IM in China?

Have any of you wondered if it is possible to profit in China?

Of course, if we are going on that path we will need to learn to speak mandarin or chinese.
But do you even think there's a possibility?
I mean, they won't fall for our marketing gimmicks, won't they?

I asked this to one of my friend and he made a hysterical stereotypical reply, "Well, MOST of them are such experienced scammers that eWhoring and such won't work at all. Common' they could even counterfeit products, make fake eggs, tainted milk powder, and many more. Don't talk about promoting digital ebooks too since they know where to download them easily."

Also, their censorship is crazy too, I very which doubt we can win easily. I mean, Baidu.com (their identical search engine of Google) is flooded with spammy sites even.

I realize IM in Asia is nearly impossible. They are very skeptical over everything. So far all my CB sales are mainly from Europe or America. I do have several sales from Asia but they all ended up with a 60-75% refund rate.

What's your say?


P.S: This thread is never meant to discriminate or be racist in anyway. I am talking about GEOGRAPHICAL issues.

Forget CB. Although most my money is from CB, I have to say that there is a risk CB could die a death one day.

I prefer "real" web sites for the future.

You are right to think about China. Why? Second top language of internet pages in the world is Chinese. In 10 years, most web pages in the world will be in Chinese language.

Learn Mandarin now. You won't regret it. Don't go for the hard sell/direct marketing. Go for the white hat/informational model. Adsense etc.

Now don't laugh here...

To be honest, I'm Chinese but I don't know how to speak or write mandarin.
Yikes.. shouldn't have flunk it when I was young.

American that has lived in China for the past few years here. Most of my business experience is from managing a night club in Guangdong province.

There are absolutely IM opportunities in China, however like differences in culture you need to analyze the differences in markets. First thing to take into consideration is the disposable income of a Chinese family. You are dealing with a market that has an average income of 800-1000 RMB a month ($122-$153 USD/Month) for a single person outside of the major cities. This level of income leads to the average person always looking for the best deals (This is why haggling in China is still very prominent) even when it comes to online purchases. For example: If you walk into a privately owned shop where a pair of Adidas shoes are offered for 400 RMB, you would hope to eventually haggle your price down to 50 RMB before sale.

Next, you need to know what the local consumers want. In America and Europe, weight-loss products are huge; in China they are not. Instead you would want to tap a market like "Face Whitening Creams". Almost all women (and some men) use these creams to give themselves a more 'westernized' complexion. Sporting equipment is another market to analyze (Specifically Ping-Pong, Billiards, and Basketball). These are just two examples of markets that are not as large in the western culture as they are in China, there are many many more.

Ideally, you would need to target a offline/online hybrid method to be successful in my opinion. While websites such as taobao are taking off, the majority of consumer purchasing is still done locally. You are looking at a new generation that is just getting its feet wet with the internet.

However, if you truly want to step into the Chinese arena you need to be able to adapt ideas that fit 'eastern' culture. Learning spoken Mandarin is easy (6 Months and I could hold conversations, 2 Years and you can reach near fluency with extensive study) it's the reading/writing part you need to know if you really want to get into the game (Not Easy). Unless you want to hire English speaking locals to help.

The benefits I see from actually living in China are much larger. You can hire personal assistants with good spoken English for $150 USD a month. They will work for you 8 Hours a day 6 days a week. You're also more free to pull off some serious Black Hat tactics out west when you're so far away from most copyright law and litigation.

Suggestion #1: YouKu; just like people here are making money from YouTube.

Suggestion #2: Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau are some serious places of interest. With a much larger disposable income.

Hopefully, this will give you some ideas if you decide to venture into Chinese marketing. There is so much information out there for you to learn and absorb first, because China is an entirely different ball game.

Good Luck,
GoldenGlovez

BlackSeng said:

Now don't laugh here...

To be honest, I'm Chinese but I don't know how to speak or write mandarin.
Yikes.. shouldn't have flunk it when I was young.

Click to expand...

It's never too late man. I suggest go to this forum:

how-to-learn-any-language.com

Do you speak Cantonese?

Anyway, never too late. I am learning Mandarin myself. China is the future. You know that Chinese word for China is "Chung Gwoh" which means "Middle Kingdom". It's true, it will soon be centre of the world again, not USA.

Yeah, I have thought about it. And India too, the middle class is growing in those two nations and its a "known" fact that most of the people in the middle class want/act like westerns. So its just a matter of studying what they want and offering it to them in a way that they feel comfortable with.

There is HUGE opportunity in those two countries IMHO.

Think out side the box.

I was doing research 1-2 months back and found a HUGE keyword that I think I can rank with time (1 year or just under) that could bring in a few million visitors per month.... then place some ads on there + build list. Nice little earner 4 life.... or in 5 + years when the market is more stable in those markets sell it and buy an island.

GoldenGlovez, great info. I hope to market to China over the next few years, it's on my list.

I'm curious to know how you got the right to live there? Are you on a business investment visa or something? Did you get in teaching English maybe?

I'm a strong believer that the power is shifting from West to East over the coming years and there is nothing that USA or Europe can do but try to delay it. It's inevitable.

I say more power to the Asians. They have strong culture, good work ethics and believe in looking after family. I hope that many of the problems (especially the social ones) of Western affluence do not end up blighting the East too.

Another topic about China, and very good points from Goldenglovez. I'm native Chinese so I can answer any question from you guys before your movement.

i bet the daily deals[group buying] web sites can do great in India and China. snapdeal is one such web site in India that appears to be bracing itself for huge profits in the near future.

florflor said:

I'm curious to know how you got the right to live there? Are you on a business investment visa or something? Did you get in teaching English maybe?

Click to expand...

I originally went to China through an English teaching position. Afterwords, I worked mainly on a tourist visa. China is fairly easy when it comes to visas for Americans. You can apply for a new tourist visa (6 months typically) as many times as you want. They may get suspicious after awhile, but if you can show that your money comes from outside the country they will approve. Currently, I'm back home visiting family as I work out registering a dummy business in China. Having a registered business helps you obtain a resident visa which is a one year renewable visa.

On the flip side, I just went through the process of obtaining a visa for my Russian fiancee to visit me here in America. The amount of obstacles and hoops you need to jump through is just asinine. Nearly $1000 USD and two months later she was approved. We had to have all kinds of business documentation, support forms, bank statements, health checkups and more all translated, certified and notarized for the interview. Get to the interview and they didn't ask for a single piece of paper... Immigration Reform Please!

BlackSeng said:

Now don't laugh here...

To be honest, I'm Chinese but I don't know how to speak or write mandarin.
Yikes.. shouldn't have flunk it when I was young.

Click to expand...

I can teach you chinese mandarin. The difficulty of learning chinese consists in reading and writing. Speaking is comparatively easy.