Azoya: Five Years in the Making

Dear friends,

This year marks the fifth year anniversary of Azoya's founding, a key milestone in the development of our company, as we continue to help international retailers and brands access the China market through e-commerce. We would like to take this opportunity to reinforce Azoya’s core value proposition, and discuss our plans to grow the business and transform Azoya into a key gateway for trade between China and the rest of the world.

The Challenges We Face

E-commerce in China is an incredibly difficult and competitive market to operate in. Many platforms and brands spend millions of dollars trying to crack the market. Over the years, many have tried and failed, with some selling to larger competitors, and others shutting down altogether. The ones that continue to exist often carry on with razor-thin margins or continue to lose money, even after they go public. With cross-border e-commerce, businesses face an additional host of issues that range from international logistics to cross-border payments, integrating global IT infrastructure systems, and more.

At Azoya, we face the unique challenge of bridging global retail with Chinese consumers. As a cross-border company, not only do we have to convince global companies to trust and work with us, but we also have to convey their brand proposition and value to the Chinese consumer. In that sense, we are both a B2B company and a B2C company, and face the daily challenge of reconciling these two cultures with one another; each side has their own unique set of issues that need to be dealt with.

What enables us to deal with these issues effectively? What makes Azoya unique, and what sets us apart from our competitors?

The short answer is that we are committed to building long-lasting businesses and brand value for our retail partners. While this may sound cliché, in China it is quite difficult to find companies with the patience and mindset needed to grow and succeed in the long term.

Before Azoya, Alex and I built our careers at Huawei, one of the few Chinese companies that have been able to operate on a truly global scale. At Huawei, we learned how to work very closely together with overseas partners – not only by selling them equipment on a one-off basis, but also by collaborating with them to set up telecoms infrastructure and provide technical after-sales solutions for the long run.

There, we developed the patience and temperament needed to work closely with international clients over a long period of time, rather than just focus on short-term sales. This is something that you would be hard-pressed to find in China, because the market is so competitive, fast-paced, and short-term oriented.

The lessons we learned at Huawei have been instrumental to our success at Azoya. We are unique in that we have been globally oriented from day one, and understand what our retail partners want to accomplish long-term. Much of this has been made possible by our investors, who have been highly patient and understanding as we’ve grown our business over the years.

While Azoya does operate on a lean structure that enables us to adapt quickly, we are also committed to building lasting businesses for our clients in the China market. We are not just clearing inventory. Not only do we help our partners set up and operate e-commerce stores, but we also help them expand to other sales channels and procure inventory from our global retail network, adding value at every point in the retail value chain, from upstream to downstream. We conduct KOL marketing campaigns and set up pop-up stores. We have a customer service center in Chengdu that caters to their customers. If we believe that we can’t meet the needs of our clients, we’ll even refer them to our network of trusted partners, which includes creative marketing agencies, key opinion leaders, and more. Our business is built on mutual trust and long-term commitment.

The Road Ahead - Where We Stand

Azoya is well-positioned to become the go-to partner for international retailers and brands looking to access the China e-commerce market. Just this year, we have signed with many new and exciting retail partners. This includes GLADD, Japan’s largest flash sales website, Swanson, one of America’s largest online health supplements retailers, and Woolworths, an iconic Australian supermarket chain that employs over 200,000 people worldwide. We are also working with UK-based Cambridge Satchel to set up an independent Chinese website and introduce their exquisite, handmade crafted bags to the China market.

In addition, we are expanding our solutions to include marketplace and WeChat mini-program operations, so that our retail partners have more channels to market and sell their products. We are also investing more resources into Azoya Club, the go-to app for information about cross-border products and deals. Our newly established Azoya Consulting business is designed for brands who are exploring the China market for the first time and don’t know where to start. We are also developing pay-as-you-go SAAS software, completely integrated with crucial functions such as cross-border payments, logistics, etc., equipping smaller retailers and brands with the tools they need to enter the China market themselves. Lastly, we are also exploring export-from-China models, in which we leverage our global retail network to help quality Chinese brands export to customers around the world.

In short, we are escalating our business to the next level by providing a full suite of services for all different types of partners. By doing this, our retail ecosystem will enable us to become a key gateway for trade between China and the rest of the world.

We are truly excited for what lays ahead in Azoya's future, and would like to thank our retail partners, employees, and investors for all of their support over the last five years.

Thank you,

Don Zhao and Alex Huang

Co-Founders of Azoya International

Alex Huang Don Zhao