engine segment, which has always been dominated by other countries. Even with all the joint ventures from other western and Japanese brands, making large displacement engines was never China’s strong suit. In comparison to EVs, internal combustion engines are more complex. A 2-liter 4-cylinder engine has on average around 3000 parts in comparison to EVs electric motor with only has a rotor and a stator, so for China to develop this 4-liter V8 engine is showing its engineering capability. 

Where is the market for China – made hypercars?

China has long dominated the cheap and affordable consumer goods market, and countries like Germany, Italy and Japan have long been regarded as the producers of high-end, high-quality products. 

So, will anyone pay $1.8 million for a car from China? The answer is yes. It will probably be sold out before it leaves the factory. There probably will be several groups of buyers and it is highly likely most of them will be Chinese.

Red Rich

The first group could be the “red” rich (descendants of members from the Red Army). These are the people who have become rich by remaining closely associated with the Chinese government. Some may also be the heads of state-owned enterprises. Hongqi has always been regarded as the symbol of the Chinese communist party.  Owning the S9 can be interpreted as being the ultimate supporter of the CCP.

Second Generation Rich

The second group might be the second generation rich, most often their parents are the ones that are paying the bill. Buying a Ferrari or Lambo might project a rich brat image. Buying a Hongqi Hypercar doesn’t change the brat image but at least you’re a patriotic brat.

Investors

The third group will be investors, those who buy ultra-rare Ferraris and other exotic cars. These buyers buy cars purely for investment purposes. If you don’t know too much about the automotive market, typically cars are depreciating items, the moment you drive off the dealer lot you lose 20% of its original value. But that only applies to mass production vehicles, simply because anyone can buy it. 

It’s a different world when you are purchasing a Ferrari or other exotic cars that have extremely low production numbers, typically less than 500 vehicles per model, and brands like Bugatti, which only produce around 70 cars per year. And all of them will be sold long before production. 

Silk-FAW is also planning on only make 70 copies of the S9. With a market as enormous as China, I truly don’t see any reason why the S9 will have “leftovers”. 

And there will also be buyers from other parts of the world to buy the S9 simply based on personal interest and likings. However, it might take some time to build the brand image on the world stage.

The S9 isn’t a car, but an image of a nation

Since its early days, the Hongqi brand has been regarded as a symbol of China’s ruling Communist Party and has always been the brand of choice for Chinese leaders throughout history. For FAW to announce a hypercar under the Hongqi name indicates China’s reputation is on the line, there is no room for failure. 

Read More:

https://www.autonews.com/cars-concepts/us-chinese-challenger-ferrari-picks-italy-debut-18m-hypercar

https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1132544_silk-faw-hires-its-second-ferrari-veteran

https://www.silkfaw.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hongqi_S9

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugatti_Automobiles

The post China’s Auto Industry Takes on its Biggest Challenge Yet – Building the Silk-FAW S9 Hypercar appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

The collaboration was to launch Beast’s new fragrance Panda Poo Poo (not sure who thought of that name…). Consumers who bought Manner’s Panda Latte and post its picture on WeChat can get a small bag, I mean tiny bag, with a sample of the fragrance.

I saw it on social media and decided to buy a cup of coffee and get the bag, because it is so cute! At first, I went to the Manner store close to my workplace, but I was told that they had run out of the gifts. I was so disappointed, but this made me even more motivated to get the gift. And I did it, at another store.

Why Was the Manner Coffee x Beast Campaign so Popular?

Why did this campaign become so viral both online and offline?

One reason is the drink itself. The Panda Latte is inspired by Beast’s new fragrance collection Panda Poo Poo (熊猫噗噗, maybe better translated as “a Puff of Panda” or “a Whiff of Panda”). The Manner coffee drink is a translation of the fragrance’s smell into flavors.

The scent of “Panda Latte” is divided into top, middle, and base:

• Top: Green apple, banana, and pear
• Middle: Elderberry and gooseberry leaf
• Base: Honey, vanilla, and wood

Another reason the campaign got so much buzz is that Manner Coffee is popular among white collar workers in top tier cities, and anything the brand does easily grabs people’s attention.

We’ve talked a bit about the brand in our previous article when mentioning competitive players in the beverage industry in China. Today, we want to dig more into the brand, and find out why white collars favor it so much.

About Manner Coffee

Manner was founded in 2015. Before that, its founder Han Yulong (韩玉龙) opened a coffee store in Nantong (南通), but it turns out that people in Nantong didn’t have that much passion for coffee, so Han moved to Shanghai.

With limited budget and considering the fact that the coffee business has a lower table turnover rate, Han’s first Shanghai coffee store was only 2 square meters, with very simple decoration.

But despite the small space, it did well. In 2019, Manner started marching aggressively, opening more stores in Shanghai as well as in other cities. Now the brand has 137 stores in Shanghai and 14 additional stores in Beijing, Suzhou, Chengdu, and Shenzhen. 

Manner is getting noticed by investors. In 2018, it received its A round of financing. And just recently, it was financed by H Capital and Coatue, and Manner Coffee is now worth 1 billion USD.

What Makes Manner Coffee So Popular Among Chinese White Collars?

High quality and good taste of Manner Coffee

Though Manner’s stores are often tiny, Han has strict requirements for Manner’s products. Those stores are equipped with expensive coffee machines, such as La Marzocco gs3, Mahlkonig and Robur from Mazzer. They even have a professional water filter to provide clean and free drinking water for customers.

Manner launches seasonal drinks once a month. This makes sure that customers can always taste something new from the store and they won’t get bored with Manner and turn to other brands.

Affordable prices

Han does whatever he can to lower costs for his stores and products, so as to provide affordable prices for Manner’s customers.

To reduce the spending on coffee cups, Manner offers a 5 RMB discount if customers bring their own cups. That is a pretty motivating offer! And it also ties into young consumers’ growing interest in sustainability. And if you want to buy its coffee beans, which are mostly from Yunnan Province (云南), you can have an 18 RMB discounts on the beans.

The average price of Manner’s coffee is around 15-20 RMB. It is way lower than other players in the market such as Starbucks, Peet’s or Costa. One of the benefits of having a lower price is that it actually lowers consumers’ expectations so that then when they first try out the coffee they are pleasantly surprised that the quality is better than what they thought they would get for that price. And if they feel that the coffee is not tasty, it’s fine. After all, it only costs around 20 RMB.

No delivery service

Han knows clearly that as time goes by, the flavor of coffee changes. As the temperature decreases, the sour taste becomes stronger and the smoothness decreases. The cup of coffee is very likely to become bitter.

Though offering delivery service will definitely bring more sales for Manner Coffee, Han doesn’t feel the benefit of additional revenue is worth risking the reputation of the brand.

Plus, if a coffee store wants to have good delivery service, it must be equipped with fast logistics. For example, Starbucks has its own takeaway service called Zhuan Xing Song (专星送), which is the collaboration with Eleme (饿了么). From ordering to receiving coffee, it only takes 18 minutes. However, not every coffee house is capable of achieving this speed as it requires more capital investment.

Location & decoration

Most of Manner’s stores are small and they are located either near or inside office buildings. This allows white collars to order first on their phones and pick up their coffee on their way to work.

With its affordable prices and good taste, and attention-grabbing, convenient locations, Manner quickly became many people’s go-to choice.

Our Thoughts

While the coffee industry is still in a nascent stage in many other cities in China, it has already been incorporated many Shanghai city dwellers’ daily lives. Based on a Shanghai coffee report published by CBNData (上海咖啡消费指数), for every 10k people Shanghai has 2.85 coffee stores. The number has reached the coffee consumption level of London, New York and Tokyo.

While it seems ambitious to launch a new coffee brand in an already crowded market, Han knew from initially launching the store in Nantong that the brand would never succeed in a market where he also had to create demand and educate consumers. Instead, he made the right choice by going into a crowded market but then finding clear ways to differentiate his brand.

Read more:

从2㎡小店到估值超10亿美元，Manner Coffee 经历了啥？

四年开店超50家的manner coffee,做对了什么？

Manner火爆，瑞幸的另一个极端

MANNER 联名野兽派推出熊猫拿铁

The post How Manner Coffee Broke Through China’s Crowded Beverage Industry appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

Introducing Qyer (穷游网), the multi-function Chinese app for all things travel related. China is really good at creating one-stop-does-all apps and Qyer is yet another perfect example of that. You can research travel destinations, book tickets/travel/accommodations, participate in discussion forums, share your own travel tips and experiences, and best of all: connect with other travelers and even make plans to travel with them!

Based on a report released by the company (conducted in association with iResearch Inc.) in March 2020, the app currently has over 80 million users and an overwhelming 75.6% of the users are between the ages of 24-40. Female users consist of 64.5% of total users. Furthermore, it is important to note that despite the characters in the app’s Chinese name 穷游 (qióng yóu) translating to “budget travel”, a majority of the users are well educated, earn at least 10,000RMB a month, and are from top-tier cities.  For reference, the national average monthly income for city dwellers is 3,653RMB.

Qyer was founded in 2004 as a Chinese outbound travel app, poised to help students overseas create a community to connect and share travel stories. Since then, it has really gained traction with domestic Chinese travelers and, given the travel bans due to the current global pandemic, most of its use has pivoted to domestic travel within the last year.

Find a Travel Mate with the Biu Ban Function

A function on Qyer worth mentioning is “Biu 伴” (biu bàn), the lovechild mentioned in the first paragraph. Users can find travel partners by simply posting a free ad with the destination, dates, and details of a trip they’re planning to take. Others on the platform who are interested can respond to the ad. And boy do those responses roll in.

My very first experience using the Biu 伴function was for a trip to Xiamen, China back during the summer of 2019. Within 24 hours of posting my ad, a group of five of us (strangers from all over China) had booked our train/plane tickets as well as Airbnb and were planning to meet in Xiamen two weeks later. I’m happy to report that it was an amazing trip, and we all stay in touch to this very day.

But we all know that with most good things, there are caveats. My first experience using the app was so smooth but then a couple of the experiences I had following that one were less than stellar. Long story short, scammers are real so users should exercise good judgment in filtering through messages and not sharing personal information too quickly. And for what it matters DO NOT DOWNLOAD ANY RANDOM APPS OR SEND MONEY! The app does allow users to report violators and I have received messages from the system that accounts have been locked due to “suspicious activity” so at least Qyer is actively addressing those concerns.

What Data from Qyer Reveals About China’s Travel Industry

Chinese Outbound Travelers’ Favorite Destinations

Well, let’s take a look at some infographics published in the company’s 2019 Chinese Travel Trends Report:

Here we see the top 10 countries Chinese travelers tend to visit: Japan, Thailand, Italy, France, USA, England, Spain, Malaysia, Germany, and Russia.

Although travel bans are still in place due to Covid-19, many believe that we are in the final stretches of the pandemic. Travel is projected to resume soon and based on a forecast from the China Outbound Tourism Research Institute, 100 million border crossings from mainland China are estimated for 2021. When the light turns green, we can definitely expect to see a healthy number of Chinese travelers in the countries mentioned above.

Qyer Users’ Preferred Accommodations

This next infographic shows that a whopping 72.5% of Qyer users between the ages of 25-35 opt for mid to high level hotels when traveling. Understandably, those a little younger (between the ages of 18-24 and likely college students) choose to stay in youth hostels and are willing to embrace simple accommodations.

However, what is most noteworthy is that 41.3% of users are now giving considerable consideration to homestays like Airbnbs, especially the more unique ones. Another factor that helps millennials and Gen Zs make decisions on where to stay is how “Instagramable” an accommodation is. Note to homestays: Play up the aesthetics so that the visitors will want to take a bunch of photos. They’ll be your best form of marketing!   

Qyer Users are Seeking Athletic Experiences

Given that Qyer users are a younger demographic, it comes as no surprise that they love fitness and physical activities. Approximately 44% of users report of having regular workout routines and look to stay active when traveling. Top activities include skiing, diving, cycling, hiking, paragliding, surfing, skydiving, running, and hot ballooning.

To an older demographic, these activities may appear riskier, but for the users on Qyer, travel is no longer just about visiting tourist attractions. They’re looking for the experiences and they’re willing to embrace the adrenaline rush that comes with doing so.

Removing Barriers to Travel

China is a driving force in the global outbound tourism industry. As the quality of life improves for its citizens across the board, China and its travelers will continue to make huge impacts for the industry for years to come. Apps such as Qyer allow us to take a closer look into the trends that Chinese travelers are setting as well as the experiences and services that attract them most.

The average age of the Chinese leisure traveler is decreasing. Travel is no longer just for retirees who have finally saved up enough time and money to follow a megaphone wielding tour guide around from attraction to attraction with 30+ other retirees.

No, travel is just as attainable to the 20-something year old working professional from Shanghai who has a week off and was inspired by a Korean drama to go paragliding through the mountains of Interlaken, Switzerland with friends he/she has never met before.

The post Chinese App Qyer Solves the Problem of Not Wanting to Travel Solo appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

But honestly, the vest is barely practical for wearers. First, it makes people look like turtles after wearing it. Second, though it is inflated and looks like a life vest, someone on Douyin tested it and found out the Louis Vuitton vest can only float for a little while and then it deflates.

Why would LV launch such an item? What do consumers think?

Luxury Brands Becoming Addicted to Launch Weird Designs

It’s not only Louis Vuitton, many other luxury brands are enthusiastically launching weird products. For example, Bottega Veneta. Accessories from its spring and summer 2021 collection gained a lot of attention on Chinese social media as well.

It has a bracelet, which looks like girls’ hair bands. A regular hair band is sold at around 1-2 RMB, and when it comes to Bottega Veneta, it was sold at 8,850 RMB. Crazy! Its earrings, which have similar design, are sold at 6,000 RMB.

The contrast earns the brand lots of attention on the Internet. People are saying why not spend 1-2 RMB on a hair band and DIY it as a bracelet or a pair of earrings.

Back in 2018, pre-Hedi Slimane, Celine once launched a transparent PVC plastic bag with its logo CELINE on it. Inside the bag is its classic handbag. This became one of the most popular fashion items in 2018 and it was sold for up to 6,000 RMB.

And more recently, Tiffany’s is selling a dog leash, collar, and bowl set for 6,160 RMB, and playing cards for 1,150 RMB.

The formula for those luxury brands’ buzzed-about items is: slightly adjusted everyday items sold at an extremely high price. This really generates lots of buzz for an item and for a brand.

But is the Attention Good? 

Take the example of the inflatable vest from Louis Vuitton. It looks similar to the inflated bags used for protecting products during shipping. Because of this, many people jokingly DIY their own vest and put LV’s logo on it. They upload these videos or images on social media and mock those who spend 26,700 RMB to buy the vest.

Many KOLs are actively joining the trend and filming videos of them visiting Louis Vuitton’s stores to see the vest. There are also comedians making jokes about the vest, for example if you wear this vest during Chinese New Year you don’t need to buy firecrackers, just pop the vest. 

There is a saying in the marketing industry that all press is good press and the scariest thing is no one talking about your brand, but for luxury brands does this statement hold true? So far, none of these weird products have hurt these brands’ reputations…but they haven’t exactly helped them either. 

Read more: LV的充气马甲让我笑出了鹅叫声，奢侈品的奇葩设计凡人无法感受

The post Why Did Consumers Go Crazy for Louis Vuitton’s 26,700 RMB Inflatable Vest? appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

What is a postpartum center? 

In China, there is a traditional practice of postpartum confinement, or zuoyuezi (literally “sitting the month”), where new mothers stay indoors for a month and eat specific foods and follow certain practices meant to restore their energy and health. 

In the past, it was common for the woman’s mother or mother-in-law to come stay with her for the month and take care of her and the baby, but in modern society the family may be living apart or the grandparents may not be able to take off of work and come stay the entire time. 

This is why postpartum centers started cropping up. These centers are like a mix between a hospital and a cushy hotel. Depending on the center, they offer a wide range of services such as teaching the mother how to breastfeed, how to wash and diaper the baby, etc. They also provide food specifically designed for postpartum mothers. 

A Rapidly Growing Industry

According to a report on postpartum centers (2016-2022年中国月子中心行业研究与投资前景分析报告), the scale of China’s postpartum center market in 2010 was 1.02 billion RMB, while in 2014, the number reached 4.2 billion and in 2019, the market was valued at 15 billion RMB. The number of postpartum centers in China is growing rapidly. In 2013, there were 550 centers and in 2018, it grew to 4,050 centers. 

And there is a lot of room for growth. Compared with other areas in Asia, such as South Korea and Taiwan, where the penetrance rate is 60% and 70% respectively, the penetration rate in China is only at 5%. 

Leading Brand

Among those postpartum centers, one of the top runners is Saint Bella (圣贝拉). It has become many celebrities’ go-to place after giving birth. The brand was founded in 2017. For the past three years, its satisfaction rate is 99.1% and it often ranks TOP 1 on many lifestyle platforms or mommy-baby apps. 

The average amount per order at Saint Bella is 160k RMB ($24.7K) (note: the average amount in the confinement industry is around 40k to 100k RMB), and over 80% of families choose to have other services provided by Saint Bella other than taking care of the mommy and baby, such as postpartum recovery and asking nurses to provide postpartum-related service at home. These extra services cost around 30k RMB for a household.

Postpartum service usually costs a lot and people don’t need it most of the time. When choosing brands or postpartum centers, people tend to go for those top runners, and that kind of explains why Saint Bella is able to maintain such a high price.

Why is Saint Bella able to achieve such success?

Promotion 

By providing high-quality and thoughtful service, Saint Bella has become many celebrities’ choice for a postpartum center. These celebrities’ lives while staying at Saint Bella shows up on Weibo’s hot topic ranking board sometimes. This helps the brand get lots of attention.

The brand also has large-scale offline activities every year. In 2020, it created an exhibition called “Me Before U”, which showed the journey from being pregnant to giving birth to a baby. The exhibition was held at three cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu (成都). The brand invited many celebrities and KOLs to attend the show. 

To reach its target audience of high net-worth individuals, Saint Bella partners with high-end jewellery brands such as Mikimoto, Chaumet, and Cartier to sponsor and promote the event, and it often holds the event at luxury hotels such as the Peninsula Hotel, Rosewood, Park Hyatt and the Waldorf Astoria. The customers that Saint Bella targets match with these jewelry brands’ and hotels’ consumers. It helps to improve Saint Bella’s image as well. 

Authority

In 2018, just a year after the brand was founded, Saint Bella was invited by the government to take part in establishing regulations for the mommy-baby industry. This made consumers regard Saint Bella as an authority and because of its role, the brand is able to learn the most updated regulations in the industry.

Establish training colleges 

Saint Bella works with ACI (American Certification Institute) to obtain the training courses for those carers, and it also works with high-profile hotels in China to provide professional training for its employees. It is the only confinement center in the mainland of China that has a complete training system. 

Postpartum centers are just a starting point 

Saint Bella belongs to PrimeCare International (贝康集团), which is a nursing care institute. PrimeCare’s management team is highly-educated and most of them were senior executives at major companies such as Alibaba, ByteDance, Didi, and Ogilvy. Such a management team is very rare in the postpartum industry. The team brings a fresh perspective and business know-how to the healthcare industry.

PrimeCare chose postpartum centers as a starting point and they plan to expand their business to other niches such as baby education and elderly care.

Read more: 破解连锁化难题，圣杯拉如何突破月子中心天花板？

The post Chinese Women are Flocking to Postpartum Centers after Giving Birth appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

But that may be changing. Although it has received very little media coverage, Chinese luxury brand ICICLE之禾 ranked #1 in the luxury womenswear category during this year’s 11.11.

If ICICLE sounds familiar, it’s because we mentioned it in a previous article we wrote about how the fashion in the TV show Nothing But Thirty (三十而已) was extremely popular among Chinese consumers. Among all the international brands that got a boost in publicity from the show, Icicle was one of the Chinese brands that was featured.

About the Brand

ICICLE is an apparel brand founded by a couple in Shanghai in 1997. It is a luxury brand with prices ranging from 1,996 RMB to 19,900 RMB ($300- $3,040). Its style matches with the characters of the TV show Nothing But Thirty and many people started getting to know the brand since then.

Its product’s quality is one of the reasons for its success. Some of them are produced in the same factory that works for MaxMara. It also treats details very carefully.

The other thing is its after-sales service. On social media platform Zhihu (知乎), an Icicle customer shares her experience of having her pants fixed again and again by the brand. She was very pleased that after tailoring, the pants seem quite new to her and don’t show any signs of being altered.

Marketing

ICICLE doesn’t work with big celebrities or KOLs, instead, it works with mid-tier ones. In terms of celebrities such as Chinese singer Chen Linong (陈立农) or actress Tao Hong (陶虹), ICICLE’s products either show up with them in magazines or street photography, especially airports. (PS: Airports have become hot places for celebrities to show their outfit of the day). When it comes to bloggers, the brand mainly works with lifestyle and fashion KOLs.

To target different consumers, the brand has developed several lines including women’s businesswear, travel, sustainable apparel, children’s clothes and menswear. Though it has several product lines, ICICLE places its main focus on white collar females ages 25 to 30 that pursue a sophisticated lifestyle. This group of people are highly educated, confident and have good fashion taste.

Plans for International Expansion

The brand is also going international. It hired former Vice CEO of the French food brand Fauchon as its vice president and opened stores in Paris. The brand is also planning to open a store in London. All these moves signal to Chinese consumers that the brand is being recognized by the international market and its quality is being proven.

Read more: 之禾集团副总裁Isabelle Capron: 明年ICICLE将在巴黎开设第二家门店并进入伦敦市场

ICICLE这个品牌的理念怎么样，经营模式有哪些？

The post No.1 Luxury Women’s Wear Brand on Tmall During Double 11 was Chinese Brand ICICLE appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

Today’s episode features Chloe Reuter, Founding Partner of Gusto Luxe, to share findings from Gusto’s new report on the state of China’s luxury market post COVID-19 along with some of her personal observations being heavily immersed in Shanghai’s luxury community.

Some of the ideas we discuss include:

• Is the revenge buying that we hear about in the news real? Or are luxury consumers actually being conservative with their spending?
• Is health the new wealth?
• Why COVID-19 has made sustainability a greater concern among HNWI
• What are the hottest domestic travel destinations among luxury consumers?
• Dior’s take on the e-commerce live streaming trend

Guest: Chloe Reuter

LinkedIn

Report: Love of Luxury Remains Strong Among Shanghainese Women – But Conscious Consumerism Here To Stay

Email: chloe.reuter@gusto-luxe.com

The post The State of China’s Luxury Market Post COVID-19 appeared first on China Marketing Insights.

For many sale associates in China, famous Taobao live streamers Austin (李佳琦) and Viya (薇娅) are their idols. These two former sales associates have shown what is possible, using their sales skills to become nationally recognized figures, a path that many sales associates dream of following. 

In April, Chinese department store INTIME began giving their sales associates a chance to make their dreams come true, collaborating with Alibaba to launch the “淘柜姐” or “Tao Saleswoman” plan, in which Intime sales associates are invited to be live streamers on Taobao. INTIME shared that they started this program 1. To boost sales and 2. To give their sales associates an opportunity to boost their incomes. It appears to be working. 100 INTIME saleswomen live streamed during the recent 618 shopping holiday, resulting in a 133% increase in sales YOY. 

Due to their skills, knowledge, and experience dealing with customers, sales associates are the perfect e-commerce live streamers and naturally have a leg up over those without a sales associate background. 

While I previously haven’t heard much about INTIME, from what I read it seems like an innovative retailer that is really looking towards the future. It is the first department store in China to have its own technology team, with over 200 people, a size equal to a mid-sized Internet company. It has its own app called Miaojie (喵街) which allows users not only to view product information, but to also see how many parking spaces are available at a store. 

INTIME equips its sales associates with data analytics tools reminding them when to stock up on certain items and predicting what products are likely to be in high demand based on hot topics, weather, holidays and other statistics.  

Read more: 商场导购转型“淘柜姐”？银泰百货要孵化自有带货网红

Will Selling Second-hand Items Become Celebrities’ Subsidiary Business?

Move over Douyin and Xiaohongshu, second-hand e-commerce platform Xianyu (咸鱼) has become the hot new place for celebrities to interaction with their fans. According to Xianyu, there are 56 celebrities actively selling on the platform. Customers buy these items either because they are discounted luxury products or because the celebrity has worn or used it before (明星同款).

The Top 5 items sold by celebrities are: skirts, shoes, bags, sweaters and gowns. According to the celebrities, most of the items come from cross-border online shopping, Daigou or are presents given to them by brands. Similar to ordinary users, they have been worn or used. Other than these items, celebrities sometimes sell lesser-known items. For example, Zhang Yuqi (张雨绮) once sold a candle fire extinguisher. Some celebrities even start selling used items from their own brands. Though they are sold at a steep discount, it appears to be a good way to promote their brands. 

Among top-tier celebrities, Shen Mengchen (沈梦辰) has earned the most selling second-hand items. According to the platform she has earned around 450k RMB. Among the top 10 celebrities on the platform, several of them are C list celebs whose ability to earn is less based on their celebrity status and more on the orginal value of the item being sold, for example a Hermes bag. 

But not all celebrities are in it for profit. Celebrity Jing Tian (景甜) donates all proceeds from Xianyu and regularly posts the amount which has drawn a lot of positive attention. 

The Xianyu platform gives fans the opportunity to own a piece of their favorite celebrities and, as seen by Jing Tian, can also be used to build a positive public image. But if it is used improperly, it could also provoke controversy as anything to do with money is sensitive. I think this is also an interesting opportunity for brands. 

Read more: 明星为什么都爱在咸鱼上卖二手？

What type of Travel Content is best for which Chinese Social Media Platform?

The tourism industry continues to boom as Chinese peoples’ incomes are increasing. Young consumers are leading this trend with 70% of travellers 35 years old or younger. Many of these consumers are getting inspiration and travel info from travel influencers and this article shares some typical characteristics of travel content on several major Chinese social media platforms. 

Douyin: To date there are only 3 travel influencers on Douyin that have more than 5 million followers. Though vertical videos typically do best on Douyin, a lot of travel content is horizontal. Many travel influencers on Douyin tend to post travel vlogs. Quality travel content is still in the early stages on Douyin but with its geotagging features the platform holds a ton of opportunity for the travel industry. 

Kuaishou: Again, travel videos tend to be vlog style. Influencers are mostly hiking and travel guides recording their lives abroad. 

Bilibili: Travel influencers on this platform typically live in a big city or another country, they understand its culture well, and share their experience to audience. They are also more like vlogs.

Xiaohongshu: Posts tend to be travel guides referred to as gonglue(攻略). 

Read more: 旅游短视频的钱景在哪？

China Influencer Marketing Podcast: Easternization & Understanding Young Chinese Consumers with Zak Dychtwald, Author of “Young China”

In this episode, we hear from Zak Dychtwald, author of the book “Young China” and Founder of the think tank Young China Group.

He and I dive deep, trying to understand young Chinese people and what they are all about. Zak shares some of the defining characteristics of the post 80s, post 90s and post 00s consumers, how they differ from older generations, as well as common misperceptions international companies have about this highly sought-after consumer group.

If you’re working for an international brand in the China market or one that’s looking to enter the China market, I highly suggest you listen to this episode and check out some of the videos of Zak’s speeches that I have linked below.

Listen online here, on iTunes here, and on Ximalaya FM here.

Influencer Spotlight:

Farfetch and Tmall are Taking Influencer Collaborations to the Next Level

While e-commerce platforms collaborating with influencers to drive sales is nothing new, e-commerce platforms in China appear to be taking influencer partnerships to the next level. Recently, Farfetch joined forces with renowned WeChat influencer Mr. Bags to launch a co-branded Mini Program store, while top e-commerce live streaming beauty blogger Austin Li became the first KOL to launch a Tmall Global Influencer Store.

Read more (In English) 

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