topic Re: Selling to China in Selling

Selling to China

jellybirddesigns — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 05:38:56 GMT

Hi,

Hubby has recommended that I open up my products for sale to China.

I have restricted my sales to just a handful of countries, but just wanted to know if anyone has sold stuff to the Chinese and how it has been? I'm pretty reticent about sending stuff there, but should I be concerned or not?

Re: Selling to China

lyndal1838 — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 06:12:44 GMT

While there is probably no real reason for not selling to China, I doubt that it would make much difference to you sales figures.

Have you looked at the cushion covers being sold by Chinese sellers? Even the expensive ones are less than $5.

Re: Selling to China

saarzi — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 06:23:21 GMT

I havent sold anything from Ebay to China, but Ive been there quite a few times, and Ive done business with Chinese companies located in China for many years, and was employed by a Chinese owned business in Asia for a while.

Chinese postal system is extremely unreliable. I wouldnt even bother trying, unless youre using a courier - youll end up with a lot of lost items and forced refunds.

Secondly, what are you selling, and are you going to list in Mandarin? English is not taught in schools in China, and they really dont watch western TV, and theres no incentive to learn English there for the general population. In short, its rare to find Chinese people (in China) who speak english at all (even hello), let alone read it. Taxi drivers at the international airports, and most hotel receptions dont even speak English, even in Beijing and Shanghai, unless they are 5 star plus.

If you can get your listings in Mandarin, you could make a killing selling *original* high end brands (like Chanel etc) - they are double the price there than they are here, and tours are organised for the Chinese rich to come to Australia to shop for high end brands cheaply. But dont assume they speak English because they are rich, they usually dont.

There is also a market selling to expats in China, but it will take some work to get to know where they hang out, and infiltrate those groups and make a name for yourself - they can be pretty tight knit, but this is probably the group youd go for.

(I just noticed you sell cushion covers - they sell for about $1 each in China, they wont care if they are hand made, thats common over there. Are you going to try to sell cushion covers or something else?).

Re: Selling to China

clarry100 — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 14:44:22 GMT

Also when you are addressing mail you will need to be able to hand write the address in Chinese or it will never be delivered as their equivalent of posties simply cannot read English style writing at all.

Re: Selling to China

*tippy*toes* — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 15:31:42 GMT

When I buy stuff from China it has 2 postage labels on the package. One written in English, the other in Chinese. It makes perfect sense to do that as it can be clearly read from both ends. I'm guessing they are like eBay labels, as they are the same regardless of who I buy from.

Re: Selling to China

clarry100 — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 20:42:49 GMT

We have actually decided to compete with the flood of Chinese sellers on ebay by selling other products back to them.

My wife is Chinese so we have a distinct advantage there.

She has just opened up a Wechat store and will sell highly sought after Australian quality known name brand products.

Their population is almost 70-times ours so there is quite a large marketplace over there just waiting to spend their money.

And there are more millionaires (in their money terms) than we have total population in AU.

But unless you can read/write/speak the language it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to do.

So its yet to be seen how it will go, but the very early signs are certainly looking good.

...and no we will not be using AU post for shipping. There are far cheaper and better solutions out there for sending parcels to China.

Re: Selling to China

englishrosegardens — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 03:23:43 GMT

Wouldn't it be a bit like trying to sell ice to the Eskimos, unless you have a highly specialised or niche market? It reminds of a joke I once heard about a Jew winning salesman of the year by selling a milking machine to an Arab and taking his only cow as payment. Okay, it's not really relevant but I was reminded of it when I read all this.

Re: Selling to China

clarry100 — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 03:33:56 GMT

In the case of the products my wife will sell its kinda like a niche market.

In general the quality of local products like powdered milk, baby formula and health care supplements (and others) is very poor in China.

If they can find the imported products from AU they are expensive and there is a pretty fair chance that the real product has been removed from the container and some inferior subsitute has been put in place.

So once you can gain their trust that you will provide them with the "real McCoy" then they will pay good money to know that they are getting exactly what they pay for.

Getting known and gaining their trust is the big hurdle as its hard for them to trust sales people in this area.

But there are ways to do it.

So she is on the brink of launching the store and starting up the ad campaign.

Re: Selling to China

ourphonecase — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 05:12:27 GMT

@clarry100 wrote:
In general the quality of local products like powdered milk, baby formula and health care supplements (and others) is very poor in China.

That is true like 5 years ago, the companies really stepped up their game since then after the "fatality" of the babies years ago, but it is extremely hard to erase bad reputation once done.

Much like Malaysia Airlines.. That company got screwed over so hard

Re: Selling to China

digital*ghost — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 08:30:59 GMT

Australia Post partnered with two of the Alibaba websites (one for retail, and one for wholesale to other Chinese businesses), they basically have the ecommerce platform on the respective sites, so I think the way it works is that you get in touch with AP and (if all the criteria is met, as I do recall there's some kind of application process), you provide them with the catlogue of products and it goes into the AP shopfront.

My knowledge on all this is really limited, though, and I have no idea how it all works, whether you get sales info directly and dispatch yourself, or if AP fulfil orders with provided stock etc, but here's the starting point for anyone interested in more info:

https://auspost.com.au/small-business/go-global.html

I doubt my products would do well.... 😄 I have sold to Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, but never to China.

Re: Selling to China

kangaroochi — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 09:35:35 GMT

Hi, I have lived in China and found the Chinese people love quality products. They will inspect everything carefully but in the end its the quality that wins through. I would be mindful though that copyright, although it exists, goes right out the door. My sisters are selling overseas on another platform and within hours of listing their exclusive copyrighted product had 2 chinese sellers, selling the

identical item right down to the patterns and styles they have. It will cost them an arm and a leg to follow this through with their chinese lawyers. Their products were quality items selling for around $35 and their competitors came in at $4.00!!!!

On the contrary to another member I found in the area I lived that the chinese children were all learning English or Russian.

I used to remark how slow we are in Australia to not teach from grade 1 a language to ALL children regardless when their little minds

are so fresh and they have the ability to learn quickly. The chinese nation are already 10 steps ahead in many areas to the rest of

the world. I did not live in a big city, but a city of 6 million people, and this was in the country.

If you take up the challenge there is the great cultural divide. It is difficult for yourself and the chinese to understand what you or they

really mean or want. You do get through eventually but not without some severe headaches.

I found the postal system when I lived there very good, but very expensive compared to the wages I earned. I also found it reliable.

I guess everyone has a different experience.

If you are prepared to take that leap into the unknown I applaud you sincerely. My husband has been negotiating with the chinese

for over 25 years, its always a challenge for both parties. All the best with your decision.

Re: Selling to China

kopenhagen5 — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 23:54:28 GMT

OP, the name change was an excellent idea.

Even though buyers search by product, it may help buyers to easily remember you for repeat business.

(Hope hubby is finding things to do).