Selling in China is easier with the funds for e-commerce businesses. The Coronavirus pandemic is far from over, but despite global problems, business opportunities are not lacking, especially for those who want to develop their business and open it to the Chinese market. The economy of the Asian giant is the only one in the world not to record a negative mark, with an expected increase in GDP of 1.9% in 2020.
China seems to have overcome the most difficult moment, and today organizing the strategy for approaching local consumers is a little easier, thanks to the Unioncamere and regional calls for the opening of e-commerce and digital investments in that country.It is an important support, which provides outright grants amounting to 70% of the costs, up to a maximum of 10,000 Euros, for SMEs wanting to grow in non-EU markets.
From the website to the marketplace, how to conquer the Chinese market
It is important to develop an agile and extremely functional ecosystem, which includes a strong presence on WeChat — the social app with 1.2 billion active Chinese users — and its internal e-commerce, including Italy Pavilion: an ideal space for selling Italian products of excellent quality.
One of the options for giving your business an innovative image and ensure differentiation, could be the creation of a proprietary online shop, which must be integrated with WeChat so as to allow the direct purchase without ever leaving the app. Alternatively, consideration may be given to building the own space on TMall, the main Chinese marketplace with over 800 million buyers.
In any case, a fundamental element is the construction of a digital communication and marketing plan capable of effectively telling the products, services and nature of the business to the public with local nuances and specificities.
What are the activities that can be financed by the funds?
Everything related to the creation and development of the platform Creation of an e-commerce site, a mobile-first website, an app, configuration of the entire system, including purchase, registration and domain management costs, consulting for supporting the platform.
Everything related to the organization and operation of the marketplace Registration fees for opening a store on marketplaces, costs of managing and maintaining the platform in safety, accession to payment circuits and development of the products technical data sheet, software for order management, access monitoring and data analysis, warehouse rental costs.
Everything related to training and promoting the business Costs for indexing the platform, investments in web marketing and online advertising, communication costs, costs for the technical training of staff.
Some details on the TEM (Temporary Export Manager) and e-commerce grants
The funds are particularly interesting for companies wanting to implement internationalization projects and take advantage of digital technologies to sell in China and in countries outside the European Union. All joint-stock companies can participate and the duration of the funding is 4 years.
The extraordinary anti-crisis measures enacted during the COVID-19 emergency have been extended to 31 December 2020, with a window until spring 2021 for some categories of calls with co-funding of 40%, allowing to secure the use of dedicated temporary support professionals (digital strategists with strong knowledge of the Chinese market) and obtain liquidity useful for developing e-commerce.
Do you want to know more and plan your strategy for selling in China?
Contact Digital Retex specialists
