Chinese Webshops
We often get the question if the Chinese also use Webshops like we do in the West. The answer is “No” and I would like to dedicate this article to why that is.
If you would ask anyone how they do their online shopping, then 9 out of 10 times they would say “Google”. If you would ask the same question to someone in China their answer would be “Taobao!”
For starters the Chinese use Baidu instead of Google, since Google is blocked in China as we all know. The big difference is that people mainly use Baidu for gaining information or looking for services. If you want to go online shopping in China there’s a good chance you will be using Taobao most of the time. But what kind of webshop is Taobao?
Taobao and Tmall
First of all Taobao is fully Chinese and is owned by the popular Alibaba group. It has a reliable rating system, has an enormous amount of products on offer and the payment methods are all Chinese banks and the Chinese version of Paypal called “Alipay.” Personally I’ve bought for thousands of Euro’s by using Taobao and Alipay and will continue to do so. I only had 1 or 2 bad experiences buying products mainly because there weren’t enough reviews to describe the quality of the product.
Together with Taobao there is Tmall, which is basically the same company since the search results of Taobao will also contain Tmall results. When you click on a product you will simply be redirected to Tmall and there’s no need to change accounts whatsoever. Although there are a few important differences between Tmall and Taobao.
Setting up a webshop in Tmall or Taobao goes as follows:
Taobao requirements:
- Chinese Bank Account
- Alipay Account
- Chinese Phone number
- Business License (can be overseas)
- Deposit of ¥ 1000
Tmall requirements:
- The company has to be internationally recognised and there has to be a minimum turnover a year.
- Alipay Account
- Chinese Phone Number
- Business License (can be overseas)
- Deposit of ¥ 150.000 plus annual costs
Basically Taobao is great for the small to medium sized company to start a Chinese webshop. Anyone can open a webshop within Taobao, even the products can be sent from overseas. Your operation doesn’t have to be within Chinese borders, although it is recommended.
Chinese buying behavior on mobile phones
On average there are 50% of the Chinese that have ever bought something through their mobile phone. In the US that average is only 20%. An astonishing 80% of the mobile purchases are done through Taobao/Tmall with an annual growth of 150%. Around 50% of all purchases done through the computer are done through Taobao/Tmall, mainly with the popular Alipay payment system. Alipay has studied Paypal well and have improved it by doing free money transfers and giving interest over large amounts of moneys.
Chinese Webshops within Social Media
As I mentioned earlier there are enough webshops in China in use, but as soon as you press “add to cart”, you often will be redirected to the products’ Taobao or Tmall page. The reason for this is that the Chinese have trust in using Taobao, more than the regular Chinese webshop found through a search engine. Taobao has a pretty smart buyer to seller protection that serves it’s purpose well.
There’s another big player: JD.com. They do seemingly well because they work together with WeChat. WeChat is similar to the Whatsapp we use but offers business accounts which can be followed by users. These business accounts have integrated web-shops connected to JD.com.
Do you have any intention of setting up a Chinese Webshop or do you want to setup a shop in one of the big E-Commerce websites? Feel free to contact us and allow us to give advice what’s best for your business.
