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Market: Homeware
Market size: 221.3 Million customers in the market in China with a revenue of £95,083m.
Market segmentation: 37% of customers in market are aged 25-34. Overall 53% being female.

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Most large consumer-facing companies realize that they will need China to power their growth in the next decade. But to keep pace, these companies will also need to understand the economic, societal, and demographic changes shaping the profiles of consumers and the way they spend. This is no easy task not only because of the fast pace of growth and subsequent changes in the Chinese way of life but also because of the vast economic and demographic differences across the country.

These differences are set to become more marked, with significant implications for companies that fail to grasp them. Since 2005, McKinsey has conducted annual consumer surveys in China, interviewing a total of more than 60,000 people in upward of 60 cities. Our surveys have tracked the growth of incomes, shifting patterns of expenditure, rising expectations-sometimes in line with those of the respondents' Western counterparts and sometimes not-and the development of many different consumer segments. Those surveys now provide insights to help us focus on the future. We cannot, of course, predict it with certainty, and external shocks might confound any forecast. But our understanding of consumer trends to date, coupled with an analysis of the economic and demographic factors that will further shape them in the next decade, serve as a useful lens for contemplating the profile of the Chinese consumer in 2020.

Changing demographics

Many of the changes taking place in China are common features of rapid industrialization: rising incomes, urban living, better education, postponed life stages, and greater mobility. Japan saw similar changes in the 1950s and 1960s, as did South Korea and Taiwan in the 1980s.

But some unique factors are also at work, such as the government's one-child policy and the marked economic imbalances among regions. Our analysis reveals important insights into the likely demographic and socio-demographic profiles of Chinese consumers at the end of this decade.

Changes in economic profiles have been and will continue to be the most important trend shaping the consumer landscape. The Chinese are certainly getting richer fast: the per-household disposable income of urban consumers will double between 2010 and 2020, from about $4,000 to about $8,000. That will be close to South Korea's current standard of living but still a long way from its level in some developed countries, such as the United States (about $35,000) and Japan (about $26,000).

The current vast differences in income levels will persist, however, although the numbers at each level will shift dramatically (Exhibit 1). At present, the great majority of the population consists of "value" consumers-those living in households with annual disposable incomes between $6,000 and $16,000 (equivalent to 37,000 to 106,000 renminbi), just enough to cover basic needs. "Mainstream" consumers, relatively well-to-do households with annual disposable income of between $16,000 and $34,000 (equivalent to 106,000 to 229,000 renminbi), form a very small group by comparison. China has fewer than 14 million such households, representing only 6 percent of the urban population. A tiny group of "affluent" consumers, whose household income exceeds $34,000, accounts for only 2 percent of the urban population, or 4.26 million households.

Until now, these divergences have presented multinational companies operating in China with a choice: to target only mainstream and affluent consumers or to stretch the brand to serve the value segment. Those that took the first course could more or less maintain the same business model they applied in other parts of the world, without needing to de-engineer their products. But in taking that approach, they limited themselves to a target market of 18 million households. Companies that chose to serve the value category benefitted from a much bigger market to play in-184 million households-but their products had to be cheaper, they were forced to adapt their business models, and profitability was lower.

This situation is changing. Because the wealth of so many consumers is rising so rapidly, many people in the value category will have joined the mainstream one by 2020. Indeed, mainstream consumers will then account for 51 percent of the urban population. Their absolute level of wealth will remain quite low compared with that of consumers in developed countries. Yet this group, comprising 167 million households (close to 400 million people), will become the standard setters for consumption, capable of affording family cars and small luxury items. Companies will be able to respond by introducing better products to a vast group of new consumers, thus differentiating themselves from competitors and earning higher profits. Nevertheless, value consumers, whose ranks will fall to 36 percent of urban households in 2020, from 82 percent in 2010, will still represent an enormous market for cheaper products: 116 million households, or 307 million consumers.

Affluent consumers will remain an elite minority, making up only 6 percent of the population in 2020. (In the United States in 2010, more than half of the population earned at least $34,000.) But that 6 percent will translate into about 21 million affluent households, with 60 million consumers.

While income is expected to rise across China, some cities and regions are already significantly wealthier than others. Understanding these variations in the rate of development is important because they will affect which categories of goods and services grow most rapidly, and where.

Today, about 85 percent of mainstream consumers live in the 100 wealthiest cities; in the next 300 wealthiest, only 10 percent of consumers are mainstream, but that percentage will rise to nearly 30 percent by 2020. At that point, many families in these cities will be able to afford a range of goods and services (such as flat-screen televisions and overseas travel) that are now largely confined to the wealthiest urban areas. Exhibit 2 explains the distribution of income in four different groups of cities. Some of them (Foshan in Guangdong, for example) are small in terms of absolute GDP or population size. But it's worth noting that the affluence of their populations could make them as attractive to companies as leading tier-one cities, such as Shanghai and Shenzhen.

New spending patterns

An understanding of China's changing economics and its impact on the profiles of consumers helps to identify some key trends in spending patterns in the next decade. We discuss three: high growth in discretionary categories, the tendency to trade up as consumers spend some of their discretionary income on better goods and services, and the emergence of a senior market.

Higher discretionary spending

Bigger incomes and government efforts to increase consumption will benefit all consumer-facing companies, though to varying degrees, depending on their product portfolios. Discretionary categories will show the strongest overall growth-13.4 percent-between 2010 and 2020, as these goods become affordable to growing numbers of consumers. Next come semi-necessities (10.9 percent growth) followed by necessities (7.2 percent). These average figures will of course vary significantly by region and city.

Exhibit 3 shows forecast annual consumption by category for 2020 and the rising importance of discretionary spending. Each broad category includes subcategories, some of which are more discretionary than others and expected to grow faster. For example, a discretionary category within food-dining out-is expected to grow by 10.2 percent a year in the coming decade, against 7.2 percent growth for basic food ingredients.

Of course, the wealthiest people-those in our affluent segment-will be the main consumers of discretionary items. Less obvious is the extent to which they will be able to afford more such items in 2020, compared with people in other income groups, as their numbers and wealth grow. Our consumption model suggests that in 2010, average household spending for value, mainstream, and affluent consumers was about $2,000, $4,000, and $12,000, respectively. These figures will jump to $3,000, $6,000, and $21,000, respectively, by 2020. So although all consumers will increase their spending, the gaps between different income groups will widen significantly. Stark disparities in standards of living are emerging in China.

Aspirational trading up

The second noticeable trend in spending is a propensity to trade up, driven increasingly by consumers aspiring to improve themselves, the way they live, and their perceived social standing. Many Chinese, like their Western counterparts, judge themselves and others by what they buy.

Strong early growth in developing markets comes when large numbers of consumers try products for the first time. As markets mature, growth relies on consumers who buy more goods and services more frequently and trade up to buy pricier versions of items they already have. This pattern explains why some basic-necessity categories have little room for growth: many consumers can already afford such items and probably won't buy a great deal more of them. But that does not mean no growth at all. Take the market for sauces and condiments. Most people can already afford to buy as much as they need of these items. But the increased attention now paid to health and well-being shows that even here, companies have trading-up opportunities.

Such opportunities also exist within semi-necessity categories, such as apparel, health care, and household products: more consumers will be able to afford different outfits for different occasions, for instance, or to buy additional branded products. As a consequence, brands focused on mass-market consumers might need to be repositioned to suit their rising aspirations, while newer, younger brands may be able to leapfrog more established competitors by offering premium products and crafting a premium brand image.

But it is the top end of the market that will benefit most from trading up: growth at the high end of some consumer goods categories already outpaces average growth for those categories as a whole. Sales of premium skin care products, for instance, rose by more than 20 percent a year in the past decade while the industry average was 10 percent.

Annual volume growth rates of more than 20 percent are foreseeable for luxury SUV cars, compared with around 10 percent for basic family models. China had already become a leading luxury market by 2010 and could overtake Japan to become the biggest such market by 2015.

Emerging senior market

The aging of China means that as a share of the total population, it will have five percentage points more people above the age of 65 in 2020 than it has today. That is an extra 126.5 million citizens, clearly an important consumer segment. What is equally important is the way the spending patterns of older people in 2020 will differ from those of older people now. In our 2011 survey, the elderly were more inclined to save and less willing to spend on discretionary items such as travel, leisure, and nice clothes. These tendencies will probably be much less apparent in 2020.

Most people in China over the age of 55 experienced the harsh conditions of the Cultural Revolution, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Not surprisingly, they think it important not to spend frivolously. Among residents of tier-one cities, 55- to 65-year-olds allocate half of their spending to food and little to discretionary categories: only 7 percent goes toward apparel, for example. People who are ten years younger devote only 38 percent of their spending to food but 13 percent to apparel. Indeed, our consumer surveys have revealed that although today's older consumers behave very differently from younger ones, today's 45- to 54-year-olds-the older generation come 2020-have spending patterns similar to those of 34- to 45-year-olds (who allocate 34 percent of their spending to food and 14 percent to apparel). This finding implies that companies will have to rethink their ideas about what older Chinese consumers want.

Read our latest thinking on Chinese consumers

Implications for companies

The biggest challenge is building and sustaining a leading position in China and, for multinationals, using it to drive global growth. In fact, as the country with the world's largest group of mainstream consumers, it could be an excellent test bed for companies that serve this consumer segment. Our analysis indicates that huge variations in the growth rates of companies operating in China come 2020 are likely, depending on the product category, consumer segment, and geography.

A second challenge is that China is so vast and its regions so diverse it should be treated almost as a collection of separate countries. Companies should redefine the roles of their regional divisions and headquarters, delegating more decision-making power to the former. Many companies already operate with three, five, or even more regional bases, but these tend to function only as sales offices, executing instructions from the top. Consumer needs could become so varied across China's regions that local insight and strategic decision-making power will be vital. Regional offices should therefore receive full responsibility for their own profit-and-loss accounts, strategic planning, consumer research, innovations, portfolios, route-to-market models, and marketing. The corporate center should have a redefined role-serving the individual units and safeguarding the company's brands-with less power and at a lower overhead cost.

A third challenge stems from the fact that undifferentiated mass consumption and the rising cost of ads made the scale of a brand or product crucial to its success in the past decade. Companies provided the same value proposition-usually framed around a product's functional benefits-to all types of consumers, while stretching brands across product categories and price tiers to leverage scale and garner market share. Over the next decade, the game will change to take account of the emergence of different categories of consumers and their own sense of their differences and individuality. Companies will need the crispest value propositions to connect with each group and to stand out from competitors. By 2020, they will have to position brands (or sub-brands) to target narrower consumer segments and offer more tailored value propositions. Brands extended across too many consumer segments and price points may struggle to defend their market position. Hard though the transition could be, at some point companies that have focused on maximizing their brands' scale will have to adopt a model based on a portfolio of more targeted brands or sub-brands to connect with different consumer segments.

No doubt China and its consumers' behavior will take some unexpected turns over the next decade. Nonetheless, our research reveals the clear direction of travel. To be sure of taking part in that journey, companies in the market should start making the acquaintance of China's 2020 consumers today.

Read Meet the 2020 Chinese consumer, the full report on which this article is based, on the McKinsey Greater China Web site.

About the author(s)

Yuval Atsmon is a principal in McKinsey's Shanghai office, and Max Magni is a principal in the Hong Kong office.

The authors would like to thank Lihua Li and Wenkan Liao for their contributions to the report underlying this article.

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Most large consumer-facing companies realize that they will need China to power their growth in the next decade. But to keep pace, these companies will also need to understand the economic, societal, and demographic changes shaping the profiles of consumers and the way they spend.

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Oliver Bonas | Fashion, Jewellery, Homeware & Gifts

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Oliver Bonas is your online department store for Fashion, Dresses, Jewellery, Homeware, Furniture and Gift Shopping. Next day delivery available now

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Our story starts with our founder, Olly. His creative upbringing, culturally influenced by the many countries he lived in, instilled a love of design and an exploratory spirit from an early age. At university, whilst studying Anthropology, Olly began to bring back gifts for friends from his travels abroad. He turned this into a small business and in 1993 the first shop opened, repainted by his friends with Olly behind a second-hand till.

Over two decades on, Oliver Bonas has evolved from curating others' designs to creating our own. Our team of designers now take Olly's exploratory spirit and channel it into our fashion and homeware collections. We are inspired by the alchemy of great design and fresh thinking and the belief that design has the power to positively affect how we feel. New designs land in store and online every week.

Today, OB has grown to nearly 80 stores across the UK and Ireland and is run by an amazing team who share Olly's passion for bringing new ideas to life. We have fun and follow our company values: Work Hard, Play Hard & Be Kind.

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Company History | About Us | Oliver Bonas | Oliver Bonas

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Our story starts with our founder, Olly. His creative upbringing, culturally influenced by the many countries he lived in, instilled a love of design and an exploratory spirit from an early age. At university, whilst studying Anthropology, Olly began to bring back gifts for friends from his travels abroad.

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The White Company | Luxury Clothing, Homeware and Gifts

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Celebrate the festive season. Explore our Christmas collection & thoughtful gifts. Shop our clothing, seasonal fragrances & bedding today. Free delivery over £50.

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Are you the kind of person who would part with £14 for a yuzu and green tea-scented candle in the shape of an owl? If so, you're probably well acquainted with Oliver Bonas. If not, picture one of those kitsch gift shops you tend to find in upmarket seaside towns - an eclectic mix of homeware, furniture, cards, clothes and the downright baffling (Keep Calm Nipple Balm, anyone?)

But underestimate the power of the quirky knick-knack at your peril - Oliver Bonas has 42 stores nationwide, employs 500 workers and has a turnover of £30.3m. And this week it became the first high-street chain store to offer its workers the living wage - £7.85 an hour, or £9.15 in London, compared with the national minimum wage of £6.50 an hour for over-21s and £5.30 for workers between 18 and 21.

So who is this fair-paying Oliver Bonas? And how did he manage to flog us flamingo-print napkins for £3 a pop? Well, firstly there is no Mr Bonas. Only Oliver Tress, who opened his first store on the Fulham Road in 1993 with handbags and jewellery he'd brought over from Hong Kong where his parents lived. "I'd been bringing presents back for friends and they were really popular so I thought, 'I wonder if I can make a go of this?' And to my amazement it just worked." Bonas was the surname of his then girlfriend Anna (cousin of Prince Harry's ex-girlfriend Cressida Bonas) and "she very kindly hasn't demanded that I changed it".

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In the early days, Tress went around cherry-picking his products from trade shows "like a magpie", but now he and his team design pretty much everything in-house. "There are a lot of companies selling other people's products, but I want Oliver Bonas to be a British design house with our own handwriting," he says. Perhaps surprisingly, clothing is the company's biggest-seller. Its own label produces bird-print tunic dresses and stripey T-shirts beloved by a certain type of yummy mummy. In fact, OB has become such a byword for middle-class consumerism that the opening of a store on your high street might one day produce a "Waitrose effect" on house prices in the area.

The Oliver Bonas store in Richmond, south-west London, is calm and fragrant (possibly yuzu and green tea-scented, I can't be sure). Well-dressed women in their thirties and forties browse the parrot-print umbrellas (£18), artfully distressed photo frames (£16) and one "Velvet Love Tub" - a blue chaise longue (£625). The stock seems random and perhaps that's the point. One shopper describes the Oliver Bonas experience as "like discovering a really good find in a flea market or a vintage shop, but nicer and without the hassle".

Rylee Dent, 20, has worked here since she was 17 and until recently was commuting to work from Brighton because she loved this particular store so much. "I've got my regular customers who I've built up a rapport with - a couple of mums who I've seen through their pregnancy who have since come in with their babies."

Last year, 5,839 high-street shops in the UK shut their doors for the last time, but Oliver Bonas continues to expand (stores in York and Birmingham are opening in the next few months). How has it bucked the trend? "We've always just done our own thing," explains Tress. "We don't put limitations on what we sell, it's just whatever we're getting excited about at the time. We only put things that we care about in the shop and I think that comes across."

Tress describes the move to pay the living wage as "the most exciting thing we've done as a business" and sounds as warm and fuzzy as one of his cashmere blankets when he talks about the decision. "It's been quite emotional. We've had a fantastic reaction to it, from people who don't know Oliver Bonas who have got in touch to say that they think it's great that we've done it when everyone's saying how hard it is for retailers to afford to do it, to customers saying 'I love the store anyway but this just makes it more pleasurable to shop here.'

"Doing this has cost the business a lot of money and we're not expecting to make it back. But I want to come to work every day to a place where everyone is happy and motivated. The living wage is just a starting point."

For Rylee Dent it means her full-time wage has gone from £16,000 to £19,000 a year. So what's she going to spend the extra cash on? "Probably more stuff from Oliver Bonas."

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Who is Oliver Bonas and how has he captured middle-class hearts?

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Are you the kind of person who would part with £14 for a yuzu and green tea-scented candle in the shape of an owl? If so, you're probably well acquainted with Oliver Bonas.

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Total Visits 709.83K 39.61% Avg. Visit Duration 00:03:45 Estimated Data Verify Your Website Traffic Sources Find out which are the main sources of desktop traffic for oliverbonas.com.April 2020 analysis On desktop Get Full Comparison with SimilarWeb Pro Outbrain has been using SimilarWeb for over a year and it's been instrumental for our ability to analyze our competitive environment, benchmark our performance, keep track of industry trends, and generate new leads.

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Furniture & Homeware - China | Statista Market Forecast

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China: Revenue in the Furniture & Homeware segment amounts to US$122,470m in 2020. The eCommerce market segment Furniture & Homeware includes the online sale of furniture, kitchen and household goods such as kitchen and bathroom accessories, textile furnishings, lamps, decoration, candles, pottery and china.

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Total Visits 17.26M 19.63%

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To understand China marketing in 2020, you must first have a solid grasp of these five terms which have become part of China marketing vernacular over the course of 2019. These are not merely flash-in-the-pan fads, but long-lasting trends that reflect the changing preferences and habits of Chinese consumers.

Many of you who are heavily involved in the China space are likely to be familiar with some or all of these trends, for the rest of you - take notes!

Xiachen (下沉)

In the past, brands looking to reach Chinese consumers have typically been focused on cosmopolitan consumers in China's first and sometimes second tier cities. However, over the past few years, consumption growth in these cities has slowed as the market has become oversaturated. These mature shoppers are overwhelmed with choice and it is costly for brands to break through the noise.

'Xiachen' literally means to sink or submerge and is now a popular term meaning that brands' marketing efforts are adapting to sink or move down into lower tier markets.

Consumers in China's less-developed urban centers and rural areas are driving the next wave of consumption growth in the country. A recent survey of over 6,700 Chinese female shoppers found that consumers in 3 rd tier cities and below planned to spend more than consumers in 1 st and 2 nd tier cities during 2019's Alibaba 11.11 Shopping Festival.

HANGZHOU, CHINA - NOVEMBER 11: A screen shows Alibaba's sales volume exceeding 10 billion yuan after ... [+]
Visual China Group via Getty Images

A couple key characteristics of consumers in these cities:

A lower cost of living (particularly housing costs) means these consumers have greater disposable income

Lower tier cities generally have less stressful work schedule but also less entertainment options giving leading to more time spent online whether that is shopping, playing video games, watching short videos and live streams, or chatting with strangers on social networking platforms

Their content and product preferences are not the same as consumers in 1st and 2nd tier cities. They are attracted to content that is relatable. They have different tastes and imagery and messaging used in other markets is often too far removed from their lives.

As rising incomes lead to an upgrade in lifestyle, these consumers are increasingly looking for higher-quality goods, yet still at reasonable prices

While the popularity of platforms may lead us to believe that lower-tier city consumers are heavily influenced by discounts, the survey mentioned above actually found that discounts were a bigger driver of product choice among 1 st and 2 nd tier consumers, while those in 3 rd tier cities and below were more focused on cost effectiveness.

While this consumer groups' preferences and behaviors may be harder for Western businesses to understand, brands that want to succeed in China over the long term must stop avoiding this market and begin allocating significant resources to tap into it.

Private Traffic (私域流量)

As online traffic has become more expensive in China, the term private traffic became a major buzzword in 2019.

The term refers to internet users whom you can directly contact or who come seek out your channels without you having to pay to reach them.

Similar to Facebook and Instagram, organic reach is being heavily restricted on most Chinese social media and e-commerce platforms, requiring brands and influencers to pay to reach their own followers, and brands are looking for alternatives.

The Western equivalent of private traffic would be a blog or an email list, which are owned channels, however, in China, people rarely visit websites or use email, so influencers and brands are seeking out ways to have private 'owned' traffic, although still on social media sites.

Right now, the super app WeChat is the biggest private traffic channel in China. Brands such as popular domestic cosmetics brand Perfect Diary are using personal WeChat accounts and WeChat groups to create communities of consumers. Although a labor-intensive process, it reduces the distance between the brand and consumer and helps build loyalty. In 2020 we are likely to see more brands running these communities with the help of custom chatbots.

Brands are also creating their own online communities on mini programs which are lite apps within WeChat. For example, luxury beauty brand YSL created the YSL Beauty Club, a UGC (user generated content) mini program where consumers can share their selfies that showcase YSL products and get reward points in return, which can be redeemed for discounts.

Another way brands are taking advantage of private traffic is by leveraging groups run by influencers. Instead of paying an influencer to post only on their public-facing accounts, they are posting branded content inside of their private groups which usually contain thousands of their most loyal fans.

KOCs (Key Opinion Customers)

In many parts of Asia, influencers are referred to as KOLs or key opinion leaders. This year, a subsegment of KOL marketing took off, and that was KOCs or key opinion customers/consumers.

KOCs are essentially long-tail micro influencers. They are ordinary everyday consumers who enjoy sharing their experiences on social media. Generally, they are knowledgeable on certain topics. Unlike KOLs, they may only have an audience of several hundred to a few thousand followers and therefore typically have a much closer relationship with their followers than a KOL does. Unlike KOL campaigns, KOC campaigns are typically unpaid - KOCs receive free product with the hope that they will share content.

In a recent interview, Ray Veras, Co-Founder of Chinese KOC marketing platform Pingjia Daren, shared several reasons why KOC marketing took off in 2019:

Chinese consumers are becoming more sophisticated, they have a lot of options to avoid traditional advertising. Their attention span is also decreasing meaning it is getting harder to keep their attention once you have it.

Unlike several years ago, consumers are now very aware that KOLs are promoting products because they are being paid to. They are craving more content that is not commercially influenced.

The Chinese social media landscape is becoming more fragmented. Consumers can turn to a number of platforms to get information which creates complexity for brands who don't know which platforms to be active on or how to best leverage each platform since they have their own rules and best practices.

The last few years seen a decrease in performance from KOLs in China, yet costs have increased and become unbearable for many brands. There have also been many cases of KOLs inflating performance.

In order to be effective, KOC marketing needs to be done on mass scale, with the goal of building brand equity and incrementally lifting sales over the mid to long-term. Over the past two years, we've seen several Chinese domestic brands leverage KOC marketing to great success and it will continue to be a popular marketing method in 2020.

E-commerce Live Streaming (电商直播)

While e-commerce live streaming has existed in China for several years, it took off in 2019, which was made clear during this year's Singles' Day shopping festival when live streaming on Alibaba's Taobao live streaming platform generated $2.85 billion in sales - around 7.5 percent of the day's total sales.

Across the Chinese internet, marketers have deemed 2019 the "first year of the e-commerce live streaming era", signifying that, not only did e-commerce live streaming enter the mainstream last year, but that industry leaders expect it is here to stay.

SHANGHAI, CHINA - JANUARY 03: Beauty blogger Austin Li Jiaqi (R1) applies lipstick on his mouth ... [+]
VCG via Getty Images

The growth of e-commerce live streaming is largely due to its strong appeal among consumers in lower tier cities in China. As mentioned above, lower tier or "Xiachen" markets are seen as the next big opportunity and both domestic and international brands are eager to try new methods to connect with this audience.

Alibaba's Taobao live streaming platform is both an early adopter and leader in the e-commerce live streaming space, and over the past few years they have cultivated a strong base of high-performing live stream hosts.

Two of the largest hosts, Viya and Austin Li, reached a celebrity status in China over the past year. Frequently ranked as the top selling streamer on Taobao, Viya became known in the West after collaborating with Kim Kardashian during Singles Day 2019. Li became a household name throughout China after amassing an enormous audience on numerous Chinese social media platforms outside of the Alibaba ecosystem, becoming the first and only Taobao live streamer to enjoy such widespread fame and popularity.

While Alibaba is the clear leader in this trend, nearly all of China's major social media apps including Douyin, Kuaishou, WeChat, and soon Pinduoduo and Xiaohongshu (RED) have incorporated e-commerce live-streaming into their platforms.

I expect the hype surrounding e-commerce live streaming to remain high for the first half of 2020, then begin to cool off in the second half of the year as the industry matures.

Guochao (国潮)

Over the past few years, China has seen a surge in young consumers' interest in domestic brands and products that incorporate Chinese traditional style and culture, a trend known as guochao.

China's young adults, particularly those between the ages of 20-25, grew up in a different environment than previous generations. They have seen the rise of China as a global economic powerhouse. Whereas older generations grew up in an era that regarded goods from foreign brands to always be of higher quality than those from domestic brands, these younger consumers don't necessarily feel the same way, particularly when it comes to cosmetics, skincare, F&B, and fast fashion.

PARIS, FRANCE - JUNE 22: (L-R) Li Yunwei, Rita, Yao Chi, Li Qilin, Cai Chengyu, Ayunga, Li Xiaoyan, ... [+]
Getty Images for Li-Ning

As this age demographic is becoming one of China's largest spending groups, domestic brands have quickly jumped at this opportunity - more established and previously considered outdated brands such as Li-Ning and Pechoin are rebranding themselves to appeal to younger audiences, brands popular in the early 2000s such as White Rabbit and Wanglaoji are drawing on nostalgia, and new brands such as Perfect Diary, Hey Tea, and Zhongxuegao are appearing out of nowhere and achieving incredible sales with their guerilla marketing strategies.

Guochao is not only about the rise of domestic brands, but also the resurgence of traditional style and cultural elements. Beijing's historical Forbidden City has become extremely popular among Chinese youth due to its numerous product design collaborations with both domestic and international brands and influencers.

Meanwhile local skincare or snack brands are beating out international brands by incorporating ingredients that are traditionally thought in Eastern medicine to provide health and beauty benefits.

In this environment, international brands that are willing to adapt to consumer demand for local elements are succeeding. Last year saw a number of IP collaborations between domestic and international brands, for example global cosmetics brand M.A.C. and popular Chinese mobile game Honor of Kings.

However simply working with a domestic brand or adding Chinese graphics doesn't equate success. International brands have to be very careful to work closely with Chinese teams to ensure that collaborations are a good fit and that they are not interpreting Chinese culture in cliche or offensive manner.

Due to China's isolated internet environment, the strength of homegrown social and e-commerce platforms, and rapidly changing consumer preferences and behaviors, Chinese marketers have developed their own unique set of practices.

Learning how to engage with Chinese consumers is a complex task, and having a foundational understanding of these five key terms is a first step.

... Read More

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5 Chinese Marketing Terms You Must Know In 2020

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To understand China marketing in 2020, you must first have a solid grasp of these five terms which have become part of China marketing vernacular over the course of 2019. These are not merely flash-in-the-pan fads, but long-lasting trends that reflect the changing preferences and habits of Chinese consumers.

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For fashion retailers planning to enter China, two names immediately spring to mind: etail giants JD.com and Alibaba's Tmall. But there are other names it is increasingly important to be aware of.

Young and innovative platforms have managed to get a foothold in the fast-growing Chinese ecommerce market, and, while they are unlikely to replace the big names, they signify an increasingly complex and diverse ecommerce market in the country. Here are a few of the most interesting.

User-generated content: Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book)

Xiaohongshu is a Shanghai-based social media network founded in 2013 and aimed at women aged under 35. The company says it is particularly popular with those born after 1995.

Users share photos and videos, and can tag items in them that link to ecommerce product pages. It has primarily been used in the beauty market, where users post reviews and images of make-up and skincare products, but the platform is increasingly being used for fashion purchases as well.

Elena Gatti, managing director for the DACH (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) region at Shenzhen-based ecommerce company Azoya, says: "People were buying products such as lipstick and posting videos of their experiences. It was growing very quickly and at a certain point they thought about how to capitalise on it.

"Now, if you are a user you can tag yourself wearing a T-shirt or using a lipstick, and other people can click that link and buy. It's a new and interesting way of capitalising on this user-generated content."

The app started as a way to help Chinese shoppers who were abroad share their shopping experiences with family and friends back home. Those friends were then finding the products posted and ordering them - until the app made it possible to buy directly through the platform. It also uses data from the products consumers are "liking" to predict and order in items that it thinks will be popular in the near future.

Gatti says Chinese shoppers are naturally more inclined towards social commerce, which helps apps such as Xiaohongshu to grow quickly: "For Chinese shoppers, they are firstly part of a network - friends or family - and then they are individuals. They are much more open to these recommendations. They are much more open to writing product reviews and recommendations, or making videos sharing experiences with their network."

Alexis Bonhomme, vice-president of commercial for Greater China at Farfetch, says this is a trend the retailer observes among its most influential customers as well: "When core customers or followers of a brand recommend products, there's a big impact. We always work to identify who these core customers are for a brand because they are very influential."

Team purchase: Pinduoduo

Pinduoduo is a social commerce app with 300 million paying customers, launched in 2015. Its US flotation in July 2018 raised $1.6bn (£1.2bn) and Tencent, owner of social networking app WeChat, owns an 18.5% stake in the company.

The app is particularly popular with price-conscious shoppers in tier 2 or 3 cities, or in rural areas, and works by giving shoppers discounts if they persuade a family member or friend to buy with them - shoppers can use Tencent's chat apps such as WeChat to send the deal to their networks. The bigger the group, the higher the discounts. The company's success has prompted a scramble in Chinese ecommerce to grab a piece of the group discount market. Alibaba and JD.com have both launched competitors - Taobao Special Offer Edition and JD Pingou respectively - within the last couple of years.

Part of the reason for this model's success is trust: consumers in China are still often unsure of platforms and brands, so they rely more on recommendations from families and friends.

Ben Cavender, principal at China Market Research Group, says: "Trust continues to be a huge factor in how consumers shop. Because people have had such bad experiences with receiving fake or substandard products or bad service, they are much more willing to buy as part of a group."

Gatti adds there is a further incentive for brands because marketing costs are high in China: "This is a tactic that many companies are adopting because marketing costs in China are getting so high. Companies are avoiding expensive marketing campaigns and instead lowering the price of the product and trusting the organic traffic acquisition by engaging customers who are going to share these promotions and experiences."

Entertainment and shopping: Short video apps

In 2018 apps facilitating the sharing of short video snippets have hit the mainstream, and these videos increasingly link to products on a shopping platform.

One market leader is Kuaishou, also backed by WeChat owner Tencent. In summer 2018 it started to allow some users to open what it calls "little shops", from which users and merchants can link to products from their videos - either live streams, or video posts.

It follows competitor Douyin (known as Tik Tok in the US), which in March this year launched an ecommerce feature in its app that allows users to link to shopping platform Taobao in their postings.

China's two etail giants have again followed quickly - Alibaba's Tmall and JD.com have added live-streaming functions to their sites to allow brands to interact closely with shoppers.

Younger shoppers in particular have taken well to 15-second videos that bring entertainment to the shopping process in a format that suits mobile, the channel that most Chinese consumers use.

Sandy Chu, editor of retail and buying at trends forecaster WGSN, says: "Since these shopping apps are also an entertaining way to engage in retail therapy, they make it easy to indulge in impulse shopping." She also points to Yitiao, another video ecommerce app with huge potential that in January 2018 was valued at $500m (£380m) after a funding round that was led by JD.com.

Other platforms to watch

Kaola

A cross-border shopping platform selling western brands, with products sold across a number of forums and portals. It owns the largest bonded warehouses - designed to hold imported goods - in China, enabling it to offer reduced prices. kaola.com

The Beast

The Beast is a retail platform that works with brands including New Balance to launch collections aimed at well-off Chinese consumers. thebeastshop.com

Look

Look sells more than 200 fashion brands, and its key feature, Lookstore, uses influencers to help keep people engaged. Some of China's biggest influencers, including Thomas Ye - known as Gogoboi - post content and sell products on the platform. ilovelook.cn
Secoo
WGSN's Chu says Secoo is one to watch. Aimed at the luxury market - and another platform to have attracted JD.com investment - it consists of Secoo.com, mobile apps and "offline experience centres" in key cities. secoo.com
YOHO!Buy
YOHO! began in 2005 as a magazine, before evolving to include a fashion ecommerce platform YOHO Buy and lifestyle app Mars. YOHO! also organises an annual B2C trade show called Yo'Hood, providing a focal point for everything new in youth culture. yohobuy.com

Industry insight

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For fashion retailers planning to enter China, two names immediately spring to mind: etail giants JD.com and Alibaba's Tmall. But there are other names it is increasingly important to be aware of.

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EBITDA rose 7.6% off the back of a 22% increase in turnover to £61.1m. Oliver Bonas said this was "somewhat disappointing", but added that 2017 was a "year of significant internal investment that should bear fruit over time".

It blamed a "disappointing" fall in EBITDA margin on the weakness of sterling and continued investment in various parts of the business.

Operating profit was down 0.6% to £4.4m.

Like-for-like sales rose by 11.6%. The traditionally London-focused brand open 11 new stores during the year, 10 of which were outside the capital. It opened its first store in Wales and second in Northern Ireland.

Two stores closed when their leases ended.

Further warehousing and office spaces were opened, which quadrupled its online fulfilment capacity.

Oliver Bonas said it made a "major investment" in ecommerce during the year, opening dedicated websites in Ireland and the US.

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EBITDA rose 7.6% off the back of a 22% increase in turnover to £61.1m. Oliver Bonas said this was "somewhat disappointing", but added that 2017 was a "year of significant internal investment that should bear fruit over time". It blamed a "disappointing" fall in EBITDA margin on the weakness of sterling and continued investment in various parts of the business.

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With the end of the one-child policy and increased government support for millennial Chinese moms, China's huge mommy-baby industry is set to see even more growth over the next ten years.

For one, the number of Chinese children under 7 will reach a whopping 190 million.

Not only is the industry growing, but the target consumer is dramatically changing as well. The majority of new millennial Chinese moms are part of the post-80s and post 90s generations and have lifestyles and ways of thinking very different from those of previous ones. Young Chinese moms grew up during an age of prosperity and technological change. They are trendy and value self-expression. They live multidimensional lives, taking on many roles including mother, head-of-household, and working professional.

They don't want to be defined by motherhood - they want to retain their individualism and continue growing as a person.

Demographics and Shopping Habits of Millennial Chinese Moms

Millennial Chinese moms tend to have higher spending power than the average Chinese citizen. Research from TalkingData on China's mobile internet users shows that 43.8 percent of young Chinese parents own a car, compared with only 20.6 percent of all mobile internet users. 25.9 percent of Chinese moms use iPhones - typically a status symbol of middle class and high-income families.

Having grown up with the internet, they are avid online shoppers. From 2010 to 2015, online spending on mommy-baby goods and products increased nearly tenfold from 18.7 billion RMB in 2010 to 165 billion RMB in 2015.

And when we say online, we mean mobile. In 2014, 65 percent of Chinese moms' online activity was done on mobile devices, and by 2015 nearly 80% was done on mobile.

Currently, the opportunity for brands lies in China's third and fourth-tier cities. The mommy-baby market in these cities is growing at an incredible rate and, because the industry is still developing, the market leaders in those cities are yet to be defined. The markets in Beijing, Shanghai and other first-tier cities are massive but more mature and hard to penetrate.

Trust Plays a Huge Factor in Their Purchasing Decisions

Millennial Chinese moms are much more independent in their thinking than previous generations. When making decisions, they not only consider recommendations from family and friends but also do a lot of research online. When they select products, they pay attention to product quality, reputation, and brand, and are willing to pay more for high-quality items.

Quality control scandals in the past have made Chinese mothers very careful when purchasing products for their children. To attract Chinese mothers, brands need to make the extra effort to show that their products are safe and reliable.

While this initially creates extra work for the brand, it also means that users can be converted into repeat customers more often.

Chinese moms are very vocal about their product preferences and are very likely to share their experiences on social media. When they find a good product, 84.6% of mothers will recommend it to others. Similarly, when they encounter a bad product, 84.1% of mothers will complain, often posting it on their WeChat moments or in WeChat groups.

Collaborations with mommy influencers can be an excellent way for brands to break through the noise. Here are 5 influencers who are making waves in the industry:

Lemon T represents the ideal life of many millennial Chinese moms. She's a young, slender fashion blogger with a handsome husband and a cute baby girl. Her social media content covers adult and child fashion, cosmetics, and baby products. She invites followers into her life, posting lots of adorable images of daily activities and family outings.

Nana is mother of two and a top mommy blogger with over 3 million followers on Weibo. She graduated from China's prestigious Tsinghua University with a design degree. Her eye for design is apparent with the selection of products found in her popular Taobao store selling children's apparel and other baby products.

Tan Yuanwu is an author and parenting blogger known for her edgy style. On her Weibo and Official WeChat accounts, she covers fashion, skincare, and parenting.

Huanzi is a famous parenting blogger and mother of two. She is also a contributing writer and critic for many popular parenting publications.

Pity is a prime example of a modern Chinese woman.Not only is she a high-level marketing manager at Chinese fashion e-commerce company Meilishuo, but she is also a popular parenting blogger. In addition to parenting, her content also covers fashion and skincare.

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5 Types of Influencers for Marketing to Millennial Chinese Moms

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With the end of the one-child policy and increased government support for millennial Chinese moms, China's huge mommy-baby industry is set to see even more growth over the next ten years. For one, the number of Chinese children under 7 will reach a whopping 190 million. Not only is

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731 million people. That's the scope of internet users in China. Any company with global aspirations simply cannot afford to ignore this bustling market. But it's also a region with significant linguistic, cultural and political diversity. The right approach to marketing is crucial. And email can play a significant role.

Emails have never enjoyed the same status in China as in the West. The Chinese joined the internet revolution much later and the proliferation of messaging apps like WeChat offered much faster ways to communicate than emails. This, however, doesn't mean that emails are irrelevant. Actually, quite the opposite. China email marketing has always been one of the most effective direct marketing channels and it is widely used by marketers

To tap into this vast marketing potential, we've put together a number of hands-on tips for you. Here are some best practices for email marketing in general and China in particular that will make your campaigns more effective.

1. Be aware of local regulations. Email marketing in China must comply with complex Chinese anti-spam regulations. Chinese law stipulates substantial penalties for unsolicited emails and non-compliance may result in your IP or domain getting blocked, making it inaccessible from the mainland indefinitely.

2. Insert brand identity in the sender bar and the email subject bar. NetEase has opened the permission of uploading the sender's company logo and displays it in the email client.

3. Think local!

Local language: The email's language will differ depending on a business' target markets. For example, if the target consumer is in mainland China, the website should be in simplified Chinese; traditional Chinese should be used for Hong Kong, Taiwan or Macao markets.

Localization versus translation: The best emails have been truly localized by a team of native language experts. If you want to be sure your marketing message stays intact during the translation process, invest in a team with marketing knowledge that can effectively convey your brand message to the Chinese audience.

4. Think smartphones and tablets. According to China's Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), there are 469 million mobile web users in China by end of 2016. The vast majority are using the internet on their smartphones and tablets. This means that your email design should be responsive, that is, it must function equally well across all the digital devices.

5. Color perceptions are based on cultural context. In China, red is the most popular color that signifies luck, happiness, and love; blue means high-quality and trustworthiness; yellow stands for purity and good taste. Sometimes, the original branding is somewhat compromised to suit the target market's preferences and perceptions.

6. Follow CAN-SPAM Rules.

The federal anti-spam legislation CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 requires a proper opt-out link to be included in a promotional mail, valid "from" email.

It also requires the word "Ad" to be included in the subject line for promotional emails.

You need to use separate sending domains & IP addresses for for your transactional emails and promotional emails.

Make sure there is no promotional content in your transactional emails.

7. Follow the sending limit of each ISP. ISPs will review sender's sending reputation, company popularity and sending history to allocate a daily/monthly volume limit. Senders need to follow the sending limit which guarantee a better delivery performance as a permission. With good/bad reputation, it could be adjusted automatically per day or month.

8. Subject line length: The shorter the better - do not include subject lines that are longer than thirty-five characters.

9. Make it personal. Email is a great opportunity to humanize your brand. Your campaigns will perform better if they are personalized appropriately for your email list segment. So make sure to include a personalization field to be able to use the subscriber's first name or site user name in the email.

10. Minimize images: Limit your use of images to no more than 40% of your email template. Remember, images won't load in the large majority of email service providers per default.

11. Use alt and title text: Because your images may not load, be sure to apply both alt and title text behind the images so that these texts display when the images don't load. Make the text a compelling call-to-action and hyperlink the image with a link to your landing page.

12. Maximum email width of 600 pixels: Your email template should not exceed 600 pixels in width. It may not display in the email preview pane if it does.

13. Easy-to-find unsubscribe Rules: It should be easy and clear to users where to unsubscribe from your email list. If you don't make this apparent, you may be marked as spam, which could impact your ability to get delivered to the inbox in the future.

14.No CSS! Stay away from coding your html email template using CSS. Many email service providers will strip it out. Use traditional < font >and < table > tags instead.

15.Don't use dark background colors with light font colors. Because many email service providers will strip out your background image or misread your font colors, a dark background with white or light fonts can end up looking like a white background with white fonts or a dark background with black fonts. Stick to light background colors and dark fonts and make sure whatever the picture could be showed, recipients can read your email.

16.Proof your e-mail before you send it. Make sure your spell check is running and content shows as design.

17.Segment your list and your content. In the case of revenue-generating emails, try to segment your database by purchase history or average spend in order to put the most compelling offer or revenue-generating event in front of the most likely candidate to take advantage of it.

18. Test different offers and content: A/B testing is a common method. You should always be testing different content and offers.

19. Evaluate your distribution list frequently. Your click through rates or open rate may have absolutely nothing to do with formatting, calls-to-action, or offers. It may simply be that you have put together a list of email addresses of individuals who are not that interested in or engaged with your product or brand. If that is the case, then you'll need to determine for yourself what the best course of action is. You can continue to email those individuals despite poor metrics. You can shift the focus of your email campaign to something more relatable to those individuals. You can re-allocate your time and effort to building a higher quality list.

Follow the list above, and you'll be able to craft successful emails! Want some expert support tapping into the Chinese email market? We'd me more than happy to have a chat and help you out.

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19 Tips for Email Marketing in China - Mapp Cloud

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731 million people. That's the scope of internet users in China. Any company with global aspirations simply cannot afford to ignore this bustling market. But it's also a region with significant linguistic, cultural and political diversity. The right approach to marketing is crucial. And email can play a significant role.

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All the important data on the Furniture & Homeware market, including market size, forecasts, and regional comparisons

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Furniture & Homeware - China | Statista Market Forecast

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China: Revenue in the Furniture & Homeware segment amounts to US$122,470m in 2020. The eCommerce market segment Furniture & Homeware includes the online sale of furniture, kitchen and household goods such as kitchen and bathroom accessories, textile furnishings, lamps, decoration, candles, pottery and china.

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The primary financial objective of the NEXT group is to deliver long term returns to shareholders through a combination of sustainable growth in earnings per share and payment of cash dividends. NEXT believes this objective is best achieved by continuation of the following strategies:

Improving and developing NEXT product ranges, success in which is measured by sales performance.

Profitably increasing retail selling space. New store appraisals must meet demanding financial criteria before the investment is made and success is measured by achieved profit contribution and return on capital against appraised targets.

Increasing the number of profitable NEXT Directory customers and their spend, both in the UK and through international online sales.

Managing gross and net margins through efficient product sourcing, stock management and cost control.

Focussing on customer service and satisfaction levels in both Retail stores and Directory.

Maintaining the Group's financial strength through an efficient balance sheet and secure financing structure.

Generating and returning surplus cash to shareholders by way of share buybacks or, more recently, special dividends.

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The primary financial objective of the NEXT group is to deliver long term returns to shareholders through a combination of sustainable growth in earnings per share and payment of cash dividends. NEXT believes this objective is best achieved by continuation of the following strategies: Improving and developing NEXT

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U.K. bellwether retailer Next last week posted its half-yearly results showing an increase of 3.7% in sales-but even more impressive in the current market, a 4.3% rise in full price, non-discounted, sales.

Given that at present in the U.K. 58% of fashion products are currently sold at discount, Next are a welcome exception to the continued issues facing the retail sector.

So, what is their secret?

To my mind, Next is one of the few retailers to really know who their customer is and they're able to maintain a close relationship with them via a clever aligning of both their bricks and mortar stores and their growing online presence.

While the latest results showed online sales were up 13% and in-store sales were down 5%-reflecting changing consumer shopping behaviors that we are seeing throughout the industry-Next aren't rushing to make sweeping store closures instead they have cleverly combined a bricks and clicks model whereby they encourage store footfall through in-store collection of online purchases. By offering a positive customer shopping experience that seamlessly covers the multiple customer touchpoints Next are able to build brand loyalty while meeting ever-evolving customer wants.

The strong growth in Next's online sales builds on their catalog heritage-their product selection and stock levels have long benefitted from the in-depth consumer data generated from their popular catalog and now through their online offering Next are further building on their data collection capabilities.

This harnessed understanding of who their core customers are and how, when, and where they want to shop as well as what they like to buy, in what size, and in what colorways means that Next have been able to put out collections which they know will sell-thanks to data and not just guy feel or historical sales performance.

A further benefit of having the capability to gather and harness data in this manner is that Next are one of the best retailers at operating strict stock controls, buying products at the right depth, therefore, avoiding the discounting spiral which is currently crucifying so much of the U.K. high street-as mentioned previously Next reported a 4.3% increase in full-price sell-through.

That's not to say Next never discount-they do, but they restrict this to certain times of the year offering three major discount events and two smaller mid-season ones. They are the only mainstream retailer, that I can think of, that year after year creates a buzz around these sale dates with people queueing (even camping) outside hours before opening.

The retailer has also cleverly turned these sales periods into core customer relationship building benefits by offering VIP slots to loyal customers who get online sale access prior to the sales official start date, a strategy also adopted by that other U.K. bellwether retailer, Marks & Spencers.

Another strategy that Next has employed which is helping shore up their results against today's tricky trading conditions is their introduction of high sell-through brands such as Adidas and Nike into their product mix. By offering these high sell-through/high profile brands Next are growing their online traffic and widening their customer appeal.

Next were ahead of the curve with the introduction of their lifestyle "glossy" catalogue and their pioneering adoption of the bricks and clicks model and now they look to be continuing this pioneering approach via their use of data, using their knowledge of their core customer whilst also seeking to ensure they appeal to tomorrows' customer.

By utilizing the fundamentals of good retailing and combining it with a customer-centric approach and insights capability Next have found the magic formula to retail success in 2019 and beyond.

I am the CEO and founder of Mallzee Insights - the UK's most comprehensive retail insights business, using the largest dataset of customer product opinion to help improve

... Read More

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Next Knows The Customer And Grows Full Price Sales

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U.K. bellwether retailer Next last week posted its half-yearly results showing an increase of 3.7% in sales-but even more impressive in the current market, a 4.3% rise in full price, non-discounted, sales. Given that at present in the U.K. 58% of fashion products are currently sold at discount, Next are a welcome exception to the continued issues facing the retail sector.

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OUR BRAND
Anthropologie is a unique, full-lifestyle shopping destination, with a mostly exclusive assortment of clothing, shoes, accessories, beauty, furniture, home décor, garden, bridal, and more. The brand opened its very first doors in the autumn of 1992 in Wayne, Pennsylvania, and today operates over 200 stores around the world. Though distinct in style and spirit, Anthropologie is part of URBN, a portfolio of global consumer brands. Visit the URBN Investor Relations and Global Community Initiatives pages to learn more.

OUR PEOPLE
Anthropologie is in constant conversation with our creative-minded community, and we take pride in our connection with individuals who prioritize self-expression and pursue inspiration, knowledge, and experience in the spirit of boundless curiosity.

OUR CUSTOMER
Our customers are creative people, who want to be and look like themselves. They have a sense of adventure about what they wear, and take a thoughtful, personal approach to interior décor and the harmony of home. Although personal style is important to them, they're not governed by trends. We listen to our customers and look to our community for inspiration and feedback - the intention is to exceed their every expectation, in unexpected ways.

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Founded in 1992, Anthropologie has grown into a one-of-a-kind destination for those seeking a curated mix of clothing, accessories, gifts and home décor.

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Photo: Courtesy of Richard Ginori

By Pearl Yan

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If you're looking for home decor inspiration or furniture to spruce up your home, Inside will not disappoint.

Stocking everything from dinnerware and jewellery boxes to bed frames and dining tables, Inside is a comprehensive home furniture decor and lifestyle store with two locations in Repulse Bay and Wong Chuk Hang.
Inside, G104, The Repulse Bay, 109 Repulse Bay Road, Hong Kong; 11/F, Unit A, Victory Factory Building, 16 Wong Chuk Hang Road, Hong Kong, inside.com.hk See also: 5 Best Personal Air Purifiers In Hong Kong For 2020

Carrying boutique homeware collections from Japan, Denmark, Canada and India, Igloo homeware pays homage to functionality, simplicity and craftsmanship through straight-forward, uncomplicated designs.

Natural wood is a recurring theme in the handcrafted furniture Igloo offers, characterised by clean lines and minimalist aesthetic inspired by Scandinavian and Japanese designs.
Igloo Homeware, G/F, 46 Sai Street, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong, igloohk.com See also: Home Tour: A Museum-Inspired Minimalist Apartment

You'll find nothing but premium quality furniture at Indigo Living, the go-to store for interior, furniture and accessory solutions that aim to provide aesthetic without compromising quality.

With 10 shops across the city, Indigo Living houses a vast range of stylish, high-end furniture and home decor items that will elevate any Hong Kong household.
Indigo Living, various locations around Hong Kong, indigo-living.com

It's impossible to not mention Tree, a homegrown, upscale furniture shop that places an emphasis on solid eco-wood furniture. Having been around for more than a decade, Tree has transformed many Hong Kong homes with timeless pieces that are eco-friendly and sustainably stylish.

There's nothing quite like visiting one of the three Tree stores, each decorated with cosy sofas, statement lightings and individually unique finishing touches sitting alongside the eco-wood furniture-which are all available for purchase in-store or online.
Tree, various locations around Hong Kong, tree.com.hk

This list wouldn't be complete without GOD, a one-of-a-kind lifestyle shop dedicated to all things Hong Kong.

Add a bit of Hong Kong fun to your home with "Nathan Road" pillow cases, a "Hong Kong Chickens" bath mat and "Hong Kong Street Signs" wine markers-all playfully instilled with doses of local culture and humour.
GOD, various locations around Hong Kong, god.com.hk

A home decor heaven, Anthropologie offers a broad range of home accessories from all over the world, from hanging wall art, pots and planters to curtains.

You can easily spend hours browsing the online shop and choosing your favourites from endless choices of beautiful designed homeware items-the tribal hanging baskets and wire wallflowers are just some of the unique statement pieces that will add a true sense of character to your home.
Available online at anthropologie.com

Home to an impressive collection of artisanal home accessories, furniture, lighting and everything in between, Staunton & Henry is a local hidden gem that stocks Instagram-worthy pieces that will help you step up your interior design game effortlessly.

Here, you'll find quirky picture frames, chic round rugs and even wall art and murals-which are categorised by style, including bohemian, Scandinavian, natural wood, industrial and more.
Available online at stauntonandhenry.com

Want to get the cosy minimalist Scandinavian style at home? EMOH offers an array of Nordic-style sofas, lighting and home accessories featuring harmonious tones, wood accents and natural marble elements, carefully crafted by artisans and designers from around the world.

Pop into their store in Kwun Tong to check out the latest collections, or discover exclusive online deals at your fingertips.
EMOH, Room 1001, 10/F, Century Centre, 44-46 Hung To Road, Kwun Tong, Hong Kong, emohdesign.com See also: Inside Designer Bill Bensley's Whimsical Home In Bangkok

Founded in Denmark in 1952, BoConcept is known for its premium-quality, customisable furniture which can be adapted for either size, colour, material or components.

A visit to BoConcept will allow you to get free styling advice from the in-store interior designers, who will delve into your specific needs and lifestyle to help you create a personal home.
BoConcept, various locations around Hong Kong, boconcept.com See also: This Eclectic, Art-Filled Home In Mid-Levels Is A Work Of Art

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11 Hong Kong Homeware Brands To Give Your Home A Luxe Update

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By Pearl Yan Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get all our top stories delivered We're on Facebook and Instagram. Follow us for the latest news, events and happenings If you're looking for home decor inspiration or furniture to spruce up your home, Inside will not disappoint.

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It has only been accessible through virtual private networks (VPNs) at times - but even some of them are being blocked.

Other social media platforms, which people in the West use every day, are also banned in mainland China.

Instead they're replaced by other ones which the government can monitor.

So what social media platforms are Chinese people able to use?

Instead of WhatsApp: WeChat

WeChat started off as pretty much a direct replica of WhatsApp, but it's now used for a lot more than just messaging and calling.

You can use it to pay for things, do your online shopping and play games.

It was created by Chinese company Tencent and there's also a feature where you can record a message which is then picked up by a random person - sort of like throwing a message in a bottle in the sea.

But the price its hundreds of millions of Chinese users pay for using it is that all their information is shared with the government.

Instead of Twitter: Weibo

Twitter has been blocked in China since it was partly blamed for helping to organise a protest in 2009.

That's when Weibo was set up instead and it basically does the same job - you have 140 characters to get your thoughts out.

But it's used differently to Twitter as people tend to post more about their personal and family lives rather than argue about politics.

Although this could partly be down to worries about censorship, it's also because the culture isn't one where people talk about these things in real life - so that translates into the online world too.

Instead of Google: Baidu

Baidu provides a lot of the same services online as Google, which is also banned in China.

But it also has Reddit-style forums called Baidu Tieba and a Wikipedia-style online encyclopaedia.

And like Google, it's investing a lot into AI and self-driving cars.

But the Chinese authorities are investigating Baidu, along with Weibo and WeChat, in an attempt to bring them under even more control.

Instead of Facebook messenger: QQ

QQ is a messenger platform owned by Tencent, the same company that owns WeChat - in the same way that Whatsapp is also owned by Facebook.

So they're not really direct rivals to each other but do quite a lot of the same things.

The main difference is that QQ, like Facebook messenger, started as a desktop app rather than a phone app.

You also don't need a phone number to use QQ, which means younger people who don't have a phone yet can use it to message each other.

Instead of YouTube: Youku

Youku is China's main site where anyone can upload their own videos - but they are all monitored by the Chinese government and anything criticising the Communist Party is taken down.

It also streams Netflix or Amazon-style original TV shows.

And there are famous "Youkuers" who can make millions of dollars, mostly from directing their users to buy stuff from Alibaba.

That's the Chinese version of Amazon or eBay - which also just happens to own Youku too.
Find us on Instagram at BBCNewsbeat and follow us on Snapchat, search for bbc_newsbeat

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Social media and censorship in China: how is it different to the West?

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It has only been accessible through virtual private networks (VPNs) at times - but even some of them are being blocked. Other social media platforms, which people in the West use every day, are also banned in mainland China. Instead they're replaced by other ones which the government can monitor.

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For this game, it will consist of a 'pop goes the weasel' type format. This meaning something will pop up and the user has to tap on it to score points.

The user will either be given 30 seconds to tap on as many pop ups as possible or, they will have to keep tapping on the pop up in order to continue the game.

In this example, the initials of the brand Oliver Bonas will pop up for the customer to try and tap in time.

The amount the customer scores is in relation to how big their reward is. The brand could introduce a OB reward scheme similar to their competitors. But with the brand Oliver Bonas, the rewards will add up to discount codes or the points can be saved up in order to get a gift voucher.

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U.S. millennials make more purchases online than in stores and younger millennials are even more likely to shop online than older ones, according to a survey conducted in January by CouponFollow, an online coupon platform.

Millennials in 2019 make 60% of their purchases online, the survey of 1,002 millennials (consumers ages 22 to 37) found. That's up from 47.0% in a survey CouponFollow conducted in 2017. Millennials now make 40.0% of all purchases in stores, down from 53.0% in 2017.

The 2019 survey also found massive growth in mobile shopping among U.S. millennials. Consumers in that age group now make 36.0% of their total purchases using mobile devices, up 20 percentage points from 16.0% in 2017. Purchases made on a desktop or laptop computer make up 24.0% of total purchases, down from 31.0% in 2017.

The survey shows "a shift to totally digital thinking among millennials," says Marc Mezzacca, founder of CouponFollow.

Almost two-thirds (64%) of the millennial online shoppers surveyed by CouponFollow make half or more or their online purchases from Amazon.com Inc. (No. 1 in the Internet Retailer 2018 Top 1000 ), and 97% use Amazon for at least part of their online shopping. Asked about their main reasons for shopping on Amazon, the most popular reason cited (43.0%) was the availability of online reviews, followed by prices (41.0%).

Mezzacca says the popularity of online shopping is driven in part by the price sensitivity of millennial shoppers, who go online to compare prices and look for coupons. 65.0% of survey respondents say they search online for coupons before making an online transaction on a computer and 62.0% do so when shopping on a mobile device. That compares with 35.0% of millennials who search online for coupons before making an in-store purchase. Meanwhile, 9.0% of millennials now say they use software or online tools to automate their coupon searches, up from 5.0% in 2017. Just 5.0% say they do not search for coupons, down from 11.0% in 2017.

Older millennials-those ages 32 to 37-make 43.0% of their purchases in stores and 57.0% online, making that group the most likely to shop in stores, the survey found. Millennials that are 27 to 31 years old make 38% of purchases in stores and 62% online. For millennials ages 22 to 26, the percentages are 39.0% and 61.0%, respectively.

All of this online buying by younger adults is bad news for retailers that operate stores, but that doesn't mean store-based retail is dead, Mezzacca says. But it shows that stores need to change. As an example to follow, he cited Best Buy Co. Inc. (No 8), which

matches online prices and has boosted its omnichannel capabilities in recent years while making its stores into product showcases for gadgets made by brands, such as Amazon.com, Apple Inc. (No. 2) and Google.

The chance to see, feel and test products brings customers into Best Buy stores, and the price match leaves them with one less reason to buy those items online, Mezzacca says.

Men and women show a strong preference for making ecommerce purchases on mobile devices instead of computers, but the preference is more pronounced among female online shoppers. Women surveyed make 41.0% of their purchases on smartphones or tablets, compared with 31.0% of purchases made by men. Women also make a higher percentage of purchases in stores (42.0%) than men (38.0%).

The majority of millennials (55.0%) say they do not use voice-operated assistants (such as Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri or Google Assistant), but 45.0% say they use such devices for search and discovery activities, such as finding products or online reviews. Among those who use voice assistants for shopping-related activity, 24.0% say they use Google assistant, making that the top choice.

Understanding how and how often millennials shop online is essential for retailers. Not only is it expected to soon become the largest living adult population in the United States, but the millennial generation is also a huge customer base for e-retailers. Across the companies in the Internet Retailer 2018 Top 1000, the median retailer gets 30.4% of its sales from consumers between the ages of 18 and 34, according to an Internet Retailer analysis of data from marketing insights company Hitwise.

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US millennials now do 60% of their shopping online, up from 47% in 2017

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U.S. millennials make more purchases online than in stores and younger millennials are even more likely to shop online than older ones, according to a survey conducted in January by CouponFollow, an online coupon platform. Millennials in 2019 make 60% of their purchases online, the survey of 1,002 millennials (consumers ages 22 to 37) found.

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Let's face it: outside of denim shorts, Doc Martens, and home-sewn SLAYER patches, it doesn't get more metal than email marketing.

There are mounds of KPIs to track and optimize for. It's expensive. There's segmentation. Time of day. Design. You have to sacrifice goats. CTA placement. Need I go on?

(This is the part where you say, "No, man. That's quite enough. Turn down that racket and get to the stats already.")

To help guide your email strategy, we've compiled a comprehensive list of useful email marketing statistics. Keep these in mind when you're considering planning a new campaign or heading back to the drawing board with your existing email marketing funnel.

B2B Email Marketing Statistics

1. Email is the third most influential source of information for B2B audiences, behind only colleague recommendations and industry-specific thought leaders.

2. 86% of business professionals prefer to use email when communicating for business purposes.

3. CTRs are 47% higher for B2B email campaigns than B2C email campaigns.

4. 59% of B2B marketers say email is their most effective channel in terms of revenue generation.

5. 56 percent of brands using emoji in their email subject lines had a higher open rate, according to a report by Experian.

6. Tuesday is the best day of the week to send email (according to 10 email marketing studies).

B2C Email Marketing Statistics

1. While 26% of SMBs polled use email marketing for sales, just 7% use email as a brand-building tool.

2. Only about 30% of US retail email list subscribers have actually made a purchase from the retailer whose email list they subscribed to.

3. Welcome emails are incredibly effective: on average, 320% more revenue is attributed to them on a per email basis than other promotional emails.

4. Consumers who purchase products through email spend 138% more than those that don't receive email offers.

5. Email subscribers are 3x more likely to share content on social media than leads who came through another channel, according to QuickSprout.

6. 80% of retail professionals indicate that email marketing is their greatest driver of customer retention (the next closest channel? Social media, identified by just 44% of those same professionals).

7. 77% of people prefer to get permission-based promotional messages via email (versus direct mail, text, phone, or social media).

Email Marketing Device & Demographic Statistics

1. Men and women are equally likely to convert from an email opened on a desktop -- but women are more likely to convert on a tablet, and men are more likely to convert on a phone.

2. 73% of millennials identify email as their preferred means of business communication.

3. The Apple iPhone leads email client market share with 31%, followed by Gmail at 22% as of May 2017 (calculations based on 1.29 billion opens).

4. 72.9% of 18-24 year olds use their phones to check email.

5. When a prospect or customer who opens an email on a mobile device opens that same email again on another device, they are 65% more likely to click-through to your site/offering.

6. People SAY they prefer HTML emails, but plain-text emails actually get higher open rates.

Spam & Segmentation Statistics

1. 49% of digital marketers indicate that the Canadian Anti-Spam Law (CASL) has had no discernable impact on their company's email marketing program.

2. The average number of legitimate business emails received each day has remained static since 2015, but the number of spam emails that bypass security filters (spam that actually hits your inbox) has risen from 12 emails per day in 2015 to 16 emails per day in 2017.

3. Nonprofits lose about $15k/year in donations due to spam filters blocking fundraising campaign emails from prospects' inboxes.

4. Segmented email campaigns have an open rate that is 14.32% higher than non-segmented campaigns.

5. Click-throughs are 100.95% higher in segmented email campaigns than non-segmented campaigns.

Email Marketing Volume Statistics

1. The number of email users worldwide is forecasted to rise to 2.9 billion by 2019.

2. The number of email users in the US was projected to grow to 244.5 million by the end of 2017, and 254.7 million by 2020.

3. Nearly 105 billion emails are sent each day; this number is expected to reach 246 billion before 2020.

4. The use of emoji in email marketing messages increased 775% from 2015 to 2016.

5. The percentage of emails containing GIFs rose from 5.4% in 2015 to 10.3% in 2016.

General Email Marketing Statistics

1. 49% of businesses use some form of email automation.

2. Pet and animal services has the highest email open rate -- people love their pets!

3. In the UK, every one pound spent on email marketing has an ROI of 38 pounds; in the US, it's $44.

4. According to the DMA, the four most important email marketing metrics (as identified by advertisers) are: CTR, Conversion rate, Open rate, and ROI.

5. Checking email is a complementary activity. People do it while watching TV (69 percent), in bed (57 percent), and on vacation (79 percent). Bonus points if you're looking at that JCrew Gmail ad while doing all three!

6. Using the word "Donate" in your subject line can reduce open rate by 50% or more.

7. The average email opt-in rate across all verticals is 1.95%.

8. For every $1 spent on email marketing $44 is made in return, according to a study by Campaign Monitor.

9. The average open rate for businesses in the Daily Deals industry is 15% - the cross-industry average? 20%.

10. 28% of consumers would like to receive promotional emails more than once per week.

11. A study of 1 billion emails revealed that video emails see CTRs 96% higher than non-video emails.

Is our list missing any valuable kernels of email-marketing wisdom? Let us know!

About the Author

Allen Finn is a content marketing specialist and the reigning fantasy football champion at WordStream. He enjoys couth menswear, dank eats, and the dulcet tones of the Wu-Tang Clan. If you know what's good for you, you'll follow him on LinkedIn and Twitter.

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35 Face-Melting Email Marketing Stats for 2018

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Does email marketing still work? You bet it does, and we've got the stats to prove it! To help guide your email strategy, we've compiled a comprehensive list of 35 useful email marketing statistics. Keep these stats in mind when planning your next email marketing campaign.

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Brand research

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Brand research

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Brand finalisation
Brand overview
SWOT

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Search engine optimization research
7 P's
PESTEL
Create YouTube Channel
Create YouTube channel art

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Ansoff matrix
Competitor analysis
Game design
SAPS reward model
4 F's

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Gamification Strategy
Gamification KPI's
RACE model
Porters 5 forces
YouTube policies

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As social media becomes a more integrated part of our lives, influencer marketing has exploded. People are turning to their favorite Instagram models, Twitter personalities and YouTube stars for advice and recommendations on purchasing decisions.

These influencers are trusted by millions of consumers, and marketers are paying attention. It turns out 86% of them used influencer marketing since last year, and budgets for influencer marketing are skyrocketing.

Social media has given normal people an opportunity to build their own brand through stimulating content and engagement. These new influencers are more relatable than traditional celebrities. Since more people are joining social media networks every day, companies have begun to realize they can leverage these platforms for marketing.

Interest in influencer marketing has only raised, which means a lot of research has been conducted which has produced interesting statistics. So let's take a look at some of the most eye-popping results of these studies. Here are 20 influencer marketing stats that will surprise you.

1) 70% of Teens Trust Influencers More than Traditional Celebrities

2) 86% of Women Use Social Media for Purchasing Advice

This statistic should be important to any brand that either has women as their primary target audience or within their scope of ideal customers.

It seems if you want to reach more women and get them to buy your product or service, you need to be present on social media and aware of the influencers that they are interested in. And this behavior is growing as 45% of women claim to be more active on social media that they were just 2 years ago.

When it comes to influencer marketing, over half of women made purchases due to influencer posts with Facebook and Instagram being the preferred platforms. The key to engaging this cohort through influencers is to be genuine and inspirational.

3) 49% of Consumers Depend on Influencer Recommendations

This statistic demonstrates the growing importance of social media influences for brands to connect with their audiences. Not only do 49% of consumers depend on influencer recommendations but 40% had purchased something after seeing it on Twitter, YouTube or Instagram.

If consumers feel confident about an influencer's recommendation, they are more likely to make a purchase. Brands are able to piggyback on the trust of influencers.

4) 6 in 10 Teens Follow Advice From Influencers Over Celebrities

The word of a celebrity isn't as valuable as it used to be. Not only do customers have a hard time trusting brands, but also traditional celebrities seem to have lost the influence they once had.

Influencers have the power to forge strong ties with fans and experience a more engaged audience gaining 3 times as many views, twice as many actions and 12 times as many comments compared to videos from traditional celebrities.

It seems these days' consumers trust social media influencers and their peers above anybody else. Power has shifted to social media influencers.

5) Influencer Marketing Campaigns Earn $6.50 for Every Dollar Spent

With 59% of marketers planning to increase their influencer marketing budgets, this area of marketing is becoming the fastest growing channel for brands beating organic search, paid search and email marketing.

According to a Tomson study, businesses earn $6.50 for each dollar spent on influencers with the top 13% earning $20 or even more. That's a significant return on investment considering that over half of marketers also consider the customers they acquire through this route as better prospects.

In terms fo influencer channels, blogs and Facebook are cited as the most effective platforms.

6) Influencer Marketing Is the Fastest-Growing Online Customer-Acquisition Method

More brands are hopping on the influencer marketing train. It's becoming more important than ever to build relationships with influencers who resonate with your brand and to create campaigns, which are aligned with the values of an influencer's followers.

In addition, 22% of marketers say influencer marketing is the most cost-effective method of obtaining new customers.

7) 57% of Fashion and Beauty Companies Engage in Influencer Marketing

Fashion and beauty are industries that rely heavily on influencer marketing as organic growth for brands has become more challenging without advertising and amplification.

In this sector, 57% of companies now use influencers as part of their marketing mix while 21% are planning to add this to their strategy in the coming year.

Many brands now use influencers to great success such as Lush using Grav3yardgirl and Nicole Guerriero gaining thousands of views on YouTube. However, while many fashion and beauty brands are keen on using influencers, many want to ensure that a brand affinity exists in order to drive success.

8) Major Brands Plan to Increase Spend on Influencer Marketing

More brands and marketers are coming to realize the incredible results that influence marketing can produce. This impact is resulting in an increase in spend with 67% of marketers planning to increase their budgets in the next 12 months particularly on Instagram.

Not only is spend increasing to help boost brand awareness, reach new audiences and improve brand advocacy, but it's fast becoming the key channel for many marketers.

9) The Influencer Marketing Industry is Expected to Hit $10bn by 2020

10) 74% of People Trust Social Networks to Guide Purchasing Decisions

About three-quarters of consumers trust opinions they find on social media, including those from friends, families, and influencers, to help them make the right decision about buying a product or service.

This creates huge opportunities for marketers in the promotion of products (sponsored or not) to reach new audiences and influence key cohorts such as millennials and Gen Z.

11. Influencer Marketing has Surpassed Print Marketing

What this means is brands are undergoing a transition in the ways they spend their marketing budgets. Expensive and inefficient ad buys, such as those found in newspapers and magazines, are giving way to influencer marketing.

The return on investment in influencer marketing is far outpacing any traditional medium.

12. 40% of Customers Use Ad-Blocking Technology

13. Marketers spend $25,000-$50,000 on Influencer Marketing Campaigns

Spending on influencers has gone up over the past few years, and it's only going to increase.

Many budgets for influencer marketing are on the rise with marketers expected to invest an average of $25,000-$50,000 in multifaceted campaigns, which is in line with many external marketing budgets of small-to-medium sized companies.

14) 40% of Twitter Users Made a Purchase Based on a Tweet

15) 67% of Marketers Promote Content With the Help of Influencers

16) Facebook Is the Most Influential Social Media Network

17) YouTube Is Hot on Facebook's Heels

18) 60% of Consumers Have Been Influenced by Social Media or Blog While Shopping at a Store

19) Purchase Intent Increased by 5.2x by Influencers on Twitter

Part of influencer marketing research means discovering which social media networks are most suitable for promoting your brand and where your target audience can be found.

According to Twitter influencers created a 5.2x increase in purchase intent when users were exposed to brand and influencer tweets compared to 2.7x when just shown brand tweets.

20) 71% of Marketers Believe Influencer Partnerships are Good for Business

Join the Social Influencer Marketing Party

It's better late than never when it comes to developing an influencer marketing campaign. A good way to start would be to reach out to some of your industry's top influencers and show off your great product or service. Otherwise, do research on some of the big-time social media influencers and find out which ones have your target audience as a significant portion of their following and go from there.

Either way, understanding how to use influencer marketing to its true potential will help to drive brand awareness, leads and revenue.

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20 Influencer Marketing Statistics that Will Surprise You

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As social media becomes a more integrated part of our lives, influencer marketing has exploded. People are turning to their favorite Instagram models, Twitter personalities and YouTube stars for advice and recommendations on purchasing decisions. These influencers are trusted by millions of consumers, and marketers are paying attention.

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Have you ever browsed around a website, added an item to your cart, and then decided you didn't want it? If so, you're a member of the cart abandonment club.

There are lots of us and we seem to love eating away at eCommerce sales. That's why, in this post, we're covering 5 cart abandonment stats you can use to help you win back those so-called "lost" sales.

Let's get to it...

What Is Cart Abandonment?

Shopping cart abandonment is the term used to describe when shoppers add products to an online shopping cart, but leave the site before they actually purchase the items. It'd be like going grocery shopping and just walking away from your cart while you're deciding between Fruity Pebbles and Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
How Is the Cart Abandonment Rate Calculated?
For something that causes eCommerce businesses so much agony, calculating the cart abandonment rate takes a really simple formula:

It's simply 1 minus the total of the number of shoppers completing transactions divided by the number of shoppers adding items to their cart.

But, you know we love making things super easy here at OptinMonster. To that end, check out this post from MonsterInsights to learn how to track shopping cart abandonment with Google Analytics.

Cart Abandonment Statistics & How to Use Them

Cart abandonment is a serious concern for anyone making sales online. And, even though the research shows this, it's still hard to wrap our minds around the impact abandoned carts can have on eCommerce during a single year.

For instance, did you know that in a single year cart abandonment is responsible for $4.6 trillion in lost eCommerce sales? How about that unexpected shipping, taxes, and fees are cited by 55% of shoppers as the reason they've abandoned carts in the past?

Good information to have, right? And, not just to bring out at dinner parties to dazzle unsuspecting guests with your keen eCommerce expertise.

When you know that cart abandonment accounts for THAT MUCH in lost sales, it tells you something: there's still money out there to be won. A lot of it.

Now, couple that with what you've just learned about why shoppers abandon carts. Free shipping might be a good way to get your hands on some of that $4.6 trillion.

Average Cart Abandonment Rate

The average cart abandonment rate dipped a bit in 2018 (as of Q3), but it's been on an upward trend since 2006. It's currently around 76%. This means that 76 out of 100 shoppers are just walking - clicking, rather - away from their carts.

Think for a minute about what your favorite brick-and-mortar store would look like if 76 out of every 100 shoppers just walked away from their carts mid-shopping. ?

Your average cart abandonment rate may not mirror this exactly; it varies depending on industry and products. But like we've said, if you sell something online, abandoned carts are something you're going to want to track and address.
How You Can Use This Data:
Cart Abandonment Rate by Device

Calculate your own abandoned cart rate to see how you measure up against others in your industry.

Take an inventory of your marketing strategies without making a judgment about what's working and what isn't (you'll figure this out later).

Mobile browsing is hot. Mobile conversions are not. Sadly, it's not because mobile users aren't trying.

They really want to use their phones to make purchases, but looking at cart abandonment stats by device you can see it just isn't happening.

Abandoned cart rates for desktop and laptop shoppers were 67.1% in 2017 and went up to about 70% for tablet users. That 3% difference was nothing when you look at the abandonment rates for mobile users.

Abandonment rates jump to 77.8% for mobile users.

It's not enough anymore to be "mobile-friendly." Your eCommerce site needs to be mobile-first. Or, at the very least, optimized so that mobile users can complete purchases without having to switch to a desktop or laptop. Because many of them won't.

Cart Abandonment Stats by Industry

Your cart abandonment rate depends on your industry and the products that you sell. Industries with the highest cart abandonment rates are finance, nonprofit, and travel, with retail coming in fourth.
How You Can Use This Data:
Clothing is the product with the highest abandonment rate, with tech, and home products rounding out the top 3.

You can change your industry and the products you sell, but you probably don't want to. That means that you need to find other ways to reduce cart abandonment and get your products moving.

Why Shoppers Abandon Carts

We don't have to wonder why shoppers abandon carts. It's not a secret of the universe - we have data.

We covered the biggest reason that shoppers abandon carts early in this post: unexpected added costs like shipping. But did you know that shoppers will also abandon a cart because they have to create an account to complete their purchase?
How You Can Use This Data:
That's right. 34% of shoppers will walk away from a purchase if there isn't a guest checkout option. And, adding to checkout woes, 26% of shoppers will leave if the checkout process is too complicated.

Other things that make shoppers leave:

What do all of these cart abandonment reasons have in common?

All of them, right down to "just browsing" is something you can address and correct for.

Check out more proven ways to reduce cart abandonment.
How You Can Use This Data:
Dealing with shoppers who are just browsing or on the hunt for deals requires a bit more involvement, but it's a lot of fun. ? And, you can reach both of these types of shoppers with a single OptinMonster feature: Exit-Intent®.

A popup with exit-intent appears when the visitor makes a move toward exiting your site and gives you one last chance to hook them with a special offer:

Eliminate surprise costs for shipping, taxes, and fees (or go the extra mile and offer free shipping)

Enable guest checkout

Create a single page checkout and make it ridiculously simple

Keep the cart visible

Always show the cart total

Show site security seals and trust badges

Learn how to create your own campaign with exit-intent.
Create an Exit-Intent Popup
You can also get all fancy with Smart Tags to personalize your campaigns:

Personalized campaigns can really help convert those "just browsing" shoppers into "just purchased" customers.

Form Abandonment
Personalize Your Popup Campaigns
Form abandonment is exactly what it sounds like: a user starts filling out a form on your site then abandons the form before completing and submitting it.

There isn't a lot of research around form abandonment. But, it's likely that the majority of visitors abandon forms because the friction they experience filling it out isn't worth what they're getting in exchange.

Basically, a visitor will probably be willing to give you their name and email address in exchange for your lead magnet. They probably won't be willing to fill out a 3-page form that includes their address, phone number, and a survey requiring long-form answers for the same.

If that lead magnet were a free car or even an entry to win a free car, you may see a different level of willingness to complete the form.

When designing your forms, ask yourself what is the least amount of detail you need to make your offer worth it to you to give it away. Then, ask only for those details.

Browser Abandonment

Browser abandonment occurs when a visitor is clearly engaging with your site, comparing and viewing multiple products, and checking prices, then leaving the site without adding a product to the shopping cart.

This is an excellent time to use a different type of popup than the shopping cart abandonment one we mentioned above. In this instance, we'd show a related products popup:
How You Can Use This Information:
You could even say something like, "Not seeing what you want? Check these out!" to signal to the visitor that these are products related to the ones they've browsed already.

There you have it: 5 cart abandonment statistics and easy ways you can use them to win back lost sales. Now that you've got your abandoned cart reduction strategy in place, learn how to create an abandoned cart email strategy to recover the visitors that slip through. And don't forget about cart saver tools!

Be sure to let us know how your exit-intent strategy is working. It definitely worked for Fastrack. They recovered 53% of abandoning visitors using an exit-intent built with one of our professionally designed templates!
How You Can Use This Information:
Not an OptinMonster user? Join today - it takes 60 seconds to sign up. ⚡

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5 Cart Abandonment Stats to Help You Win "Lost" Sales Now

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Have you ever browsed around a website, added an item to your cart, and then decided you didn't want it? If so, you're a member of the cart abandonment club. There are lots of us and we seem to love eating away at eCommerce sales.

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In China, people will soon be able to bring nothing but their smartphones (and clothes, perhaps) when going out, and the one and only app they'll need to download is WeChat.

Government ID card, WeChat-style.

Owned by tech giant Tencent, WeChat has evolved from China's answer to WhatsApp to an all-in-one app that let users order food, hail cars, and pay utility bills through its payment function. It has made cash and credit cards obsolete for many users, and it might soon do the same to physical identity cards issued by the government.

Earlier this week, WeChat rolled out a new function that lets users have a digital version of their government-issued ID cards. Users can go to a state-backed platform inside WeChat, enter their names and ID numbers, and then go through facial recognition to get their electronic ID cards. These digital versions will be accepted in place of ID cards for hotel check-ins and airport security checks, among other things. The program is currently available to citizens in the southern Guangdong province, and will be extended nationwide next month, according to a report from state newswire Xinhua (link in Chinese).

Previously, both WeChat and rival payment service Alipay from Alibaba rolled out similar ID card schemes in cooperation with local governments in cities such as Wuhan and Nanning. But the new WeChat feature is poised to become China's first national, official electronic ID system powered by a tech company.

As the app continues to add features, people will only become more dependent on it over time. But the scary part is that WeChat gathers and monitors user data that can be shared with the government whenever deemed necessary. Police have arrested WeChat users for writing messages critical of the government. In some cases such messages are blocked from reaching their recipients, but the sender isn't alerted to the fact.

So while WeChat is an all-encompassing system that does indeed make everyday life easier, it's also a powerful tool of government surveillance and control. That's an awkward situation, but it's the kind any tech company has to deal with when operating within China's authoritarian realm.

Below are two lists of all the things you can-and can't-do with your WeChat account in China.

Things you can do with WeChat

Messaging, voice messaging, stickers (including badly made government ones), voice and video calls.

Share updates and photos with friends through the Moments feed.

Share real-time location with friends.

Find random people nearby through the Shake and Look Around features.

Toss Drift Bottles into a "sea" and let random people pick up your messages.

Read articles (and tip authors) through Public Accounts owned by traditional news outlets, online media, and solo bloggers alike.

Search everything that's published and shared on WeChat.

Check friends' updates and rankings in Tencent-owned mobile games (including some of the world's most popular titles, such as Honor of Kings and Clash of Clans).

Send virtual red envelopes stuffed with real money to friends-especially popular during the Lunar New Year.

Transfer money and pay in stores through the Wallet feature.

Repay credit cards, pay utility bills, top up mobile phones, or buy wealth management products and a virtual currency owned by Tencent through the Wallet feature.

Get access to third-party services including ride-hailing, online shopping, and food delivery through Wallet.

Get access to public services including booking doctor appointments, applying for visas, and checking driving records.

Use the Mini Program feature, which offers miniature, low-memory "apps" within the WeChat app itself-and basically includes everything.

Things you can't do with WeChat

Send politically sensitive messages or images.

Publish articles critical of the government (they'll soon be deleted).

Change your alias to certain terms including "Xi Jinping," "Falun Gong," and "low-end population."

Transfer 6.4 yuan or 89.64 yuan through Wallet around the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, also known as "June 4."

Spread rumors, information, and other content that "disrupt the social order," which can lead to up to seven years in jail.

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All the things you can-and can't-do with your WeChat account in China

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In China, people will soon be able to bring nothing but their smartphones (and clothes, perhaps) when going out, and the one and only app they'll need to download is WeChat. Owned by tech giant Tencent, WeChat has evolved from China's answer to WhatsApp to an all-in-one app that let users order food, hail cars, and pay utility bills through its payment function.

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What do you mostly do when you need to contact a potential customer in the western world? Correct - you email them with your promotional content.

I have encountered a lot of people who want to do the same in China.

They only need contacts of the people they want to get through to and they are sure this kind of straightforward personal contact will bear its fruits.

However, there are 2 misconceptions here:

1. Getting through to the Chinese directly will never work if you have no reputation here, in this market.

2. Even if you do, they will never know you have emailed them...

Statistics reveal that nowadays roughly 5% of Chinese people open their emails. And they most probably do that for a particular purpose - definitely not to see if You have emailed them too or not.
They don't use email address to register in various platforms or for services because they have their mobile phone numbers tightly linked to their identity.

This is true for a wide array of cases. When I was a novice here in China 5 years ago, I was hopelessly sending emails at a pinch. And whether I needed support from Ctrip or a feedback from an official Chinese examination centre or a response from a company I wanted to work for, I never got any reply.

What I see now is that when I attend business fairs in China and check their business cards, I barely ever find their email addresses there - phone numbers, WeChat IDs, QR codes are there for sure.
A life without an email address here is absolutely normal.
How does China make up for Email Marketing?
A life without WeChat is inconceivable.
WeChat marketing is analogous in its functions to Emailing. While no one opens emails, around 900 million people use WeChat on a regular basis. 61% of WeChat users open it at least 10 times per day. So this is the right tool to target one's market with promotional content.

How to make use of WeChat for marketing?

Newsletters. WeChat offers a great opportunity to target your audience on a regular basis. 8 out of 10 WeChat users use it to read newsletters.

Chinese people enjoy looking for the information on their own, but they also like it a lot when the right content reaches them on WeChat. In their opinion, only a respected and secure business can use WeChat to reach out to the crowds with a product. So they give due consideration to the information that arrives to them through WeChat.

There are basically a few stages to let you use WeChat with the proper tools:

Set up an official account;

Manage it, get followers;

Customise and send newsletters;

Get the results.

What is important about sending newsletters:

Regular posts;

Up-to-date information;

High-quality content;

Diversity;

Bringing value to the reader.

WeChat subscription account gives a chance to make one post per day. That is more than enough to keep in touch with the audience, remind them regularly of yourself, become useful for them.

What is particularly good is that your WeChat account can be linked to your website or WeChat mini-site. It also offers a lot of options for customization, has features like auto-reply, WeChat Store. Users can get newsletters from you and check all the information about you there in your account, contact you directly for support or even orders. Besides, they can do it without leaving the application.

What else can be used instead emailing?

To sum up, WeChat gives a lot of opportunities for successful promotions due to the following factors:

Widest audience accessible;

Precise targeting;

Regular promotions;

Easy to convert the readers into clients.

However, it is always a smart move to combine a few media of reaching out to the consumers.

Apart from WeChat, it is highly recommended to use the following social media platforms as well:

Weibo used to be the most popular platform before WeChat took all the laurels.

It still has more than 500 million regular users and still plays a significant role in affecting the consumer choices. Weibo is also a good platform to cooperate with Chinese influencers, or KOL (key opinion leaders), for more effective promotions.

Douyin, or Tik Tok, is a short-video platform which has conquered an audience of around 500 million users over the past two years. It is used daily and serves as an entertaining content provider. With their hectic lives, Chinese people barely have any time to get away from it all. What they can do is browse Douyin with its versatile videos of maximum 50 seconds while they have a few spare minutes to relax a bit.

It is a great idea to make your product pop up in the hands of some popular influencers in their videos once in a while. Influencers are good to promote a product, while Douyin is good to offer links to your e-stores or to make people buy directly from it now, even.

Little Red Book is another rising power in the world of promotions on the Chinese market. Being more reminiscent of well-known Instagram, it is suitable for promoting female-focused stuff mostly. This social media platform is also efficient when used in cooperation with a KOL who might help you to get maximum leverage from your promotions.

All in all, it is important to remember that it makes no sense to use emails when you approach the Chinese. With that being sad, when in Rome do as Roman do, or as the Chinese say RùXiāng SuíSú ( 入乡随俗 ).

Any questions?

If you still have any questions on how to make promotions in China or you want to start now, don't hesitate to contact us.
We are the GMA - we have a lot of success stories in our marketing diary

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Emailing marketing in China, how it really works! - Marketing China

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What do you mostly do when you need to contact a potential customer in the western world? Correct - you email them with your promotional content. I have encountered a lot of people who want to do the same in China. They only need contacts of the people they want to get through to and [...]

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Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard

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Unless you have a strong connection to China, you might think WeChat is no big deal. But over the last 10 years, Tencent's flagship social platform has become the everything-app for people in the country. Plus, an important social and business tool for millions around the world.

Despite some resistance to its use in countries like the United States (more on this later), WeChat continues to grow. In 2021, the app boasts 1.24 billion monthly active users.

Compare that to Facebook's 2.85 billion, and you can see why WeChat is now the 6th most popular social media platform worldwide.

But what is WeChat and how can you tap into its online market? Read on to learn where WeChat came from, what it can do, and how to get started with WeChat marketing for business.

What is WeChat?

WeChat is a multi-purpose social media, messaging and payment app developed in China. It's the largest social media platform in the country and one of the top 10 social networks in the world.

In 2011, WeChat (known as Weixin in China) launched as a WhatsApp-style messaging app. It filled a major gap in the world's largest social network market, where many foreign-owned platforms like Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp are banned.

WeChat is also popular in Mongolia and Hong Kong and maintains a foothold in Chinese speaking communities around the world.

Registered users can connect to the platform through their phones using the WeChat app, or through WeChat web. WeChat for web includes WeChat for PC and WeChat for Mac, but you might also hear it referred to as WeChat online or Web WeChat.

If you've not used WeChat before, you might think it's just another online space where people talk to friends and share life snaps. But It's much more than that.

Users can send messages, hail a ride, pay for their groceries, keep fit, book a Covid-19 test, and even access government services like visa applications, all without leaving the app.

No third-party click-throughs or complicated user journeys. Just one very large captive audience and some super sleek, integrated tech.

How does WeChat work?

Over the last decade, WeChat has sought to simplify daily life for its users. So much so that it's become a 'one-stop' shop for social and transactional moments in China.

Here are just some of the things users can do on WeChat...

WeChat instant messaging

Instant messaging is WeChat's core service. It's where the app started and where it maintains its strongest hold over the social media market in China.

WeChat users can send instant messages in multiple formats, including:

Text messaging

Hold-to-talk voice Messaging

Group Messaging

Broadcast messaging (one-to-many)

Photo and video sharing

Video conferencing (live video calls)

WeChat messaging users can also share their location with their contacts, send each other coupons and lucky money packages, and share files with people in close proximity via Bluetooth.

In total, WeChat users send over 45 billion instant messages per day.

WeChat Moments

Moments is WeChat's social feed where users can share updates of their lives with their friends.

It's similar to Facebook's status updates. In fact, WeChat users can sync their Moments to Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms they don't have direct access to from China.

120 million WeChat users use Moments each day and most check it every time they open the app.

Moments users can share images, text, short videos, articles and music. Just like Facebook status updates, friends can react to other's Moments by giving a thumbs up and leaving comments.

WeChat News

Developed in May of 2017, news feed is most similar to Facebook's NewsFeed. It curates content posted by Subscription accounts (like media organisations) that users follow.

WeChat Search

WeChat account holders can use Search to find content on the platform, including:

Mini-programmes

Official Accounts

Wechat Moments (via hashtags)

Content from the internet (via Sogou search engine)

In-app eCommerce platforms

WeChat Channels

Stickers for instant messaging

WeChat Channel

In early 2020, WeChat launched Channels, a new short video platform within WeChat.

Through Channels, WeChat's users can create and share short video clips in a similar fashion to close rival TikTok.

Users can find and follow content posted to Channels through their friends or influencer accounts. Channels posts can include:

WeChat Pay

More than 250 million WeChat users have linked their bank accounts to WeChat Pay, the platform's payment gateway.

With it, they can pay for pretty much anything anywhere in the country, including:

WePay includes Quick Pay, in-app web-based payments, QR code payments and native in-app payments.

Enterprise WeChat

In 2016, Tencent launched Enterprise WeChat to help users separate their work and social lives. Just like Slack, it helps users speed up and organise work communications.

Through Enterprise WeChat, users can keep up to date with work conversations, keep track of annual leave days, log expenses and even request time off.

WeChat Mini Programmes

Mini Programmes are third party apps built into the WeChat interface. A so-called 'app within an app'. WeChat users can install these apps to gain access to more features. One of the most popular is a ride hailing app similar to Uber.

By keeping these apps inside WeChat, the platform maintains control over the user journey and directs payments through WeChat Pay.

400 million users per day access WeChat MiniProgrammes.

Who owns WeChat?

WeChat is owned by Chinese firm Tencent, one of the most valuable companies in the world. Run by billionaire businessman Pony Ma, current estimates put Tencent's value at $69 billion USD.

For context, that's more than cosmetics giant Johnson & Johnson and only marginally less than Alibaba.

Both Tencent and WeChat are closely tied with the Chinese government. WeChat user data is tracked, analysed and shared with the Chinese authorities.

This has driven concerns internationally that WeChat may be a threat to national security. These concerns drove President Donald Trump's attempts to ban WeChat in the United States between 2016 and 2021.

Current president elect Joe Biden has since panned the idea. But WeChat has previously been censored in Iran, banned in Russia and is currently banned in India.

So what does one of the world's most valuable companies do besides ruffle feathers in the oval office and run China's favourite social network? Make video games, mostly.

Tencent owns Riot Games as well as a large portion of Epic games, the company that brought us Fortnight.

WeChat demographics

According to Hootsuite's Global State Of Digital 2021 report, there are 4.20 billion active social media users in the world. And social media users in Eastern Asia represent almost a third (28.1%) of that total market share.

It'll come as no surprise then that current estimates suggest 90% of China's population use WeChat.

But WeChat isn't just popular in China. Approximately 100-250 million WeChat users live outside of the country.

WeChat users are pretty evenly distributed between genders, with 45.4% being female and 54.6% male.

But, unlike Japanese rival Line - whose audience is evenly split across ages - people under 30 years old account for over half of all WeChat users in China. Those aged 36-40 years make up the smallest share, at just 8.6% of total users.

How to use WeChat for business: WeChat marketing 101

Businesses can market on WeChat either by requesting an Official Account or partnering with third parties.

If you have an Official Account, you can create content on WeChat and directly interact with and sell to your followers and customers.

Over 100 countries (including Canada) can now apply for an Official Account, even if they don't hold a Chinese Business License. So it is worth trying your hand at WeChat marketing.

Set up an Official Account on WeChat

The most effective way to market your business on WeChat is by opening an Official Account. There are two types of accounts for WeChat marketing, Subscription accounts and Service accounts.

The Subscription account is designed for marketing but is not open to overseas businesses.

WeChat's Service account is made for sales and customer support. Service account holders can send four broadcast messages per month and have access to WeChat Pay and API.

Notifications from Service accounts appear alongside those from friends. But Service account holders can't message customers first, or reply to a message from a customer outside of a set 48 window.

But with Hootsuite's WeChat integration, you can request data like email addresses from customers within WeChat, then follow up with them outside of the platform.

And if you're an enterprise customer, you can manage Wechat messages through Sparkcentral, Hootsuite's customer service tool.

To apply for an Official Account on WeChat:

1. Go to https://mp.weixin.qq.com/ and click Register

2. Select Service account

3. Enter your email address to receive a confirmation code

4. Enter the confirmation code and then choose a password

5. Select your business's country of origin

6. Request the WeChat verification process to get access to premium features

7. Complete your account profile and click Done

Official Accounts must be verified (usually via phone call) and pay a $99 USD annual fee to the platform. It takes 1-2 weeks to get an answer but, once set up, your business will benefit from the same access and features as businesses registered in China.

Engage with users on WeChat

Official Account holders can engage with WeChat users in a few ways:

By displaying QR codes linked to their account at the point of sale, on their websites, in physical stores, or in other promotional materials

By ensuring their products show up on WeChat Scan

By creating content that can be seen in WeChat search

By creating engaging Mini Programmes

By setting up a WeChat store (an eCommerce store within WeChat)

These methods are popular because advertising options are limited on WeChat. Which brings us to...

Advertise on WeChat

WeChat offers three types of ads:

Moments ads

Banner ads

Key opinion leader (KOL or influencer) ads

However, WeChat limits the amount of ads users can see in a day. For example, each user will only see three Moments ads in a 24-hour period. If they don't comment, like or interact with the ad, it is removed from the user's timeline after 6 hours.

Partner with influencers (KOLs) on WeChat

WeChat's Key Opinion Leaders (KOL) are bloggers, actors and other celebrities who've gained popularity on the platform.

Any business, with or without an Official Account, can reach out to KOLs on WeChat. KOLs can endorse or promote your product or service, which means you can access their audience without having to build your own on the platform.

Collaborate or partner with WeChat

Occasionally, WeChat partners with organisations outside of China to run promotions.

For example, in 2016, WeChat partnered with 60 Italian companies based near their office in Milan. These companies were allowed to sell on WeChat without having to apply for a license to operate a business in China, or have an Official Account for overseas businesses.

These partnerships are less common in 2021 because businesses can now apply for a WeChat account without a license. But brands still frequently partner with WeChat to create promotional innovations that require new functions.

To date, WeChat has restricted it's partnerships to luxury brands, very large businesses like Starbucks and countries where they want to grow their user-base.

Create a WeChat Mini Program

You can apply for a developer license to create a WeChat Mini Program as an overseas entity.

Once registered, businesses can use Mini Programs to create apps that are accessible to all WeChat users.

International fashion brand, Burberry, has been innovating through WeChat Mini Programs since 2014 when it used the platform to showcase its fall runway show.

In 2021, Burberry created luxury retail's first social shop. A dedicated WeChat mini program links social content with a physical store in Shenzhen.

The app takes exclusive content from social media and brings it into the physical retail environment. It allows customers to experience the store in a completely new way and unlock personalised experiences they can share with their communities.

Any foreign business can apply to create a Mini Program and use it to connect with WeChat users.

Provide better customer service

Perhaps the most common way to engage with users on WeChat is to use it to provide great customer service.

With a Service account, you can reply to any WeChat users who messages you first. But, you'll have to respond within a set timeframe and the chat will automatically end if either one of you doesn't respond for 48 hours.

So, the key here is to use the methods above to get your account seen on WeChat. Then use instant messaging to answer questions and queries from your customers.
Build an efficient customer support system on WeChat and all your other social channels with Sparkcentral by Hootsuite. Respond to questions and complaints, create tickets, and work with chatbots all from one dashboard. Try it free today. Get Started

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What is WeChat? Intro to WeChat Marketing for Business

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Unless you have a strong connection to China, you might think WeChat is no big deal. But over the last 10 years, Tencent's flagship social platform has become the everything-app for people in the country. Plus, an important social and business tool for millions around the world.

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1. Definitions

a) "Oliver Bonas" means Oliver Bonas Limited, company number 3799350, registered in England and Wales also referred to as "we" or "us" in these terms and conditions.
b) "Force Majeure" means any clause affecting the performance by Oliver Bonas of its obligations arising from acts, events, omissions, happenings or non-happenings beyond its reasonable control including (but not limited to) governmental regulations, fire, flood or any disaster or industrial dispute affecting a third party.
c) "Working days" means Monday to Friday, excluding Bank or other Public holidays.

2. Account creation

a) The £5 Account Credit offer is valid on any purchase in store or at oliverbonas.com. No minimum spend applies.
b) The offer is valid on all items except Gift Cards and E-Gift Cards.

3. Orders

a) All contracts of sale made by Oliver Bonas shall be deemed to incorporate these terms and conditions, which shall prevail over any other terms from the party ( "the Customer" ) with whom Oliver Bonas is dealing. Cancellation of orders by business to business customers is not accepted as many orders are despatched on the same day the order is placed. Cancellation of orders by consumers can only be accepted in accordance with the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2014.
b) All orders are subject to acceptance and to availability of the goods ordered. Oliver Bonas is entitled to refuse any order placed by you.
c) You undertake that: 1. all details you provide to us for the purpose of purchasing goods or services offered on our website are correct and 2. the credit or debit card you use to make a purchase from us is your own or your company's card, that you are authorised to use it, and that there are sufficient funds or credit facilities to cover the cost of any goods or services you order from us. We reserve the right to obtain validation of your credit or debit card details before providing you with any goods or services.

4. Prices

a) All prices are inclusive of VAT at the current rates where applicable and are correct at the time of entering information.
b) Oliver Bonas reserves the right to change prices without prior notice.

5. Delivery, Title and Risk

a) Any time or date stated for delivery is an estimate only. Oliver Bonas makes every effort to despatch goods on time, but does not accept liability for failure to deliver within the stated time
b) If Oliver Bonas is unable to deliver the goods within 30 days of the date of order, the Customer will, as its sole remedy, be entitled to cancel the order and require any monies paid to Oliver Bonas in respect of that order to be refunded. In order to cancel, the Customer must send written notice of cancellation to Oliver Bonas after the above date, but before delivery of the goods or notification from Oliver Bonas that the goods are ready for delivery.
c) Oliver Bonas does not accept liability for shortages or damage to deliveries unless the Customer notifies Oliver Bonasof the shortage or damage in writing within 7 days of receipt of the delivery.
d) The customer has to accept the goods when they are ready for delivery.
e) Delivery is deemed to take place when the goods are delivered to the Customer's nominated address, whereupon the risk of loss, breakage and all damage and all other risks shall pass to the Customer.
f) Title in the goods does not pass to the Customer until payment is received in full by Oliver Bonas .
g) If the customer cannot accept delivery, Oliver Bonas may at its option:
(1) store and insure the goods at the Customer's expense and risk or (2) sell the goods at the best price reasonably obtainable and (after deducting reasonable storage insurance and selling costs) pay to the Customer any excess over the sale price or charge the Customer for any shortfall or (3) re-arrange delivery provided that Oliver Bonas may charge the Customer for the additional delivery costs incurred.

6. Payment

a) Payment can be made by any major credit or debit card. Payment will be debited and cleared from your account before the despatch of your good(s) or provision of service to you.
b) You confirm that the credit/debit card that is being used is yours.
c) All credit/debit card holders are subject to validation checks and authorisation by the card issuer and we may share your personal information with such parties as are necessary to enable us to do such checks. If the issuer of your payment card refuses to authorise payment to us, we will not be liable for any delay or non-delivery.

7. Product Specifications

a) Oliver Bonas makes every effort to supply the goods as advertised but reserves the right to supply the goods subject to minor variations in actual dimensions, specifications and, in the case of bulk items, quantities without prior notice.
b) If Oliver Bonas cannot supply the goods ordered by the Customer, Oliver Bonas reserves the right to offer goods of equal or superior quality at no extra cost. In such a case, if the Customer does not wish to accept the alternative goods offered, he or she may cancel the order and require the refund of any money paid to Oliver Bonas in respect of that order. This shall be the sole remedy of the Customer in these circumstances.

8. Trade names and Trade Marks

a) Trade names and marks (other than "Oliver Bonas" ) are not always indications of the actual manufacturer of a particular product.

9. Warranties and Returns

a) Oliver Bonas is committed to providing our customers with the highest quality products and service. However, on rare occasions, products may be found to be faulty or defective. In such cases, we offer the returns facilities described below.
b) All goods supplied by Oliver Bonas are warranted to be generally free from defects in workmanship and materials and fit for the purpose for which such goods would normally be used. If you purchase goods in the course of your business, all other express or implied terms or warranties relating to the goods are excluded to the fullest extent permitted by law. Subject to this, however, goods are not tested or sold as being fit for any particular or for use under specific conditions, unless expressly agreed in writing. All services provided by Oliver Bonas will be provided with reasonable skill and care and within a reasonable period. If you purchase services in the course of your business, all other express or implied terms or warranties relating to the services are excluded to the fullest extent permitted by law.
c) Subject to the right of consumers to return goods for refund under The Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 Oliver Bonas does not sell products on a trial basis. Customers are strongly advised to check suitability and specifications of products before ordering.
d) In the event that Oliver Bonas, at its discretion (unless the Consumer Contracts Regulations apply), agrees to accept the return for credit of unwanted products, the goods must be returned within the guidelines of the Returns Policy.

10. Oliver Bonas' Liability

a) Oliver Bonas shall under no circumstances be liable for any consequential or indirect damage or loss, however caused, (including (but not restricted to) loss of business or profits, loss of goodwill, damage to trading relationships, loss of data and other financial loss. ("Financial loss" in this sense does not refer to the price you have paid for the goods, which we may be liable to refund to you, in whole or in part, if the goods are faulty or do not comply with their description). Oliver Bonas'liability in respect of all other losses shall be limited to the invoiced amount of the relevant order, provided it has been paid. b) Nothing in this agreement shall limit Oliver Bonas ' liability for death or personal injury caused by its negligence.

11. Promotional Offers

On occasion Oliver Bonas chooses to run promotions and offers on selected products or lines. Qualifying promotions and offers will be automatically applied to your order both on the website and in-store and are subject to the below terms and conditions:

With the exception of free delivery offers, promotions cannot be used in conjunction with any other offers

Offers are valid only on the full price products indicated

Offers are valid for limited time periods except clearance sale items

Gift Cards and our Gift Box service are exempt from all offers

If an item is returned for a refund that brings the amount spent below any qualifying amount, the refund may be reduced to reflect this

All offers are subject to stock availability. Oliver Bonas reserves the right to amend, withdraw or extend offers at any time, without prior notice

12. Health and Safety

a) In accordance with the Health and Safety at Work, etc Act 1974 and the Consumer Protection Act 1987, Oliver Bonas confirms that the goods it supplies as a distributor do not present a hazard to health and safety 1. when properly used for the purpose for which they are designed; and 2. if the Customer takes reasonable and normal precautions in their use.

13. Force Majeure

a) Where, in spite of its reasonable efforts, Oliver Bonas is unable to perform an obligation due to force majeure, it shall not be deemed to be in breach of its contract with the Customer.

14. The Consumer Contracts Regulations 2014

a) Contracts for the purchase of goods by a Customer not acting in the course of a business and made over the telephone or through the Oliver Bonas website, or by mail order, are, with the exception of certain excepted contracts, subject to The Consumer Contracts Regulations 2014 ("the Regulations"). b) If the Regulations apply, Customers may cancel goods purchased from Oliver Bonas by sending a written notice of cancellation by post or hand delivery addressed to Customer Services at Oliver Bonas , Unit F, Gateway 3, Davies Road, Chessington KT9 1TQ or by fax to 020 89740100 or call 0208 974 0110 or by e-mail to AskU s@oliverbonas.com.
c) The notice of cancellation must be sent within 14 working days of the date of delivery after the goods are received.
d) The Customer will be responsible for the cost of returning the goods if he or she exercises this right of cancellation under the Regulations. If the Customer does not actually return the goods to Oliver Bonas, the Customer is under a duty to make the goods available for collection at the Customer's expense from the address to which they were delivered.
e) The Customer is under a duty to retain possession of the goods whilst awaiting return to Oliver Bonas and to take reasonable care of them during this period. The Customer will be liable for any loss of or damage to the goods if he or she fails to comply with this obligation.

15. Errors and Omissions

a) Oliver Bonas makes every effort to ensure that all prices and descriptions quoted on its website are correct and accurate. However, the frenetic tempo of e-commerce makes it inevitable that mistakes will occasionally occur. In the case of a manifest error or omission, Oliver Bonas will be entitled to rescind the contract, notwithstanding that it has already accepted the Customer's order and/or received payment from the Customer. Oliver Bonas' liability in that event will be limited to the return of any money the Customer has paid in respect of the order. In the case of a manifest error in relation to price, the Customer will be entitled to purchase the goods by paying the difference between the quoted price and the correct price, as confirmed in writing by Oliver Bonas after the manifest error has been discovered.
b) A 'manifest error', as the term is used in sub-paragraph a) above, means, in relation to an incorrect price, a price quoted in error by Oliver Bonas which is more than 10% less than the price that would have been quoted had the mistake not been made.

16. General

a) Nothing in these terms and conditions affects your statutory rights as a consumer
b) If any provision in this agreement is held to be invalid or unenforceable, it shall be deemed severed from the Agreement and this shall not affect the validity or enforceability of the remaining provisions.
c) Any waiver of a breach of this Agreement must be in writing
d) Any variation of this Agreement must be in writing and signed by a duly authorised Oliver Bonas official.
e) The headings are for convenience only and shall not affect the interpretation of this Agreement.
f) Any notices given under this Agreement shall be in writing and sent: 1. by first class pre-paid post to the last known address of the party; or 2. by fax to their last known fax number; or 3. by e-mail to the last notified e-mail address of the party.
g) The notice shall be deemed served: 1. two working days after posting; or 2. upon receipt of a successful fax transmission report; or 3. after system confirmation of e-mail delivery
h) These terms and conditions shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and the parties submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts
i) Oliver Bonas may, at its discretion, record telephone transactions for staff training and quality control purposes.
j) Oliver Bonas reserves the right to change or amend these terms and conditions at any time and without prior notice.

17. Oliver Bonas Gift Cards & E-Gift Cards

a) Oliver Bonas Gift Cards and E-Gift Cards are valid for two years from the date of the last transaction. Any remaining balance will be cancelled after that time.
b) Gift Cards and E-Gift Cards cannot be exchanged for cash.
c) Gift Cards issued in GBP can be used in all Oliver Bonas stores and online at www.oliverbonas.com. Gift Cards issued in Euros can only be used online at www.oliverbonas.com/ie and those issued in USD can only be used online at www.oliverbonas.com/us. All Gift Cards can be redeemed using the 16 digit card number and 3 digit pin number.
d) Gift Cards and E-Gift Cards can be used with one other method of payment (debit / credit card or PayPal), and multiple Gift Cards can be used at the same time as a method of payment.
e) Refunds for online purchases made with a Gift Card and returned to the website will be placed back onto a new Gift Card, or if you're an OB account holder, credited to your Account.
f) If you wish to return item(s) paid for by a Gift Card or E-Gift Card to one of our stores, you will be offered an exchange or credit note.
g) If you return a store purchase to our website, we will return the balance back to a new Gift Card. If you paid for your order partly by debit/credit card, the balance will be refunded to your original payment card.
h) Gift Cards need to be retained until you are fully satisfied with your purchase.
i) Oliver Bonas is unable to refund lost, stolen or damaged Gift Cards.
j) Gift Cards and E-Gift Cards can be used towards the purchase of goods at a higher price than their face value upon payment of the difference.

18. Account credit

a) Account credit valid for two years from the date of issue. Any remaining balance will be cancelled after that time.
b) Account credit cannot be exchanged for cash.
c) Account credit issued in GBP can be used in all Oliver Bonas stores and online at www.oliverbonas.com. Account credit issued in Euros can only be used online at www.oliverbonas.com/ie and issued in USD can only be used online at www.oliverbonas.com/us. Account credit can be applied at checkout or fast checkout and in store using the 16 digit card number and 4 digit pin number or barcode in your "My Account" area.
d) Account credit can be used together with one other method of payment (debit / credit card or PayPal).
e) Refunds for online purchases made with Account credit and returned to the website will be placed back to Account credit. Refunds for online purchases made with Account credit or Account credit together with a Gift Card and returned to the website will go back to Account credit only.
f) If you wish to return item(s) paid for by Account credit to one of our stores, you will be offered an exchange or credit note.
g) If you return an in-store purchase to our website, we will return the balance back to a new Gift Card. If you paid for your order partly by debit/credit card, the balance will be refunded to your original payment card.
j) Account credit can be used towards the purchase of goods at a higher price than face value upon payment of the difference.

19. Payment & Returns in Luton Airport Store & Gatwick Airport Store

a) We accept Euro and Sterling for cash payments and Sterling for card payments in our Luton and Gatwick Airport stores. For any payments where change is to be given, this will be paid in Sterling.
b) If you wish to return your purchase, this will be refunded in Sterling at the exchange rate at the time of the original transaction.
c) All customers will receive tax free shopping where applicable.

20. Interest Free Credit

In cooperation with Klarna Bank AB (publ), Sveavägen 46, 111 34 Stockholm, Sweden, we offer you the following payment options for furniture items. Payment is to be made to Klarna: Slice it.
Further information and Klarna's user terms can be found here. General information on Klarna can be found . Your personal data is handled in accordance with applicable data protection law and in accordance with the information in Klarnas privacy statement.

21. Monthly Review Prize Draw

When you place an online order you will be asked to participate in our Reviews.co.uk online feedback survey via email and each review posted is entered into a monthly draw to win an Oliver Bonas e-voucher worth £200.

The Prize Draw is open to all UK residents, aged 18 or over, who have purchased from Oliver Bonas (online and instore) and left a verified review(s) with our partner, Reviews.co.uk., (excluding our employees, anyone directly connected with the promotion or anyone who has won this prize in the previous 12 months).

We offer no cash alternative to the £200 Gift Card and the prize is non-transferable and non-refundable. The Gift Card can be used online at www.oliverbonas.com or in any of our stores.

The draw will take place on the 1 st (or the closest Monday) of each month and the winner will be notified within two weeks via email. The winner will be randomly selected from all reviews to Reviews.co.uk submitted during the previous month (closing date is 23:59 on the last day of each month).

Should Oliver Bonas be unable to contact a winner within 14 days of the draw, or if a winner is unable to accept the prize, the Promoter reserves the right to award the prize to an alternative winner, drawn in accordance with these terms and conditions.

The result of the prize draw is final and binding in all matters and no correspondence will be entered into.

Oliver Bonas reserves the right to remove or to refuse to post any submission for any reason and any refused posts will not be entered into the prize draw. In writing your review, you acknowledge that you, not the Promoter, are responsible for the contents of your submission.

Oliver Bonas reserves the right to cancel, amend, terminate or temporarily suspend this promotion in the event of any unforeseen circumstances or technical reason outside its reasonable control, with no liability to any entrants or third parties.

All entrants to competitions and offers are deemed to have accepted these rules and agree to be bound by them, and agree to co-operate in any publicity that may arise which may include their name or image being used on websites, magazines or mobile services at any time as a result of the competition.

We reserve the right to disqualify or not award a prize to an entrant who in our opinion has not entered in to the spirit of these terms and conditions or the intention of the competition.

The monthly winner's details (name and county) will be available for six weeks from the last day of each month by sending a SAE to:

Customer Services, Oliver Bonas, Unit F, Davis Road Industrial Park, Chessington, KT91TQ

Customer information held by Reveiws.co.uk is not shared with anyone other than Oliver Bonas

22. Instagram Image Rights #YesOB

By responding #YesOB or #agree you agree to the following:

a) You grant Oliver Bonas a royalty free, perpetual, worldwide licence to use your social media handle and your social media photograph(s) and in relation to which you have responded #YesOB or #agree (the "Photos") on oliverbonas.com, in Oliver Bonas stores (both bricks and mortar and online) and/or on any of Oliver Bonas's platforms (including but not limited to Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and/or in printed publications (eg. Catalogues, guides).

b) Oliver Bonas may use, reproduce, distribute, combine with other materials, alter and/or edit your Photos in any manner in its sole discretion.

c) You hereby represent and warrant that (i) you own all rights in and to your Photos, (ii) you have permission from any person(s) appearing in your Photos to grant the rights herein, (iii) you are 18 years or older, and (iv) Oliver Bona's use of your Instagram handle and/or Photos will not violate the rights of any third party or any law.

d) You hereby waive any moral rights in the Photos to which you are now or may be at any future time entitled under Chapter IV of Part I of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or any similar provisions of law in any jurisdiction.

e) You hereby release and discharge Oliver Bonas from all and any obligation to pay you for any use of your Photos and any of the intellectual property rights contained therein in connection with the uses described above.

f) You hereby release, discharge and agree to hold Oliver Bonas and any person acting on Oliver Bonas's behalf harmless from all claims, demands, and liabilities whatsoever in connection with use of the Photos as described above.

23. Blue Light Card discount

The Oliver Bonas Blue Light Card discount is available to members who have an account on the Blue Light Card website.

It can be redeemed online only at www.oliverbonas.com by clicking on the link.

1. To redeem the 25% discount, enter your unique promotion code at the online checkout.

2. Each code can be used once only.

3. Members can only request 5 codes in a 3 month period

4. The Discount is valid on full price items only. Sale items, delivery charges and Gift Cards/eVouchers are excluded.

5. The Discount cannot be used in conjunction with any other special offers or promotions.

6. The Discount may not be exchanged for cash and is non-transferable.

7. Returned items will be refunded at the discounted price paid. This does not affect your statutory rights.

8. Oliver Bonas reserves the right to (i) cancel this offer at any time; (ii) refuse to allow any individual to participate in this offer; and (iii) amend these terms and conditions.

9. Oliver Bonas cannot be held responsible for the failure of third parties to fulfil the obligations involved in this offer.

10. These terms and conditions shall be governed by and construed in accordance with English law and the English courts shall have exclusive jurisdiction in the event of a dispute.

11. Promoter: Oliver Bonas Ltd., Unit F, Davis Road Industrial Park, Chessington, Surrey, KT9 1TQ 13.

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Terms & Conditions | About Us | Oliver Bonas | Oliver Bonas

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a) "Oliver Bonas" means Oliver Bonas Limited, company number 3799350, registered in England and Wales also referred to as "we" or "us" in these terms and conditions. b) "Force Majeure" means any clause affecting the performance by Oliver Bonas of its obligations arising from acts, events, omissions, happenings or non-happenings beyond its reasonable control including (but not limited to) governmental regulations, fire, flood or any disaster or industrial dispute affecting a third party.

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Influencers are helping drive billions in sales in China and marketers are increasingly focusing their efforts on influencer marketing as a result.

According to Ruhnn Holding, a Chinese firm that facilitates ecommerce through influencers or key opinion leaders (KOL) as they're known in China, influencers helped drive $4bn in sales in China in 2018. What's more, a survey conducted by the Centre for International Governance Innovation found that the purchasing decisions of more than two-thirds of Chinese consumers are influenced by social media.

This figure is substantially higher in China than in any other country. In the US, for instance, just 38% of consumers polled indicate that their purchases are influenced by social media. The figure is even lower in the UK at 32%.

So what explains China's booming influencer economy? One word: trust. As Mark Tanner, the MD of research firm China Skinny told the Wall Street Journal, "For many, Chinese KOLs are the most trustworthy and authentic source of information, particularly as there are relatively few other ways to get information with the state controlling the media."
Why livestreaming was a major part of Singles Day 2019
The trust-based relationship Chinese consumers have with influencers looks a lot different than the consumer-influencer relationship in Western markets, where research suggests that consumers are increasingly skeptical of influencers. For example, according to a survey conducted by agency UM, just 8% of consumers trust information from social media but only half that (4%) trust information from influencers.

And a study by Bazaarvoice and Morar Research last year found that nearly half of the 4,000 UK consumers it polled are "fatigued" by repetitive influencer content.

Fools rush in?

Given the trust Chinese consumers have in the social media influencers they follow, and the sales that are actually occurring, it's no surprise that marketers in China are embracing influencers. Just over two thirds employed influencer marketing last year according to research from marketing firms AdMaster and TopMarketing, making it a top marketing tactic.

But is Chinese marketers' faith in influencer marketing fully justified?

While $4bn in influencer-driven sales sounds impressive, it's a small fraction of the estimated $1.3 trillion in online sales in China last year. Even if Ruhnn Holding underestimated the amount of sales attributable to influencers ten-fold, influencer-driven sales would still only account for a single-digit percentage of overall ecommerce sales.
Can TikTok rival Instagram for influencer marketing success?
There are two possibilities. One possibility is that despite their high profile, influencers in China simply aren't quite the prolific salespeople they're often made out to be.

Another possibility is that nobody really knows how many sales can be attributed to influencers in China and even Ruhnn Holding, which is billed as "China's largest influencer company", can't provide an accurate estimate. Since attribution remains one of the biggest challenges cited by marketers who employ influencers in the West, it wouldn't be surprising that this challenge also exists in China.

Both possibilities highlight just how important it is for marketers active in China to invest in implementing attribution solutions. With ecommerce sales in China estimated to surpass $2 trillion this year, competition fierce and a wide array of tactics being employed by influencers - from blog posts to live streams - across multiple channels, marketers running their influencer campaigns off of assumptions about influencers' sway rather than real-world data risk not only missing out but making significant misallocations of capital and resources.

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Do marketers really know how big China's influencer economy is? - Econsultancy

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Influencers are helping drive billions in sales in China and marketers are increasingly focusing their efforts on influencer marketing as a result. According to Ruhnn Holding, a Chinese firm that facilitates ecommerce through influencers or key opinion leaders (KOL) as they're known in China, influencers helped drive $4bn in sales in China in 2018.

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Hofackers Five Stages
AIDA Model
Communication & Promotion
Target Market
YouTube Videos

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Pricing strategy
Risk Assessment
Keyword Research
Youtube Policies
Youtube KPIs

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Retention Marketing
SOSTAC
Strategy Canvas
4 Actions Framework
User Web Search Intent
Go To Plan with KPIs

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Content ID
Ethical Guidelines
YouTube Ads
6 path framework
Introduction
Contents page