Don’t be a sheep and follow the herd while choosing a pack and ship company for your e-commerce business. According to research, 44% of buyers don’t complete their purchase because of expensive shipment charges.

Your shipping strategy is a big part of your business, so choosing the right provider makes a huge difference. Moreover, shipping is the first indication of service quality. It doesn’t matter how useful your e-commerce website is; the only thing that matters is how efficiently the customer receives your sold product.

Shipping All Location And Price

The first thing you should check with your shipping company can service all locations you want. If you are planning to give service globally, don’t think that all pack and ship companies deliver products overseas. Most of the local stores plan to deliver products to the neighboring areas. Choosing a local delivering partner helps them to process the shipment much faster than more prominent companies. However, if you plan to deliver internationally, then make sure you find out the rates for international as well as for domestic deliveries.

If the majority of your shipment is outside the country, then, choose the one with more choices based on international rates.

Another essential thing to look at is pricing. The cost of shipping makes a massive difference between winning a new client or having them back out of the purchase due to the high delivery charges. It will lead to a poor experience and unhappy customers.

For example, if you are selling coffee online, then a high-quality coffee cost ten dollars for 250gms. However, if the shipping cost is five dollars, then it may ruin their experience for an average customer. The right solution is to offer free shipping on orders above a specific minimum order. It encourages your customers to buy more coffee compensating free shipping costs. 

Product And Size Of Your Order

Every shipment company doesn’t deliver products to all the places you want. Your product might be too big or fragile, or it might require special handling, which the shipping company can’t provide.

Therefore, before reviewing different shipping providers, examine thoroughly the services offered by the ship and pack company.

The knowledge will help you to choose which company suits your business. There are even shipping companies, which don’t ship expensive items. Therefore, understanding their shipping policies is essential for you.

Similarly, a courier company might give an excellent price for small packages, but if your average orders consist of medium boxes, that deal won’t work.

Reliability And Coverage

Before finalizing any shipping company for your online business, read all their important points. Be sure the delivery company you choose is trustworthy and can offer guarantee and security while using their services. They should provide you with basic things like proper packing and on-time delivery.

If your customers are mostly outside the country, you should look for a company that offers coverage. Shipping within your city or state won’t have any inconvenience in terms of coverage; however, expanding your business outside the city limits needs guaranteed coverage and reliable delivery through their branch offices.

It is convenient for you if they have fixed national and international shipping charges, which will save you time and money.

Shipping Options To Consider

While choosing the best delivery company, also note these common points. 

Speed shipment and tracking.

A good shipping company should process and deliver each product on time to your customer. They should able to track the shipments with secure tracking details.

Free Shipping And Flat Rate Shipping

Most of the customers look for free shipping options. The free shipping tool is one of the key factors in the e-commerce industry. Offering free shipping to your customers ensures customer retention and more buyers for your product.

But there are times when it is not possible to offer free shipping. Instead, you can charge a flat rate delivery charge, regardless of what products customers purchase. Introducing this option, you need to estimate the average cost of shipping the package. This information helps you to come up with the right charge to your customers.

Many Chinese consumers buy products through cross-border eCommerce. Not all foreign brands are big enough to open a physical store in China. The growth in cross-border eCommerce has offered an alternative way for these brands to sell their products in China.

Even for the brands that are looking to launch full-size stores in China, cross-border eCommerce is a great way to test the market and establish their presence.

WeChat Shop 

The easiest way to start selling products in China is through a WeChat shop or store, which is an eCommerce platform that exits within the WeChat app.

WeChat stores allow access to a wide range of products. Merchants with verified accounts can open a WeChat store.

WeChat stores are linked to official accounts. Brands can identify customers directly from official accounts and focus on specific target groups and also retarget users based on WeChat store behavior. 

Through WeChat stores, companies can sell their products directly to millions of WeChat users. Users don’t need to go to any external platforms. Instead, they can use the WeChat integrated payments systems to pay for products bought. These WeChat stores can be shared easily and can lead to viral campaigns for group buying.

How to open a WeChat Shop?

Opening a WeChat shop or store is much easier than opening up an account for other social media services in China. Foreign businesses can sell their products to Chinese consumers without having a Chinese business license.

As a foreign business wishing to sell products in China through WeChat, you need to first open a WeChat service account. There are two options.

1. Borrow the business license from a business partner or use a third-party agent in order to register an account

Through this process, it generally takes 7 business days to register a Chinese WeChat account. The account will have to be verified annually in order to access features like WeChat payments or advanced API. A western payment solution like PayPal will have to be used.

2. Apply for an account with a foreign business license through Tencent  

Since this is not the standard process, it can even take two months to get an account. Companies need to prove to Tencent that they want to indulge in eCommerce in China. They also need to have a foreign eCommerce website. Tencent usually charges a fee to open this type of account.

Once you have an official WeChat account, the next step is to apply for a WeChat cross border payment account. Foreign businesses don’t need to have a Chinese bank account. Chinese customers can pay in RMB. WeChat automatically handles currency conversions and foreign companies will collect payments in major currencies.

Now comes the time to create a WeChat shop or store. Brands can create and design their own WeChat stores. However, it is a good idea to take the help of WeChat store providers. Next upload products to your WeChat store.

Ways to drive traffic to your WeChat Shop

Driving traffic to your WeChat shop or store will be hard, especially if your brand is new to the Chinese market. You will have to get your customers to know you.

Create Great Content

WeChat stores themselves cannot gain followers but official accounts can. Your official account will be your official brand page on WeChat. You can use it to create long term relationships with your customers. Create useful and interesting content that users can share with friends and family.

KOL Marketing

One way of increasing online followers and drawing traffic to your WeChat store is to hire key opinion leaders (KOLs) and influencers who have pre-existing fan bases. They can help you raise brand awareness. Also, endorsements from influencers are especially beneficial for new companies entering China.

WeChat Paid Advertising (PPC)

You can drive traffic to your shop using paid advertising within the WeChat platform. You can do this through ‘Moments ads’ which can be video or multimedia ads right inside target customers’ WeChat Moments. Another option is to use post ads on third party accounts.  

Conclusion

A WeChat shop supplemented by fast and high-quality customer service and multichannel marketing can help you successfully tap into the Chinese cross-border eCommerce market. For best results, take the help of a Chinese digital marketing agency.

WeChat conferences are designed for decision-makers from marketing, advertising, media backgrounds to discuss the latest trends in WeChat marketing, eCommerce, customer support, and how to implement them.

A WeChat conference in London gets to see the most dynamic WeChat experts, consultants, technology vendors, digital marketers, and other dignitaries from across UK and China.

The event empowers you with China’s marketing and eCommerce expertise and paves the way for executing digital marketing campaigns in China efficiently.

Read on to find out in detail why attending a WeChat conference is important for your business. 

You get to listen to some outstanding speakers

A WeChat conference in London is attended by company founders, chief marketing officers, managers, chief brand officers, marketing strategists, social media managers, developers, creative directors, representatives of local, regional, and national brands. These people speak on diverse topics and share their success stories with you.

When they focus on WeChat marketing, eCommerce, and cross-border business, their insights can help you activate your business in the Chinese market without difficulties.

You may get to hear Allen Zhang speak, Tencent’s low-key executive who built WeChat. You will get a first-hand experience of how successful people speak and carry themselves. The oratory skills of the speakers will be on display.

There is a great potential for learning

You can learn a lot from a WeChat conference. If your business is based in the UK and you are planning to explore the Chinese market, the first thing you need is solid information to base your decisions on.

The internet is where you generally look for information. But the problem with some articles on the net is that one or two people who have the know-how write about a topic and other writers base their writings on their articles.

So, you may find that in some cases the same information is being repeated while you are unable to find an answer to a particular question that you have in mind. This problem is particularly acute in the case of articles related to digital marketing in China as it is not an English speaking country.

For example, it can be tempting to jump on the bandwagon of WeChat Mini Programs and KOLs without understanding the basics of WeChat marketing.

A WeChat conference offers brands not yet present in China the opportunity for a back to basics WeChat marketing education and a well-needed refresher for some of the industry’s giants.

You will understand where you are getting stuck and what you need to do to ensure a better ROI. You will know about the scams you need to look out for and clear any misconceptions that you may be having.

You can ask questions in the interactive sessions or speak personally with the speakers and other professionals.

You will get to hear the big announcements first hand

In a WeChat conference, announcements are made regarding changes to the platform, new features, and insights on how users are using the platform.

It was in a conference that WeChat unveiled Mini Programs in 2017.

When a tip war between Apple and WeChat was the talk of the town, it was announced in a conference in 2018 that Tencent had reached an understanding with Apple and that they would reintroduce the ‘tip’ feature for iOS device users in China.

In the same conference, it was also announced that WeChat would become a mobile gaming platform.

In a conference in 2019, Allen Zhang announced that productivity would be WeChat’s holy grail and that he intended to make user sessions ‘short and efficient’.

And in the 2020 conference, WeChat mapped out its plan to step up monetization within WeChat to stimulate more business transactions.

Offers great networking opportunities

A WeChat conference has networking breaks where you can chat with people and can find partners and investors. It will make you feel good interacting with all these professionals over lunch or with a cup of tea in your hand. You will be more motivated than ever before.

Conclusion

With digital advertising expected to overtake traditional advertising by 2022, there will be significant opportunities for overseas companies looking to tap into China’s eCommerce growth. A WeChat conference in London will put you on the right track.

We all know the significant effect a good social media marketing strategy could have on your company. Now, when that market is China, and the target audience is one you’ve never interacted with before, it could get tricky. But fear not, for many have entered and conquered the market using smart social media marketing strategies. While the marketplace is very different from other marketplaces around the world, one thing is for certain. The same rules while creating a brilliant social media marketing strategy remain the same, whether in the United States or in China.

Five Simple Steps To Create A Social Media Marketing Strategy in China

It really is quite straightforward. The strategy summarizes everything you plan to do and hope to achieve using the best social media marketing in China. This acts as your goal tracker by logging your actions and gives you a peek at how you’re doing along the way. The goal is to be as specific as you possibly can be while keeping it concise. You don’t want to overachieve by logging plans that are so lofty and broad, it’s close to impossible to achieve. 

Step 1: Setting Smart Goals

Creating a winning social media marketing strategy in the Chinese market is crucial. You want to define your objectives and goals clearly without making them look unattainable. Goals are always a little far-fetched but that’s how you know you’re making progress. Also without them, there’s no way to measure your progress. Make sure each goal is measurable, specific, attainable, time-bound, and relevant. This will help guide your actions and render business results you’ll be satisfied with. 

Step 2: Gaining A Good Understanding Of Your Audience

Getting to know your target audience is very important, especially if you’re a first-timer in the ever-changing business environment of China. The target audiences vary greatly from country to country, so no amount of experience in other countries will help you here. Get down to the basics, and get to know the ideal customer, and more importantly, what they would like to see on the social media platforms you use to advertise your brand. This is crucial if you wish to turn your followers into customers. A good way to go about this is by creating buyer personas- step into the shoes of your potential followers and customers to help think better about what they’d expect from you. And of course, the second stage of this step is gathering real-world data. Social media analytics can easily provide you data about your followers and their interests. 

Step 3: Do Enough Recon On Your Competitors

If you’re new to the market, one thing that you can use to your advantage is checking out what your competition is doing to get ahead in the game. Social media marketing strategies in China are not as complicated as most people consider it to be. Start off by conducting a competitive analysis, so you can find out who your competition is, and what they’re excelling at (and possibly, what they’re not). This will also help you get a rough idea of what to expect from your customers, which in a way, helps you realize the practicality of your goals and how easily they can be achieved. You’ll further be able to spot opportunities: go for social media platforms where the audience is underserved, rather than fishing in the same pond as your overachieving competitors. 

Step 4: Take A Step Back To Analyze

This might be the most important part of your social media marketing strategy! Once you’ve invested enough time researching and engaging, you need to take a step back and audit yourself. Find out what’s working and what isn’t. This is your time to improve. Social media marketing strategies in China are constantly developing and evolving, so it’s important for you to keep your eyes on the ball. Engage in social listening if you can, which is another way to keep an eye on the competition. But never skip out on the social media audit, which helps you examine your current efforts and make the necessary improvements. 

Step 5: Set Up Accounts or Improve Existing Ones

Once you’ve done your research, it’s time to put your strategy into action. You do this by setting up accounts on the popular social media platforms across China, like WeChat, Weibo, YouKu, and more, depending on what works best for your company. As you decide the platforms to use, you will also realize each channel requires a different strategy! But at the end of the day, an effective social media marketing strategy in China can do wonders for you and your business if chalked out efficiently and audited regularly. Good luck!