#digital jungle

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Hissabeth : Digital Jungle ⭒

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everytime we play we are the ruffest we are the ruffest seen?

a warped image from the digital jungle, created by baze.djunkiii in 2k17

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respectfully and with love and light...the internet is a wild place fr

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Market Research – Insights into the Daigou Trader

Market Research – Insights into the Daigou Trader

For Western companies, selling to China is a recognised challenge. Moreover, this year I coined the term, “Daigou-to-Consumer” (D2C) to help companies conceptualise a powerful channel known as ‘daigou’ [1] that can assist them in the marketing, promotion and ultimately sales of their brands in China. To further understanding this channel we undertook research into Australia based daigou. . This research offers insights into the nature of daigou and the findings may help derive effective strategies to better engage and utilise this daigou community. The data was obtained by online survey of 103 Australian based respondents; recruited via WeChat Daigou groups. . The findings from this sample show that daigou are almost exclusively female (94%) and the majority (46%) are aged between 30-39 yrs old with 42% being aged 20-29 years and 12% indicating being in the 40-49 year old bracket. . Half the respondents said they spend 1-2 days a week conducting daigou business with 25% stating they spend more than 3 days a week. 30% of the respondents indicate that they are working as employee with 24% indicating that they are ‘housewives’, 12% are students and 15% indicate that daigou is their full time occupation. .

. Mother/baby and health related categories (predominately vitamins) both featured as most popular among their buyers. . When asked what product categories they expected to see demand for in 12 months; mother/baby and health related products remained the leading categories but 3C and Jewellery had 11% and 18% respectively suggesting these categories would grow in demand. . . The majority of daigou in this sample group were selling between $500 and $800 per month. . 40% of respondents said their margin was 10-12% with 33% of respondents saying they got 20-30%. . When asked what the daigou buyers cared about most when buying via the daigou there were three clear concerns; authenticity of goods (83%), price (66%) and brand awareness (56%). . A very telling question for brands relates to the reasons why Chinese buyers request particular products for the daigou to purchase. The respondents indicated that the Chinese buyers cared about the product ‘effect’ (75%), the known brand (65%) and that it was made in Australia (62%). . . When asked how many parcels they send to China on a monthly basis the majority of daigou (32%) said they post between 20-50. 8% of respondents were sending more than 150 per month.

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The post Market Research – Insights into the Daigou Trader appeared first on Digital Jungle.

from Digital Jungle http://bit.ly/2vQGVaD

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What you should know about KOLs in China

What you should know about KOLs in China

Word-of-mouth has always been one of the most valuable forms of marketing. We tend to be more receptive to recommendations from a person they trust, than to ads or other corporate messaging. The power of word-of-mouth is especially significant in China than in any other countries, possibly due of the chaotic market and lack of trust between businesses and customers in China. That’s why KOL (Key Opinion Leader), or influencers as commonly known in the west, is an important key tool in any Chinese marketer’s arsenal. . Chinese KOLs are people who have large social media presence and followings who could influence consumers’ purchasing decisions. They do not only spread information, but also life attitudes, thoughts and ideas. KOLs in China are active across different social media, including Weibo, WeChat, Youku, Meipai, Yizhibo, Douban and so on. If being used wisely, engaging KOLs are powerful to magnify brand awareness, attract new followers, build brand credibility and ultimately alter purchase behaviours and habits.

Types of KOLs in China

1. Bloggers . Bloggers usually create and post original content. They share personal life stories and inspiring moments, aiming to connect with followers on a personal level. . Eg. 伞子No_Fan_No_Fun is a famous beauty blogger with more than 1.4M fans on Weibo .

The post What you should know about KOLs in China appeared first on Digital Jungle.

from Digital Jungle http://bit.ly/2upsN4o

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Getting Started with D2C (daigou-to-consumer); The SolarD Experience

Getting Started with D2C (daigou-to-consumer); The SolarD Experience

Last week I wrote a Bellamy’s Case Study highlighting how this brand mismanaged the Daigou channel and ultimately failed to understand the power of D2C. On the back of that post, I had a number of brand owners ask about examples of ‘who is getting it right’! So rather than simply highlighting one of the major brands, I thought it would be more interesting to showcase an emerging brand (in the context of Chinese consumers). . The brand I selected is SolarD; not because they have a flourishing Chinese business but its one that has aspirations of selling into China. This brand has not long started the journey and sharing what they are doing will have learnings for other emerging brands looking to enter the Chinese market.

The Brand

SolarD is at it’s core, a suncream. However, it boasts being a next generation cream that is designed to let in some of the UVB light that your body uses to naturally produce vitamin D whilst also screening out the harmful rays with SPF30 and SPF50. . . For the Chinese consumer this is a complex brand proposition and requires a degree of education to teach them about “Vitamin D”, the health benefits, the product differences and so forth. . Further, Chinese consumer behaviour around the use of suncream does not directly compare to Australian users and this has to be considered in the overall strategy.

How SolarD got started

When a company wants to start selling in China there are a lot of different variations of what this can look like. Do they want to do this via cross border ecommerce? Do they want to sell into retail in China? Have their products been product registered? Do they have a Chinese entity (i.e., WOFE) … a very long list of ‘to dos’ … When we start asking these types of questions, the company may quickly become overwhelmed. .

You need to understand there is a lot more to selling in China than having great products. . For SolarD, the cost of going directly in China did not make sense and therefore taking a D2C first approach delivered a number of tactical objectives; testing the products with a local Chinese audience, validating the new branding and communications and leveraging a daigou channel to create an awareness of brand in the Chinese marketplace. (The idea is that the D2C channel will lead then consider a B2B and B2C strategy).

Creating Brand Flagship eStore

SolarD created a Flagship Brand eStore on DaigouSales. Having an eStore provided them with visibility within the daigou community. The daigou can browse, purchase and ship SolarD products domestically or to China – even supports payments in RMB and dollars. The SolarD eStore also acts a central point for communications with daigou and offers a content location for daigou to get information, sample ads, company news and imagery etc.

Education fosters Brand Relationships

When considering the product information required for the daigou channel, there are two aspects to consider. The information and learning that the daigou needs to have in order to accurately represent the brand. Their core interest being in how to potentially make sales through their buyers back in China and secondly, the information needed by the daigou to help educate and persuade their end buyer. . . Education is a great way to spend time with daigou (online/offline) and thus develop a relationship. It is very important to form a brand relationship as much of the motivation for Chinese buyers to purchase via a daigou comes from the buyer’s trust in the daigou. If the daigou ‘knows’ the brand, has a relationship then there is a greater possibility for sales. . For SolarD, education is playing a key role in their strategy of developing this channel. . SolarD engaged a DaigouSales VIP Manager who developed an offline trade marketing program to bring products into various gift shops and offline daigou shops; the idea being if daigou saw the SolarD products in offline in these shops they would become curious and interested. The VIP Manager also has been active in daigou stores; holding training and product sessions. . Further, the VIP Manager created a SolarD WeChat group specifically for daigou — this group provides constant information and acts as a place to take/respond to brand questions. WeChat groups are critical for daigou to know more and engage brands. . Moreover, SolarD has leveraged KOL’s (key online influencers) to help promote and spread their brand content which is important. It helps the potential buyers back in China get exposed to the brand and thus helps the daigou when trying to promote it as well as recognising many of these same KOL’s are also doing daigou and this creates an opportunity to enlist them into a broader brand relationship.

Final Word

At the end of the day, it is important to create and nurture the daigou channel. Daigou respond positively to being treated with respect and appreciate brands wanting to work constructively with them. It is not always about the price (although this is very important) so taking a clear D2C approach SolarD has won some early daigou supporters. . It will take time to grow the daigou into a powerful SolarD sales engine but the brand has taken a reasonable, measured approach with a long term outlook. These are the attributes that will serve it well as it develops its long term China strategy. . .

The post Getting Started with D2C (daigou-to-consumer); The SolarD Experience appeared first on Digital Jungle.

from Digital Jungle http://bit.ly/2eJHmNK

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The Bellamy Case Study; Failing to understand D2C (daigou-to-consumer)

. Therefore, you need to consider what will help daigou become better brand advocates, better sales agents and how to inspire them to be curious about your products. After all, daigou can’t promote you if they don’t trust your brand, understand it’s heritage nor know your products. .

Firstly, lets agree the definitions?

The post The Bellamy Case Study; Failing to understand D2C (daigou-to-consumer) appeared first on Digital Jungle.

from Digital Jungle http://bit.ly/2thlCzl

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5 Key Elements of Successful D2C (Daigou- to – Consumer) Content Marketing

Daigou Management is Critical in Building Brand Relationships

For too long, many of the established brands have taken the daigou channel (D2C) for granted. Often not knowing if these Chinese ‘personal shoppers’ are friend or foe when it comes to the brand’s China positioning and pricing strategies. But for many of the emerging brands not yet in China and looking to break into that market, the daigou shopper offers both a sales and marketing opportunity. . This weekend, I attended our DaigouSales brand event to see how daigou buyers would respond to some of the newer brands (from an awareness perspective). The event is a kind of ‘speed dating’ format where we select only 4-5 brands to come and present to a smallish but select group of Chinese daigou (approx. 70 ). Each brand takes 10 mins to talk about their brand’s history, positioning and their ‘points of difference’ but the real value comes from the 30 or 40 mins after these speakers finish when the daigou can start to interact with all the products and ask all types of questions, from the functional aspects of the products to the types of competitors each product faces. Each brand represented at the event had a DaigouSales WeChat eStore with a unique QR code that the daigou can scan to purchase and ship products domestically or to China. . . For me, observing these interactions between the brand owners and the daigou buyers was a real epiphany. We had a largely female daigou group, seemly more interested in whether they themselves would use the products than acting as a buying agent for their contacts back in China. . . All were enthusiastically trying on the various creams and lotions, smelling the fragrances and even mixing and making milk powder for tasting. . But then I understood why this daigou phenomena was actually as big as it is. It is essentially to do with ‘trust’. Trust by the buyers in China requesting brands/products to be purchased by their ‘known’ daigou contacts in Australia and increasingly the trust the daigou builds with brands here and then in turn make product recommendations back to their Chinese buyers. It is the shift from simply taking a buying request to these daigou being recognised and indeed becoming a fully fledged ‘buying agents’. Someone that not only fascinates product purchases/postage but is making recommendations and looking out for the ‘next important brand’. .

Daigou can be a powerful brand ambassador and vocal advocate.

For me, our daigou event was not just an opportunity for lesser known brand to have their products tested but has created a catalyst for building a true and authentic relationship that was certainly appreciated by the brand owners and daigou buyers alike. . (Daigou; literally translated means “buying on behalf of” — pronounced dye-goo) .

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from Digital Jungle http://bit.ly/2sV3gnM