GUANGZHOU, May 17 (Xinhua) -- At a sales booth in a
special trade fair here in southern China, Zhou was complaining how hard it was
to sell her products.
"We sell them at factory-gate prices, but buyers
still bargain. That makes me mad," said Zhou, a Taiwanese senior manager of Poly
Dragon Industrial, which is based in the booming city of Dongguan neighboring
Guangzhou, capital of China's manufacturing base Guangdong Province.
The trade fair she attended was co-organized by
Guangdong and Hong Kong-listed e-commerce giant Alibaba.com. The two-day fair,
opened on Saturday, was aimed to help small Chinese exporters tap into the
domestic market amid weak overseas demand.
Organizers said the fair was attended by 400 small-
and medium-sized exporting firms in Guangdong that displayed their company
profiles at Alibaba's business-to-business division, and up to 30,000 big online
sellers at taobao.com, China's largest consumer-to-consumer auction site owned
by Alibaba.
Zhou's company, owned by a Taiwanese, produces
high-end lighting, decorative accents and photo frames. More than 95 percent of
its products are for export.
The financial crisis and global slump in demand for
made-in-China products have taken a toll on tens of thousands of exporters in
Guangdong, which produced more than a quarter of China's foreign trade last
year.
Representatives of domestic buyers and
exporting companies discuss possible business deals during an event at the
105th Canton Fair in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong
Province, on May 6, 2009. Photo Gallery>>>
In the first four months this year, Guangdong
exported 98.5 billion U.S. dollars worth of goods, down 17.8 percent year on
year. Its exports continued to decline for the sixth consecutive month since
last November. Nationally, exports in the first four months totaled 337.42
billion U.S. dollars, down 20.5 percent.
Poly Dragon, though keeping its workforce of nearly
300 relatively stable, lost up to 20 percent of overseas orders. In response, it
aimed to tap into the huge market to sell more products on the mainland. Last
year it began to display the company profile in Chinese at Alibaba to attract
domestic buyers. In the past, it only provided an English profile at Alibaba for
overseas importers, Zhou said.
The road to return home, however, isn't easy. Besides
cut-throat competition and a price war, she had to redesign many exporting
products, which often featured Greek and Roman gods, angels and other religious
figures from Western civilization.
These products were not popular among Chinese
customers, particularly those in southern China, because they were unfamiliar
with these gods and figures, she said. For the home market, the company would
replace them with Buddha or bodhisattva, or maybe statues of sexy women.
In addition, selling products at home needed good
marketing, which Zhou said was very complex. "I have not learned how to sell
them in the domestic market," she admitted.
Zhou said her company would continue to make use of
Alibaba and capitalize on China's booming online shopping in its effort to
develop a domestic market. "China's market is so huge and we won't skip it."
China, with a population of more than 1.3 billion, is
the world's largest potential market for seemingly everything, ranging from
electronics and cars.
The Chinese government has been making favorable
policies to encourage exporters to shift from their focus on overseas markets.
So Zhou's company was by no means alone. But as many Chinese once-thriving
exporters sought to tap into the domestic market, they found themselves facing a
bumpy road.
Wang Dongping, general manager of Guangdong Top
Umbrella, said he just couldn't strike the right note in domestic sales. Among
the many problems were a totally different business model, no sales channel and
inability to design products suitable for the Chinese market, he said.
Top Umbrella sold more than one million U.S. dollars
worth of umbrellas, 90 percent of which was for export. It had been
manufacturing umbrellas for Western companies such as Disney, Kaloo, Happy Rain
and Coca-Cola.
Wang said he had good expectations for the domestic
market and tapping into it was not a makeshift business strategy.
"I am planning to organize my own sales team. And I
hope that domestic sales could account for up to 30 percent of my company's
annual output in the next two or three years," he said.
Poly Dragon and Top Umbrella, both small-sized
enterprises, were trying to expand their domestic sales through e-commerce. And
they won a promise from Alibaba of more help.
Wei Zhe, CEO of Alibaba's B2B division, on Saturday
promised that Alibaba would help China's small- and medium-sized enterprises as
much as possible. "In the first quarter this year, our profit was 50 million
yuan (7.3 U.S. dollars) less than the same period last year. But we gave
assistance to some 50,000 SMEs, cutting service fees by 1,000 yuan for them. And
we will continue doing so," he said.
According to Wei, Chinese exporters were facing at
least four hurdles on their road to tap potential at home -- raising design
capability, finding a sales channel, setting up an after-sales service network
and building their own brand.
Many Chinese exporting firms used to manufacture
through an OEM(original equipment manufacturer) arrangement with overseas brands
and make products based on the design provided by overseas brands. Once the
products finished shipment, they finished their tasks.
Alibaba aimed to give SMEs a cotton coat to pull
through the economic winter, he said, claiming that the survival rate of SMEs
that have used e-commerce methods was four times higher than that of others.
According to an industry report released in February
by the Shanghai-based iResearch Consulting Group, an Internet market researcher,
China's online transaction volume last year rocketed 128.5 percent year on year
to 128.2 billion yuan, which was 65 times more than that of 2003. That meant
every Chinese spent more than 1,600 yuan last year on online purchases, 582 yuan
more than the previous year.
The report said a quarter of China's nearly 300
million netizens took to online shopping last year. In 2008, Taobao had a total
consumer-to-consumer transaction volume of 98 billion yuan, more than double
that of 2007, outselling all retailers in China including Bailian Group and
Wal-Mart.
While Poly Dragon and Top Umbrella made a shot at
e-commerce, others were trying in other ways. One of them was to team with
domestic retail companies and became a supplier.
Chen Chaohong, a senior manager of Qingdao Liqun
Group, a major retailer based in eastern China's Shandong Province, said making
OEM arrangements with retailers seemed to be one of the most effective ways,
particularly for those without their own brands.
He told Xinhua at the Canton Fair, known as China's
largest export event, which ended on May 7, that his company had reached several
manufacturing agreements with exporting firms. The fair was opened to a group of
domestic buyers for the first time in its half-century history. The organizers
hoped domestic deals could offset a plunge of overseas orders.
Such cooperation allowed both sides to do what they
were best at -- exporting firms were good at manufacturing while supermarkets
had excellent sales channels, he added.
GUANGZHOU, May 16 (Xinhua) -- A two-day trade fair,
co-organized by China's manufacturing base of Guangdong and the country's
biggest HKEx-listed e-commerce group Alibaba.com, opened here on Saturday,
aiming to help small exporters tap into the domestic market amid weak overseas
demand.
According to the organizer, the trade fair was
attended by a total of 400 small exporting firms in Guangdong, who also opened
their e-shops at Alibaba's business-to-business company, and up to 30,000 big
online sellers at taobao.com, China's largest consumer-to-consumer auction
company owned by Alibaba. Full story
GUANGZHOU, April 25 (Xinhua) -- For the first time in its
half-century history, the Canton Fair, known as China's largest export event,
welcomed a group of domestic buyers on Saturday, as the organizers hoped
domestic deals could offset a fall in export demand.
Representatives of 200 domestic retailers including
Wal-mart China and China's Brilliance Group attended the second phase of the
105th fair, which featured consumer goods, gifts and home decorations. The
second phase runs from April 24-28. Full story
BEIJING, April 15 -- The country's largest trading expo,
China Import and Export Fair, is shifting its focus to the domestic market as
demand in the overseas markets has shrunk and exports have declined for five
months in a row.
Exhibitors, who normally target foreign buyers, have been
invited to showcase their products for the domestic market, said Mu Xinhai,
spokesman for China Import and Export Fair, also known as the Canton Fair. Full story
BEIJING, May 12 (Xinhua) -- China's exports and imports
shrank for the sixth month in row in April, the General Administration of
Customs said on Tuesday.
Exports fell 22.6 percent in April from the same period a
year ago to 91.94 billion U.S. dollars. Imports were down 23 percent to 78.8
billion U.S. dollars. Full story
