E-market for daigous to sell NZ
Anew app giving daigous a virtual marketplace on WeChat could enable New Zealand exporters to reach Chinese consumers faster.
Daigous are personal shoppers, often Chinese students or immigrants, who sell products to their friends and family back home through social media sites. China expert Matt McDougall created Daigou Sales, to allow businesses to use the daigou channel while retaining control over how their products would be sold, where and to whom. McDougall said the daigou ’’middle man’’ was the ideal point of entry into China for small businesses, as the daigou channel used the personal shoppers’ established links.
‘‘Daigou word of mouth is massively important for a brand that is looking to build interest and awareness in the Chinese market,’’ McDougall said.
The process is simple. Once an order is placed in China from the daigou’s virtual shopfront, the business gets notified and then sends the product to the daigou for shipment. The concept is similar to Alibaba’s T-Mall, a Chinese e-commerce website that charges international brands around US$100,000 per year to sell through its platform. But Daigou Sales aims to be a cheaper alternative, as it uses the social media channel WeChat, and charges brands about $300 per month to display their products. McDougall said utilising WeChat was the way forward for New Zealand businesses if they wanted to keep up China’s highly advanced e-commerce market.
The daigou channel has been particularly favourable for New Zealand cosmetics and healthcare businesses as it circumvents animal testing regulations in China. McDougall said the future of the daigou channel would be exporting fresh food as a personal item.