Short-video apps are moving into e-commerce business Douyin and Kuaishou, China’s most popular short-video apps, are now taking steps to roll out e-commerce features. Kuaishou enables e-commerce accounts that link directly to Taobao and Youzan. The short-video platform’s goal is to provide vendors with content marketing and e-commerce support. After joining the program, merchants will be able to get professional operational advice, such as account growth trends analysis and detailed tracking traffic data. According to the report from August 2018, …

The WeChat applet was officially released on January 9, 2017 and is now coming to its 2nd anniversary. During these two years, the powerful power of the mini-program has attracted the biggest companies. On January 5th, Aladdin’s statistical platform Aladdin released the White Paper on the Development of WeChat Mini Program Industry in 2018. Through the research and analysis of the development status of the 2nd anniversary of WeChat mini-program, we can discover some interesting things: I. Changes in the …

What Happens in One Minute on the Chinese Internet In August, China’s internet population surpassed 800 million for the first time according to official government statistics. So what are all those people up to? Well, here’s an at-a-glance guide.   Not familiar with some of those names? Here’s a quick who’s who: Tik Tok also known as Douyin is one of China’s leading short video apps. Huya is one of the country’s biggest game streaming platforms and listed on the New …

Pinduoduo or Chinese “dama” (literally, big mamas) are budget-savvy shoppers most eager to snap up a good deal. They do most of the shopping for the family, and fortunately, they know just the place to score bargain-basement prices on everyday items, with discounts as deep as 90% off (look for overripe fruits that don’t last another day). On one condition: whip up enough friends on WeChat to order the items together in bulk, directly from the manufacturer. After all, the …

With 455 million monthly active users, photo-enhancement app Meitu is turning itself into a photo-social platform, with plans to expand into games, online literature, even claw crane machines The CEO said  Selfies and touch-ups are now a basic demand, especially among women. The pursuit for beauty is eternal. Photo-editing has become China’s top selfie-enhancement app company and has narrowed its losses and is poised to turn a profit this year, the first time since its IPO in 2016 in …

With a forecasted compound annual growth rate in double digits, online retailing is expected to grow from 17% of total retail sales in 2017 to 25% by 20201. The current scale and growth trajectory has made eCommerce a top three strategic priority for most retailers and brands. But more importantly, China’s eCommerce market offers a glimpse to the future of global retailing. China, today, is characterised by mobile-first consumerbehaviour, vibrant social commerce adoption, and aubiquitous digital payments infrastructure. In …

The end of Meipai. Hello Douyin! In recent months, video sharing and live streaming app Meipai has been gradually losing content creators and users to the short video app Douyin. Over the past week, this migration to Douyin rocketed when Meipai abruptly shut their platform down for what they are labeling a system upgrade. On March 22nd, Meipai users were shocked when they opened the app and found the homepage essentially blank. In the upper left-hand corner was a box with the words …

Today, more than ever, it’s the community that sells. In a little more than ten years, sneaker blog Hypebeast evolved into a publicly traded e-commerce platform. Liketoknow.it, an app for identifying, discussing and buying influencers’ looks, saw $1billion in sales last year. Chanel has created an Instagram account dedicated to Chanel beauty fans, featuring pictures and videos aggregated from influencers, make-up artists, and fans. Three Ways Brands Can Benefit 1. Balance traditional e-commerce and social e-commerce  Despite impressive sales records on social e-commerce …

WeChat is as a must-have channel for luxury brands looking to reach consumers in China. Yet new research suggests that many brands aren’t getting the engagement from the platform’s 900 million users they would hope for. While there are no doubt plenty of marketing success stories on the platform, digital intelligence firm L2 recently released an insight report on WeChat, revealing that most posts by luxury brands receive less than 20,000 views. Only four percent of fashion brand posts and three percent …

Taobao, the Alibaba-backed online retailer, has launched a customized version of its app for elderly users. While most companies are still figuring out how to capture the millennial market, Taobao, the Alibaba-backed online retailer, has its focus set on China’s growing population of senior citizens. Last week the company launched an “elderly-friendly” version of its app that the company hopes will capture the attention of aging Chinese. There are currently 222 million people aged over 60 in China and, by …