Websites

It's survival of the fittest for online companies in China


Tags:

Plus Eight Star have a great post on their blog discussing the reasons why Chinese companies succeed online in China while Wester companies tend to struggle. At the core of their argument is the "Five C's of Chinese innovation": Copy, Competition, Constraints, Combination, and China.

In our previous post "Why Chinese copy cat websites win", we discuss some similar ideas. Again the key argument in Plus Eight Star's post is that the Chinese market really is different, particularly when you consider factors like infrastructure, size of the market and the prices you can charge for premium services. One interesting example they give is that while Western online travel sites tend to automate the entire ticket purchasing process and deliver e-tickets, Chinese sites Ctrip and eLong finalise most of their purchases over the phone and in person through physical ticket delivery because it's more reliable than the systems that currently exist.



The rocky road to Internet riches in China?


Tags:

Reuters has an interesting blog post talking about some of the challenges being faced by people those trying to create successful websites in China. The key issue mentioned is that China's web is becoming cluttered with lots of similar sites trying to find their niche, while the key categories of search, retail and auctions are already dominated by major players.

It's suggested that one of the key opportunities for success online in China lie in mobile Internet and related services. With a huge proportion of China's Internet population accessing the Internet on their mobile phones and 3G phones becoming increasingly available, lots of companies are scrambling for a piece of the potentially lucrative mobile pie.



Why Chinese copy cat websites win


Tags:

We talked last year about some of the website clones that exist in China, but what actually makes them successful when you compare them with their original western counterparts that often launch Chinese versions themselves?

TechCrunch has an interesting post that aims to answer this question. The post's author, Sarah Lacy, has a theory that the primary reason for success is that Chinese entrepreneurs that copy Western websites for Chinese audiences rethink the business models as well as some of the processes involved with interacting with the sites. The particular example she talks about is Chinese dating website Zhenai and it's quite interesting to think about increased amounts of human involvement for premium members. What other types of online sites could this work for? Travel? Shopping?



Syndicate content