Ed Sander | Tech Buzz China | ChinaTechTrip
@EdSander
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China Digital Tech Researcher @techbuzzchina & https://t.co/nhEV2cCH4k, Public Speaker @ https://t.co/SROoyEOxvC , Study Tour Leader @ https://t.co/049MdPCCGY
The Netherlands
Joined March 2010
@nataninvesting Agree. Plus if they can get instant retail to work with that division could also become profitable.
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@nataninvesting Question is if they are actually going to hold on to all those businesses. I can imagine them selling quite a few, if anybody is interested.
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WHEN AVERSION BECOMES RISKY DISINTEREST Last week, I came across this chart. It shows how the media sentiment towards China has changed in the past years. One thing stands out in this analysis that Bruegel conducted using GDEL Project tools: media sentiment in The Netherlands has always been relatively positive compared to other Western European countries. The second chart shows data from the 2022 Pew research and what stands out here is that 75% of respondents in The Netherlands had negative views of China. The country stood apart for having the highest share (64%) calling China’s policies on human rights a very serious problem. Still, 65% of the Dutch people thought their country’s relationship with China was in good shape. Only 32% thought relationships were bad. One of my tour groups concluded: 'We might not like you, but we will still trade with you'. I have felt the shift in the Bruegel chart in several ways. My wife teaches Chinese Language & Culture in middle schools. The course was offered to the exceptionally smart kids who needed an extra challenge or were advised by their parents that it could be good for their future. Schools offered Mandarin because it made them exceptional compared to others in their region. The demand for Mandarin in middle schools has dropped, and one school where she has been teaching since 2014 is phasing out the course. Fewer students want to learn Mandarin. She has moved to doing private Mandarin lessons for businessmen and ... teaching Chinese Dutch. Before COVID-19, I gave keynotes about how we could be inspired and what we could learn from China's digital innovation, especially in the retail space. Nowadays, there is only interest in topics in which China is perceived as a threat (Chinese webshops). Before COVID, gathering a group for our ChinaTechTrip tours was relatively easy. Everybody wanted to see Alibaba's overhyped New Retail, but I also pointed out what the flaws were in these concepts. While I have my opinion, I'm not here to debate the validity of the sentiments towards China. I do, however, think that letting aversion result in disinterest is risky. China will not disappear and will only get a more prominent role on the world stage. As such, we should increase our knowledge about the country so we are not caught by surprise when the next TikTok, Temu or Deepseek arrives. While our interest in China is diminishing due to the media sentiment, the Chinese continue doing what they have always done: meticulously studying us and rolling out their products and services to us. When I do a keynote about Temu, people are shocked and tell me what an eye-opener it was. But few take that extra step to learn more and join a study tour. Those who do join come back baffled and with greater realisation of what lies ahead. One CEO even said: 'We're f*cked'. But at least he knows now, and unlike his peers who refuse to learn, he can anticipate and react to upcoming changes...
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Ik sprak met Tim GIelen in de Team Retail podcast over Chinese webshop Temu. De volledige podcast kan je hier terugvinden
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Het is maar dat je het weet ... Na de lente verzorgen we met ChinaTechTrip enkel nog reizen voor derden (brancheorganisaties, bedrijven, etc.) die vaak geen open inschrijving zullen hebben. Niet achteraf zeggen dat je toch graag mee had gewild want dit is de laatste kans.
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Martin, I think you know that's not fully correct. All those companies were welcome to operate on the Chinese market if they stored their data locally within JVs and followed China's censorship rules. Besides LinkedIn most decided not to do so. But even Google and Meta were working on censored products to launch in China until they dropped these plans under pressure of the public and employees.
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TIKTOK SHOP AND LIVE COMMERCE .... LET'S PUT THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE TikTok Shop has come to Europe, and the social commerce agencies are coming out of the woodwork to tell you how enormous live commerce will be ... 'because it is huge in China'. Well, hold it right there! I have always said that while live commerce will be an interesting new channel, especially for certain product categories, it is wishful thinking to claim that it will be as big as in China. There are many reasons for this that I will not elaborate on now (we have a report on this coming up next week on @TechBuzzChina), but let's say that the context that makes live commerce so huge in China is (still) largely missing in Europe and the US. But let's make things a bit more tangible. In China, the 2024 GMV target for e-commerce on TikTok's sibling Douyin was RMB 4 trillion ($550 billion). If Bytedance reaches this goal that means that the per capita GMV is almost $400 in China. About two-thirds of that is generated through content e-commerce (short videos and livestreams), and the rest through 'shelf e-commerce' (search-based). Live commerce is doing reasonably well in some Southeast Asian countries, but while the population in the countries TikTok Shop is active in is almost half of China's, the 2024 GMV remained relatively low at $22,6 billion (4% of Douyin's target). One of the reasons is that the e-commerce penetration and infrastructure is not on par with China's yet (as we wrote about in last week's TikTok Shop Update - Part 1: Southeast Asia). So, when TikTok Shop moves to high-income countries with high e-commerce penetrations, it will make a splash, right? Well, not quite yet. UK saw $1,5 billion in GMV in 2024 (many individual Douyin shops make more than that) and the US $9 billion. And only about 10%-20% of that is live commerce. So, yes, live commerce makes up about 30% of all e-commerce in China and, thereby, almost 10% of all retail sales, but that does not necessarily mean it will be as big outside China. Manage your expectations. More on TikTok Shop in the West in our newest report TikTok Shop update - Part 2: Out of Asia on Tech Buzz China (. Next week, we will explain why live commerce struggles outside China.
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Voor de deelnemers aan de Grote China Kennisquiz op 10 februari: een extra hint.
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@Mobilegames2020 Thanks, I will check it out. The 2025 chart was a forecast by Goldman Sachs from a few years ago. I've wanted to update it but haven't found reliable data yet.
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TIKTOK SHOP UPDATE - PART 2: OUT OF ASIA How is TikTok Shop doing in the US, UK and Europe? We are running a three-part TikTok Shop series on @TechBuzzChina this month. Last week, we examined developments in the e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia. Next week, we will explore sales models and the progress of live commerce (or lack thereof). This week, we will examine how TikTok Shop has fared since its launch in the US in September 2022 and how it has (several times) prepared for and postponed a launch in Europe. But with the recent launch in Spain and Ireland, the time is finally here. After the success of e-commerce in China (Douyin) and Southeast Asia, how has TikTok Shop come ‘out of Asia’? P.S. I am making room for a special masterclass on the development of TikTok Shop in this year's ChinaTechTrip study tours, tracing it back to the origins of e-commerce in China.
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In de laatste alinea houd ik onszelf even een spiegel voor ... Zware sancties voor Chinese webshops? 'Desnoods webwinkels op zwart zetten'
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Some interesting thoughts here ... Opinion: The TikTok ban is already dead in the water - The Globe and Mail
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Zojuist in de uitzending bij Spraakmakers op Radio 1. Waarom zijn Chinese webshops zo goedkoop?
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RT @TechBuzzChina: Will tariffs and cancellation of de minimus hurt Temu? A section from our Temu Watch#6 report is now available to read.…
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What I said about the abolishment of 'de minimus' 4 months ago...
Potential blow to Shein and Temu in the US? The White House just announced plans to stop the abuse of the 'de minimis' rule, which allows packages valued less than $800 to be shipped from outside the nation directly to consumers without import tariffs. In recent years, a tidal wave of such packages has started coming in, shipped by Temu and Shein. For decades, the 'de minimis' rule had a $200 threshold, but the Obama administration increased it to $800. The rule was supposed to make it easier for merchants to sell cross-border to US consumers and help companies like eBay and Amazon. It also benefitted drop shippers, who had goods shipped directly from China. But that was before the explosion of cross-border e-commerce from China. Now, the rule isn't helping US businesses; it is hurting them because of the new competition from China. Chinese merchants don't need US retail, wholesale and marketplaces anymore to sell to US consumers. When Chinese companies benefited from the rule, it became a 'loophole'. 'Hold on, this is not what 'de minimis' was meant for', they must be thinking at the White House. Of course, there are also legitimate worries about product quality and safety, just like in Europe. The Biden administration is now proposing to 'exclude a wide array of goods from being able to claim the exemptions'. It remains to be seen what this means exactly. The old $200 threshold won't make much difference since the average Temu order value of shipments from China is still less than $50. Only a total abolishment of the threshold for these goods could hurt Temu and Shein. However, Temu has anticipated this and has worked on various strategies to counter these potential measures. These include: - shifting share of sales away from the US to be less dependent on that market - sneakily transshipping through other countries like Mexico - implementing the 'semi-managed model' in which merchants import goods in bulk and ship from local warehouses - plans to divide potential cost increases because of tariffs between the consumer, merchant and platform Details on this and much more can be found in our Tech Buzz China Temu Watch series.
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