Misha Maruma

About Misha Maruma

A marketer’s guide to Chinese search engines

In July the China Internet Information Network Center (CNNIC) published its bi-annual report into the state of the internet in China (report in Chinese).

The report is a good guide into the browsing behaviour of netizens, the common phrase used to describe Chinese internet users.

The report is based on surveys sampling 30,000 Chinese residents older than six, from all of China’s administrative regions.

In this article, I’m going to examine the implications of the report and use the findings to help guide B2B marketers to understand the search engine market in China.

Five important ecommerce trends in China during 2014

How big is Chinese ecommerce going to be in three to five years? McKinsey & Co. has produced a report suggesting that the market will be between US$420bn and US$650bn by 2020.

At the start of a new year analysts like to predict trends for the year ahead. When 2014 began there was a slew of predictions about the ecommerce landscape in China.

Now that it’s half way through the year I want to share with you some trends that are driving ecommerce in China. I’m going to look at how these trends have developed using some of the insights predicted by Chinese analysts.

Is Baidu pay per click advertising the only way into China?

It has been said that, “great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events and small minds discuss people.” But any discussion about doing business in China cannot help but talk about people.

According to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) by the end of 2013 there were 618m internet users in China. This is around 46% of the population. 500m people use mobile devices to connect to the internet and 302m people are e-shoppers.

But I don’t want to focus on discussing people, although it is quite clear that is a barometer of business in China. I want to discuss some ideas as to how to connect with these people.

What ways can brands from outside China reach these people?