Un Marché Chinois En Mutation

Azoya was featured in a French magazine L’entreprise Connectée earlier this month.

by Azoya

Azoya was featured in a French magazine L’entreprise Connectée earlier this month. The article explained the huge opportunity in China for European retailers and how Azoya can help them enter Chinese market through cross-border eCommerce solutions. The article was published in French and translated to English by Azoya.

Our Speaker

After 10 years’ experience of developing retail network across the Northern Hemisphere, Stéphane Rouquette is now in charge of a new kind of internationalization—cross-border E-com, or as someone put it, the economic model of tomorrow. By joining the young Azoya team, Stéphane becomes the advocator of this new economic model in Western Europe.

A changing China

China is no longer the country we used to know, it’s more than the world’s factory but a country with great consuming demand. With an affluent middle class, the rise of services, increased consumption, the transfer of production to third-world countries, internationalization and the increasing quality of domestic brands, China has developed to a new level. It’s not a country of low production cost any more.

Why is this an opportunity to open up the Chinese market?

China is now the largest e-commerce market in the world with over $ 400 billion transaction volume in 2014. More than 100 million Chinese tourists spending more than 160 billion euros across the world. In recent years, a crisis of confidence in domestic products rises in China. Old habits favoring prices give way to emphasizing quality.
Also, although the growth of the Chinese economy is no longer in double figures, it remains one of the most dynamic in the world, offering opportunities to a wide segment of the population (note: approximately 1,375,000 000 people in China) to gain access to new products once too expensive or inaccessible.

The recurring problems when we want to open up to China

China is a large country with a very different culture from the West. This means that it can be very difficult to develop business in traditional channels. The regulations, customs, consumers … everything is different and must be understood before we can adapt.

What is the methodology to go international?

For many leaders, the international market is still considered an extension of the domestic market. This remains the biggest error of assessment of internationalization. Above all, in a classic model of internationalization, we can observe some key points:

  1. What resources will I allocate to my international development?
  2. Am I willing to change, to adapt my products to the market.
  3. Which are my aim countries (characteristics, consumers, SWOT, business intelligence …) – make sure it’s convenient to export.
  4. What can I rely in the countries (agents, consultants, etc.)

Once these questions are answered, you can begin internationalization.

But with the help of cross-border E-com, all those questions are simplified to allow the decision-makers to concentrate on their core business.

The legislation is different and complicated for deliveries, right?

International delivery is governed by specific legislation. The customs may involve taxes, fees and additional costs. Overseas companies must have enough local knowledge to get past this challenge if they don’t have local partners. However, cross-border E-com brings a whole new approach and simplification (for the manager) to internationalization.

Is this the mature moment for business leaders to open up Chinese market?

Without any experience in export, it is difficult to sell to China. This will depend on local partners, products and especially the willingness of leaders to understand and accept a completely different country.

Your success in 30 days

Thanks to the expertise and experience of Azoya, many new retailers are now able to enter the Chinese market within 30 days and increase their customers and sales in a few months.

Azoya in Europe

“Since we signed our partnership with Azoya Group, our sales have increased tenfold and China represents, in a few months, over 50% of our turnover. I just made the acquisition of new premises and recruit a new team dedicated to the fulfillment of Chinese orders. ” Sebastien / Managing Director / BodyGuard Apotheke. / Germany