Since then, multiples of thousands of BUDDY BELT have been cut, sewn and assembled. This number keeps multiplying exponentially, as do sales. Now it has become a globally successfully pet brand for small dogs.
In 2022, AgencyChina’s TP team were honored been selected as BUDDY BELT‘s Tmall Partner (TP), which brought convenience to existing BUDDY BELT fans in China.
Here’s how AgencyChina went into action:
AgencyChina undertook research in-platform and off-platform, start from sketch to define brand’s positioning and core target audience.
AgencyChina opened and still operates the BUDDY BELT Tmall store as a TP, achieving a rapidly growing monthly sales. Please free to take a look at the store.
As a German leading brand in the pet supply industry, HUNTER was founded in 1980 by Rolf Trautwein. Leather is what HUNTER is passionate about. Every leather product from HUNTER is a very special item that has undergone numerous complex production processes. Their high quality standards are applied right from the start, when the raw materials are inspected on arrival at their manufacturing facility, only to bring a unique experience to the dogs and their owners.
HUNTER decided to provide high-quality pet accessories to Chinese consumers by opening its offical Tmall Official store.
Hence, HUNTER turned to AgencyChina to operate its Chinese e-commerce accounts and social media with the aim of improving awareness and providing better options to Chinese pet owners.
In 2022, Agencychina has become the exclusive agent of HUNTER in China to expand more B2B channels online and offlines.
Here’s how AgencyChina went into action:
AgencyChina undertook research to understand and strategies the market opportunities and core target audience for HUNTER.
From then, AgencyChina launched and operated social media accounts such as WeChat, Weibo, Red, and Douyin, and Tmall Global Flagship Store. After 3 years of operation by our team, sales have reached a considerable level, with an annual growth rate of 50%. Please free to take a look at the store.
It is with profound shock and great sorrow that we have to announce the death of our respected colleague Michael Norris, a very important member of Agency China, who passed away unexpectedly on May 26, 2022 after a sudden physical illness that failed to be rescued in Shanghai Sixth People’s Hospital.
With the loss of Mr. Norris, we have lost such a talented colleague and a trusted friend, and we extend our most heartfelt condolences and sympathy to Michael’s family for the lose of their beloved one.
It’s hard to put into words in this moment of great pain.
China is the world’s largest e-commerce market. From the overall penetration rate of e-commerce, there is still a broad space for improvement, and potential categories determine the future growth space of the industry. In terms of the overall category, the penetration rate of e-commerce is about 25% at present. But the penetration rate of categories is different, especially for fresh food and beverage that the penetration rate of e-commerce is below 10%. These are large categories with trillions of dollars, so there is still a lot of space for ecommerce development.
From the perspective of consumer transaction scenes, the world has entered the era of video and live streaming. The most direct impact on e-commerce is the improvement of conversion rate. Live streaming room with more intuitive commodity display, anchor stimulating words, can greatly improve the conversion rate. According to research data from iResearch, the conversion rate of livestreaming e-commerce has increased from 0.5% to 4.3%.
Agency China has put together your 2022 China E-commerce Calendar to help you identify critical e-commerce shopping festivals to focus on, and to prompt deeper thinking about content and sales rhythms.
(Download your 2022 China E-commerce Calendar at the bottom of the article!)
January: New Year’s Day
A new marketing journey will start from the New Year’s Day. “Welcome the Chinese Year of Tiger” serves as a starting point to discuss on social media, such as New Year wishes, New Year’s image, etc. Brands also need to prepare “New Year shopping streets” and Spring Festival music for consumers in advance to create a hot atmosphere, so as to promote your marketing needs.
(Image Resource: Gucci)
February: Spring Festival & Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day in 2022 just happens to be during the Chinese Spring Festival. As a traditional Chinese festival focusing on “Reunion” and a Western festival focusing on “Love”, combination of the keywords of these two festivals and carrying out the brand marketing campaigns around the related topics will help a brand be more easily accepted by Chinese consumers.
March: Women’s Day
In China, Women’s Day is better known as the Queen’s Day, which describes women in the new era around independence, self-confidence and individuality. Women’s Day is the start of a year of competition between e-commerce platforms. In addition to various promotional activities on ecommerce platform, brands will also launch off-platform campaign to boost brand influence. Taking advantage of the hot event during the Spring Festival when the Chinese women’s football team won the gold medal at the Asian Championship, Nike launched a hashtag: Follow Your Way and released a commercial on Women’s Day, telling a story of Pubuzhma, a female football player who led the men’s team. In addition, Nike invited four representative women who dared to challenge the rules to share their opinions in a talk show, which generated a lot of discussion on social media.
(Image Resource: Nike)
April: April Fool’s Day April Fool’s Day is a good time for creative marketing. In recent years, in the major e-commerce platforms, it is not difficult to find that there are always some brands to bring consumers some unexpected products at this time.
March: 520
May 20th or 520 is known as the modern-day Valentine’s Day in China because “Five Two Zero” in Chinese sounds like “I love you”. In the past, 520 marketing was more based on giving gifts to express love for loved ones or relatives.
However, with the mainstream awareness of women caring for themselves, 520 marketing on e-commerce platforms focuses more on the value of “self-support to improve happiness” which subtly eliminating the sense of distance between the brand and women.
June: Children’s Day & 618
Children’s Day
Children’s Day has been a popular shopping day in China, where elders spoil children with many gifts, such as clothes, toys, etc. However, it should be noted that children’s Day has spread from children to adults, and people hope to find the memories and happiness of childhood through this festival.
Brands need to adapt quickly to these changes in perceptions and preferences. Everything from the target group, campaign topic to the marketing copywriting and page design needs to change.
618
618 is the most influential e-commerce campaign in the first half of each year, and it began live-streaming last year. In last year’s 618 live broadcast war, the leading host broadcast 17 live shows, bringing in 3 billion RMB of sales amount. The popularity of live broadcast will continue to this year, and the product category will be more diversified.
August: Qi Xi
As the Chinese Valentine’s Day, Qi Xi has been a great marketing opportunity for jewelry, restaurants, clothing stores, flowers, movie theaters, cosmetics and gift shops. In last year, Chanel invited two brand ambassadors to shoot a special Qi Xi festival short film.
(Image Resource: CHANEL)
September: New Academic Year
For Chinese students, September is the beginning of a new academic year, which is a good opportunity for educational products to be promoted and usually achieve good sales. Although the campaign seems to be aimed at students and their parents, it is often easier for brands to engage with creative marketing, such as co-branding campaigns.
October: Golden Week
The National Day holiday is also called golden Week, which lasts for seven days from 1st October, is a good opportunity for most people to take a vacation or go back to their hometown. It is important for travel related brands to pay attention to the fact that consumers usually plan their travel arrangements in advance, so we recommend that marketing campaigns should be arranged at least one month ago.
November: Double Eleven Campaign
As the largest e-commerce festival in China, double eleven of 2021 achieved 540.3 billion RMB on Tmall and 349.1 billion RMB on JD, with a total of 290,000 brands participating. According to QuestMobile, Taobao, Pinduoduo and JD had 684 million de-active users on the launch day of double eleven campaign.
Livestreaming e-commerce is still very popular. In terms of sales categories, beauty cosmetics, food and beverage are still popular. Taobao livestreaming sales account for 91.2% of beauty cosmetics and 5.7% of food and beverage.
We suggest never miss the Double 11 campaign and strive for a new annual sales record through it.
December：Christmas Day
Christmas Day is the most important festival in the West, has become very popular in China in recent years, especially among young people. The survey found that 70 percent of Christmas goers in China are younger than 38 years old, and 45 percent of them have strong purchasing power. Therefore, for businesses and businesses, Christmas is the last marketing opportunity at the end of the year.
As you can see, China offers a ton of opportunities for brands to promote their products on the countless e-commerce holidays on the various big and smaller platforms. Our advise for every brand is to pick and choose wisely, finding relevant events for their niche and target audience. Participation in the biggest events such as Double 11 and 618 might be a must. But it is best to plan the years promotion budget split for the other events based on where your brand could achieve the best possible outcome.
Would you like to get support in making your annual promotion calendar, and finding the right ways to reach your target audience during these popular e-commerce holidays in China? Don’t hesitate to get in touch for an initial consult with our local team of experts. Let’s make 2022 a great success for your brand in China!
Shiseido China has announced the launch of a Beauty Innovations Fund in collaboration with Boyu Capital. The fund, which is due to start this year after the relevant regulatory filings are complete, will explore investment opportunities among emerging Chinese brands in cosmetics and wellness.
The participation of short video platforms Douyin and Kuaishou in 618, China’s second-largest e-commerce festival, are a reminder that China’s e-commerce landscape isn’t just Alibaba, JD and Pinduoduo.
250,000 merchants and brands from around the globe participated in this year’s 6.18 on Tmall, more than double last year. Of these, two-thirds expected Tmall would be their primary sales channel for 618, according to a third-party survey.
In five short years, a millennial’s flash of inspiration proved to be a game-changing model. Livestream technology has not only enhanced the shopping experience for consumers, but reshaped the face of commerce.
