2020 has been a strong year for e-commerce market. As per a recent report from Statista, the annual e-commerce revenue had reached almost USD 2,500 billion worldwide. Having earned over USD 1,400 billion, Asia made up over half of the global volume. The clustered market is still expected to show a continuous growth given that its user penetration is still considerably low now but is projected to grow by almost 20% within the next 5 years.
While many brands and products in the region have been expanding in the rest of Asia, we noticed that several foreign businesses might also be interested in entering the Asian market. Today, we would like to share a case study with you – a success story from an existing client of ours. We hope it would give you some insights on how you may approach the market and build your presence via e-commerce across Asia.
Our client blank Corp. is a Korean company, owning multiple lifestyle brands with self-developed products, ranging from BODYLUV (home products) to SOSOLIFE (healthy food products). They have developed a strong e-commerce presence in South Korea, before targeting other parts of Asia almost 3 years ago when they first approached us.
Engaging the Right Channels
At the same time blank Corp. was building their own online and brick-and-mortar stores in Taiwan, we were working with them to set up their businesses in Hong Kong, Singapore and China.
While running stand-alone e-commerce sites to demonstrate a strong brand image in Hong Kong and Singapore, their products have been launched on different marketplaces which fit best with their categories, target customers and the respective regions, namely HKTVmall for Hong Kong, Shopee and Lazada for Singapore.
China on the other hand is a very different market. Owning and managing an online store would be a waste of resources, so the Korean company took their brands and products straight to WeChat store and Tmall in attempt to build their brands and engage with potential customers in one go.
Winning the Small Battlegrounds
Digital marketing worked perfectly in Hong Kong. It brought blank Corp.’s items quickly to fame. And from online to offline, they have managed to sign a few direct deals with local retailers e.g. department store c!ty’super and electronics store Fortress.
With dismal amount of budget, the same strategy was deployed in Singapore, focusing on social media and influencer marketing. Once again, the business is growing stronger gradually, and the Korean firm is looking into expanding into the rest of South East Asia with us.
However, the war in China is tough. There are a lot of competitors and similar products in the market. Direct promotion would not work either, so we would have to spend a larger sum for premium listings and cross-promotions. Thus, despite the huge sales volume, the net profit after deducting the marketing costs in China is still relatively insignificant compared to that in Hong Kong and Singapore as of today.
Best Supply Chain Operation
For businesses entering multiple Asian markets like blank Corp., the key to a seamless supply chain operation is to leverage a multi-nodal warehousing operation and an end-to-end logistics process.
With this setup, the Korean company was able to arrange and manage their inventories accurately in different warehouses across the markets, to regulate their freight forwarding consignments based on the consumer analyses, as well as to fulfil and deliver omni-channel orders efficiently.
As of today each month, our operation and customer service teams dedicated for blank Corp. are processing a double-digit amount of inbound containers, managing over 500 SKUs in inventory, fulfilling over tens of thousands of orders and providing on-going after-sales support to their countless end-consumers.
If you may be looking at tapping into Asia, speak with us and find out how we may support you and your businesses. I am sure our flexible one-stop solution could be the answer to your challenges.