Last month, Alibaba Group’s third annual Malaysia Week saw first-time brands performing especially strongly among the 200-plus merchants hailing from the Southeast Asian country. This latest edition, which was expanded to 10 days for the first time, took place across Alibaba’s Tmall, Taobao Live, Juhuasuan, Fliggy and Freshippo platforms, and opened with a livestreamed ceremony that drew 1.7 million views. The rising demand for Malaysian products comes at a time when an increasing number of brands and retailers from the country are tapping Alibaba’s ecosystem to enter or grow their presence in China, both for its sheer market size and its importance as a sales channel, especially during the ongoing global pandemic. Malaysia isn’t the only country that Chinese consumers are looking to buy from. If you have a unique product or brand from your home market contact us to find out what your opportunities are in the Chinese market!

The Chinese market makes up a large share of the global luxury goods market. According to McKinsey’s China Luxury Report 2019, Chinese consumers at home and abroad spent 770 billion yuan ($115 billion) on luxury items in 2018 – almost a third of the global spend. One of the major reasons why Chinese choose to buy luxury goods abroad is that China’s import tax system and brand pricing strategy means luxury goods are priced higher domestically than abroad. Currently, China taxes imported consumer goods such as garments and beauty products an average of 6.9 percent and high-end cosmetics by 15 percent. But tariffs for many luxury products such as perfumes and watches exceed 30 percent. But things are changing all the time, and so are the policies around duty-free. For example, starting from July 1, the quota for individuals making duty-free purchases in Hainan was tripled to 100,000 yuan a

In the post-COVID era, consumers are increasingly concerned about daily health management and the mutual influence of various sub-health issues and their own immunity. A recent survey has found China’s total healthcare product expenditure increased by 9.0% in 2019, surpassing the growth of overall consumer expenditure (7.2%) in the same period, while usage penetration of vitamins and supplements increased from 48% to 57% from late February to early May. Are you in the healthcare or food supplement business? Now is the time to enter China!

China’s movie theaters are still coping with limited capacity, but that hasn’t affected the turnover for IMAX. The company announced that they scored a record-breaking $13 million opening weekend of the National Day Golden Week holiday in China, a historically strong box office period that runs from October 1 to 8 this year. The figure marks IMAX’s best-ever opening weekend for the National Holiday, up 25% over last year despite a 75% capacity limitation across the country. IMAX’s strong rebound in China is led by “The Eight Hundred,” the first Asian film shot entirely with IMAX cameras, which earned $17 million dollars for the company and currently stands as the highest grossing film of the year overall.

China’s consumer recovery has been led by affluent consumers who weren’t adversely affected by the pandemic, apart some minor inconveniences around lockdown. Case in point – luxury goods. Luxury spending in China will grow 20%-30% this year, according to a report from Boston Consulting Group, but much of that growth is going to come from consumers in China’s 50 largest and richest cities.

Exporters get nervous when their country has diplomatic tension with China. However, the recent past has shown us that consumers aren’t tuned into the finger-pointing and tit-for-tat that occurs on the diplomatic stage. Goods from Korea, the United States and now Australia are faring just fine, even as these countries navigate bilateral diplomatic issues.

We all know video gets more engagement than text and images, but which platform is right for your brand in China? Emma Li from Jing Daily has done a deep-dive with a rationale for different video platforms in China. Which platforms are you on currently? Which platforms do you wish you were on?

China’s pandemic control measures are paying economic dividends – consumer demand is building as we enter the Double 11 Double 12 shopping season! Retail sales of consumer goods rose by 0.85 percent month on month in July, a moderate increase from 0.83 percent in June, maintaining a six-month streak of expansion after a contraction of 10.91 percent in January.