So the main reason I am booking my trip to Manila, Philippines in Feb is for the Digital Filipino Clubs E-commerce summit that I heard about from my mentor @SEOmom, Gillian Muessig from seomoz.org that I first met in a Xiamen, China SEO conference back in 2009. I’m really excited to see her on this side of the world, and can’t wait to meet up with her.

The conference is on Friday, Feb 24th, below is the agenda – full post here – http://www.digitalfilipinoclub.com/digitalfilipino-e-commerce-summit-february-24-2012-at-the-peninsula-manila-hotel-makati-city.html

E-Commerce, Search, Local, Mobile, Social Models and Trends for 2012
Gillian Muessig, Founding President of SEOMoz

State of E-Commerce in the Philippines
Jack Madrid, Founding President of E-Commerce Merchants Trade Association of the Philippines and General Manager of Multiply Philippines

State of Digital Marketing in the Philippines (Making Customers Buy)
Donald Lim, Managing Director, MRM Worldwide

PANEL: Using Local Payment Platforms and Financing Methods in 2012
Erick Kaludan, CEO of ShopInstallment

PANEL: Where are the Customers? (how come we have low sales despite creating a useful website and social media presence?)
RJ David, Managing Director of Sulit.com.ph

Extending your Presence to the Mobile Device (Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Phone)
Chito Bustamante, CEO of Chikka.com

Presentation of Winners: DigitalFilipino – Search Profile Index Web Awards 2011
Each winner is expected to give a 5-minutes presentation to share their e-commerce journey.

Also, I have been chatting to the Digital Filipino club team, and I may be presenting on how to attract investors for your business. Not exactly my forte, but I am working on a presentation now for it.

I’m discussing with Leon and Malou about picking me up in the airport, and because I feel I email it over and over, here is is on the blog post, Wednesday the 22nd afternoon to Saturday the 25th afternoon.

So for those who think I’m completely insane, again I am posting my flight info on the blog:

Flight Status: CONFIRMED
Departure Flight Details
HongKong (HKG) Hong Kong International Airport Terminal 1; to Manila (MNL) NAIA Terminal 3
Departure: 22 February 2012, Wednesday, 1040 H
Arrival: 22 February 2012, Wednesday, 1240 H
Flight No.: Flight 5J – 111

Return Flight Details
Manila (MNL) to HongKong (HKG)
Departure: 25 February 2012, Saturday, 1640 H
Arrival: 25 February 2012, Saturday, 1840 H
Flight No.: Flight 5J – 118

So here goes my best outline of this 3 day scramble, Leon I have mentioned is down in Manila now, moving there from Hong Kong to do IT development, and we are discussing cooperating on a few web and ecommerce projects. He has been meeting my team there and hopefully can patch the “fragmented” team together since I’ve been away in China.

Wednesday, Feb 22nd
Wednesday afternoon, Feb 22 – arrive to Manila, meet Leon / Malou in the airport.

Wed evening – plan to meet some of the work at home oDesk entrepreneurs Leon has been networking with. Also some other twitter buddies I have been in touch with.

Thursday, Feb 23rd
morning – thinking to spend the day in Quezon City, probably technohub. Want to meet Joel my quickbooks expert, and see the other staff I work with remotely.

afternoon – more technohub, Philcoa meetings. Maybe sell some street food again!

evening – May meet Gillian, @SEOmom hopefully. Have to confirm with her. And others in some pre-event for the Digital Filipino conference.

Friday, Feb 24th
all day – digital filipino conference

night – hopefully dinner / drinks with Gillian. Then party with Leon and his new network since he has been down there a month or so now.

Saturday, Feb 25th
morning – jam in any last minute meetings, re-schedules

afternoon – probably head to the airport after lunch, have 4:30pm departure.

Hopefully those who also want to try to catch up with me can comment here, or social media….look forward to a trip to the Philippines, hasn’t been since tropicalMBA meetup + Boracay vacation in June 2011

In 2011, I was doing SEO and ecommerce consulting with Five Islands ecommerce center going between Dongguan, Hong Kong, and Shenzhen like a madman. Was doing Shenzhen ecommerce meetups as well, that then lead into developing Shenzhen coworking SZteam…that maybe I went a bit too fast with and had to make a tough decision about SZteam + me …. Luckily I blog (I consider…document) all of this along the way to save my time repeating to others, and those who want to read deeper can read those back articles.

Blogging also helps me learn about myself, get ideas from others, and save myself from repeating my story over and over (those who talk to me see I am constantly referring to blog articles to get the “full story”)….I’ll constantly tell people – I blogged about this, and if you want to know the full story check ____ month archive….

I have no regrets, and who knows which of my previous “adventures” got further ahead, and which projects set me back. I think we all need to appreciate every day we are here on this earth and try our best.

About HiWTO Chinese Foreign Trade Federation

I have blogged about this group a few times this past year – HiWTO means “hello World Trade Organization”, and when they asked me to market it to the west…I knew we had to change the name, for the Chinese language website, it will remain hiwto.com, but in English, we will call it HeroMeetsHero.com.

We’re working on the english translation of the group, Foreign Trade Federation Annual Meeting we had the overview roughly translated as below:

About Hero Meets Hero

Foreign Trade Federation is an association registered in Hong Kong and Mainland China，English Abbreviation：FTF
FTF was called Roundtable Meeting for leaders of foreign trade E-commerce, which has become the largest and most famous industry organization in foreign trade E-commerce industry.

The key tenet of FTF is to integrate industry chain of foreign trade E-commerce, including manufacturers, traders, foreign trade E-commerce platforms, service providers, VCs, governmental organizations, etc., which provides a platform of communication, cooperation, development and multi-win for the industry.

Since Oct. 2010, in every two month, FTF holds one meeting, inviting about 30 senior leaders from foreign trade B2C industry. Until now it has successfully held five sessions. For further communication, on the weekend of every two weeks, FTF also holds small meeting– “Business Life” for many times in different cities.

FTF QQ group has now attracted nearly 300 senior managers of foreign trade E-commerce enterprise in the world, and they are having active discussion in the group everyday.

I have been attending their last few meetings:

• HiWTO’s 6th meeting, (Yearly meeting where I spoke about English social media – over 300 people attended, all high level executives doing English B2C ecommerce export from China to the world.
• HiWTO’s 5th meeting, in Chengdu, China that was sponsored by Milanoo. It was not just business, we got chances to travel, I got to see PANDAS for the first time.
• HiWTO’s 4th meeting, Google China was the main sponsor, here in Shenzhen ecommerce back in May, 2011

I am really excited, I think this is a good fit for my skills, event planning, blogging, building buzz, ecommerce, networking.

They also want to interview their members, and I will do the English versions of their interviews. We already visited one, Interviewing Ebay China #1 Seller in 2009, Lu Haichuan …. and they can help me get the podcast going

This will be exciting, I am sure Dan and others who like this blog will really enjoy the new China adventures and business insight.

I want to do something different…. and introducing chinese ecommerce businesses to the “foreign” world is an interesting task.

Cheers to a good 2012!

Incoming search terms:

• thailand 2012 logo
• 2012 marketing
• china touch logo
• Chinese cities logo
• sell on line michelini

Yesterday (Tuesday) in Shenzhen we took about an hour drive up to the outskirts of the city (Bao An) to a new place I had never heard of “South China City” which is a massive marketplace for textiles and fashion and packaging. We met with an ecommerce company, Oasis International Gmhb that is selling B2C directly from the HQB Hua Qiang Bei electronics market) and surrounding factories to mainly the German and European market.

The interview was mainly in Chinese, but I was able to ask some questions in English and with their limited spoken English it was answered.

There are 3 Chinese owners, the main owner we talked to was Lu Haichuan, that is the top ebay China seller both in 2007 and 2009, in sales volume.

The owners spent between 7 to 9 years in Germany before returning to China in 2007 to do this ecommerce business. They have an overseas warehouse in Germany, as well as a warehouse in China. Have German staff in office in Bao An. He had 2 million us dollars after his first year.

One amazing thing was his limited spoken english. I may hold it for another blog topic, but again and again I wonder how much language plays a part in ecommerce business. Seems its much more about process flow and management than language and sales.

After a tour of the 3 floor office, that was very sweet – Euro- designed. Was upset I didn’t have a video…that has to get on this blog soon.

Distribution model: Do you offer dropship services? Affiliate ? – Currently do not offer drop shipping or affiliate. But instead use multiple domains with website shopping carts. Used to sell on eBay. Now focus is on his own webstores.

What are your Main products all types of products, but electronics and fashion mostly.

Why Bao An district, Shenzhen, China location? – the owners were originally working B2B with factories in the area, and learned the B2C from China direct opportunities

How many staff Over 300. 40 in hua qiang bei. 260 in Bao An district.

Do you have your own brand not yet. currently selling no-brand or other brands.

What are your future goals increase sales. Both by adding products as well as purely increasing sales. no plans to add distribution. Just purely focus on increasing sales and products with current flow.

Definitely an interesting time to talk to businesses, and learn from them and see what makes them successful.

We plan to see 1 new company every week. So stay tuned…I promise I’ll improve.

Incoming search terms:

• ebay china
• Oasis International GmbH lu haichuan

Aleshia hiwto 15:10:56
well, I should let you know who are going to attend this session. Qucheng, the CEO of Netconcepts, runs a SEO outsourcing company, and he is going to give us a PPT presentation from 16:10 – 16:20, 2, Hu quanbin is the CEO of Siqi technology company, providing Email Marketing Software, he is also going to share us a case study of Email marketing and social media marketing. No.3: David Fu, the SNS manager of Sihaishangzhou which is a famous markting outsourcing company, and then you and me.

michelini 迈理倪 15:14:40
yes I know Allen Qu well from netconcepts

Aleshia hiwto 15:11:49
Ok,that’s great. I really hope you can read these Chinese, can you? is there an English version of the schedule?

michelini 迈理倪 15:17:39
no english version, i am told i have translator

Aleshia hiwto 15:15:01
Did they tell you who the translator is?

michelini 迈理倪 15:19:24
no…but I know hiwto well

Aleshia hiwto 15:16:43
well, I think that might be me..

Aleshia hiwto 15:17:11
might be me in the session, like I said, we will speak english in that session

Aleshia hiwto 15:17:20
for you , of course

michelini 迈理倪 15:20:43
last time u contact me, was confused
michelini 迈理倪 15:20:47
now it is more clear
Aleshia hiwto 15:17:54
yes, I knew, my bad, I thought you already knew it.
Aleshia hiwto 15:20:39
Enlight me, what kinds of questions are you expecting on our topic?
michelini 迈理倪 15:23:58
cheap SEO
michelini 迈理倪 15:24:03
DIY SEO

So this Sunday I’ll be on a panel about English SEO and ecommerce, getting questions from the 300 or so attendees. A bit nervous, but this is how to best get exposure and build trust in China.

What is this ecommerce group? Below is some information that we had recently translated to English. Soon we’ll make an english website:

Topic：Destruction and Establishment, Communication and Sharing, Developing Together！

Theme Explanation：Facing a mess and fierce competition, the foreign trade B2C industry involvers have to communicate with each other, unite together to break the bottle neck of development, so that they can grasp market opportunities and win in the international market.

Time：Nov.19-20, 2011 (Saturday and Sunday)
Location：Shenzhen Home Fond Hotel in Nanshan
Organizer：Foreign Trade Federation
Mode : Speech + Discussion
Audience：leaders of foreign trade B2C enterprise, leader of traditional foreign trade enterprise, senior manager of manufacturing enterprise, VC, etc.
Number of Attendee：300

About this Foreign Trade Organization

Foreign Trade Federation is an association registered in Hong Kong and Mainland China，English Abbreviation：FTF

FTF was called Roundtable Meeting for leaders of foreign trade E-commerce, which has become the largest and most famous industry organization in foreign trade E-commerce industry.

The key tenet of FTF is to integrate industry chain of foreign trade E-commerce, including manufacturers, traders, foreign trade E-commerce platforms, service providers, VCs, governmental organizations, etc., which provides a platform of communication, cooperation, development and multi-win for the industry.

Since Oct., 2010, in every two month, FTF holds one meeting, inviting about 30 senior leaders from foreign trade B2C industry. Until now it has successfully held five sessions. For further communication, on the weekend of every two weeks, FTF also holds small meeting– “Business Life” for many times in different cities.

FTF QQ group has now attracted nearly 300 senior managers of foreign trade E-commerce enterprise in the world, and they are having active discussion in the group everyday.

Previous meetings

The First Session
Green World, Shekou, Shenzhen, Oct.16, 2010，21 attendees.
Sponsor: Shenzhen Sea Power Technology Co. Ltd

The Second Session
Dapeng Xiyong Bay Fountain Resort, Shenzhen, Jan.15-16, 2011, 26 attendees. Sponsor: Shenzhen 4PX Express Co. Ltd

The Third Session
Golden Bay Resort, Shenzhen, Mar.26, 2011，30 attendees.
Sponsor: Shenzhen Jinning E-Commerce Co. Ltd

The Fourth Session
The Interlaken OCT Hotel Shenzhen, May 7, 2011，40 attendees.
Sponsor: Google

The Fifth Session
Chendu Zhai Xiangzi Gongguan Cai, July 30-31, 2011，30 attendees.
Sponsor: Milanoo

Background of these ecommerce meetings

In recent years, along with popular internet and hot E-commerce, foreign trade E-commerce develops surprisingly fast in China. More and more enterprises start to set foot in this line and the related industry chain becomes more and more mature. Now people in the world can easily purchase very cheap products from China through network, including: wedding dresses, arts & crafts, electrical products and digital products……

This special industry in China is silent but profitable.

FTF has been watched the development process of this emerging industry, focusing on establishing a platform for foreign trade B2C involvers to communicate with each other and to develop commonly. On the basis of the successful previous five sessions, we put all our efforts in this annual meeting, will invite about 300 senior staff in this line to attend. Our aim is to disclose the mysterious veil of this industry, helping more developing enterprises to break the bottle neck and to grasp market opportunities. Let’s be winners in the international market and let “Made In China” sell all over the world.

So excited to really get a good backing behind me on the Chinese ecommerce federation side. Will definitely start to bridge USA and China internet and ecommerce! Next year more USA business trips planned!

Connecting people, cultural expansion. Networking. This fits my plan perfectly.

This month’s meetup was themed around law, specifically Chinese IP protection for small businesses and ecommerce. We had the following 2 speakers who are experts in law, China, manufacturing, patents, copyright – all that fun stuff!

Matthew Kowalak, Partner of Southern Perspective Shenzhen (http://www.southernperspectivesz.com), a consulting firm that combines the manufacturing process with the complex Chinese legal system.

Yubo Zhou, President of Unino IP Consulting (uninno.com), an expert in IP industry. Yubo has been studied and lived in the U.S for years before coming back to China

As usual, we went around the room stating name, what industry you are in, and where your hometown is. And this time, due to popular demand, I made a list of attendees:

Mike Michelini – event organizer
Matt Kowalak – first speaker today
Marilyn – selling apple accessory products
Daven – SOHO selling italian fashion to italy
Vinnie – working at DHgate
Kathy – lawyer in Shenzhen 25 years
Katherine – working at skyworth, doing supply chain IT, volunteer for these ecommerce meetups
Patrick – 1 week back to sZ, from san fransisco looking for startup opportunity
a student from HK (didn’t get his name…)
Bruce – investor, looking at investing in European ecommerce business
Kingdee rep
Ella – in car electronics (tvs, audio), volunteer for these ecommerce meetups
Bones – from Guangxi has online stores selling electronics and fashion clothing.
Ben – first time at meeting, sell LED, and scarf, mostly to indonesia, middle east
Andy- works in japenese, expand friends, listen to speakers
Luigi – 1 year in SZ, italian, social biz betwee china/japan/italy
Kawai – GPS, product manager for 2.0 websites, mobile apps
Kathy – Hunan province, sz 2004, lawyer, before foxconn
Minji – Shanghainese, living/working in HK, new idea for travel industry. Looking for technical partner
Elvin – Anhui province, 2005 to SZ, works for Shenzhen Airline, sister is Minji.
Jeff – toy designer from Canada
Rafael – brazilian entrepreneur
Natasha – working on an ecommerce book.
Stella – selling health goods online.
Kris – does fashion design, spent time in Milan, Italy

Intellectual property on the internet, what law has to do with this.

Matt K.

Business and commerce is moving faster than the law.
copyright – does it specifically say its trademarked in the internet?

ISP lawsuit

Linking Liability

deep linking

Fair use – ticketmaster vs. tickets.com

meta tags – using copyright in hidden code

What matt does:
ADR – alternative dispute resolution – helping people settle cases out of court.

mediation
arbitration – to avoid court.

questions:
limewire
poem
link to fake products, taken down
chinabodyshop.com
google adwords

Yubo Zhou

Planning your IP portfolio

Uninno IP Consulting Co. Ltd.
help company manage IP to gain business advantages
electrical engineer in National Seminconductor
patent lawyer in Foxconn

What is IP – term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for

which exclusive rights are recognized. patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade/commerce secrets

Claims of a patent:
published document by the government

fighting “bad” patents
whats a bad patent? They dont think the patent should be there in the first place, under which conditions should the patent be there in the first place?

in USA its first time of invention
in China its first to file

example – semiconductor patent in EU vs semiconductor patent in Japan.

Lawsuits back and forth.

Get your IP protected wisely!

1) landscaping, whats out there
2) mining – whats valuable?
3) extraction – what to disclose and what to claim?
4) filing and prosecution
5) maintenance and refinement – how to keep it alive and even better

don’t let your IP sleep….

IP transactions, things to consider when buying:

1) evaluation – can it be invalidated?
2) legal perspective – is it signed off by the correct person?
3) technology perspective – is it long term technology?
4) business perspective – from management point of view, is it going to give you an advantage
5) strategy perspective

My favorite part of his presentation was the end remarks, which I best outlined as:

getting a patent is like getting a gun…but entering China, you are in a room of guns, some are in the light, some are in dark corners. Getting a patent is good, but its simply 1 gun versus many, rather than no gun at all!

It was an exciting event, maybe a little “Deep” in context for some of the attendees…we had to switch the event from last Saturday (due to national holiday yesterday, last Saturday was a working day for offices), and I am annoyed updating the date on all the event sites and word of mouth – plus this was a 3 day weekend and a few regular members are on holiday.

But we are definitely getting a good core group of regulars, which is the most exciting part of all.

Incoming search terms:

• philippine bartenders organization

started with tea, networking, name card trading

face mask dance, opera.

===============
intro:

Paul intro:
made in china , brand known around the world.
north china expansion
more foreigners to understand this group.

purpose of hiwto – small meetings, get together to share opinions, ideas.

—–
next speaker:

Milanoo boss speaking, CEO

our dream to sell made in china brand around the world.
share the same dream here together today.

to be the hero in China history.
share his opinions, first the b2c trains

philisophy of Milanoo company
– trying to build a modern, online “silk road”, Like the silk road in

Chinese history.
– Jack Ma said its the most difficult business in the world.
– we have different language in website, french, german, italian, etc
Cost of company is growing. Some companies in HR cost is growing. Some consider to move manufacturing outside of China,

SO WE MUST CONSIDER THE CHINESE BRAND. This is how we can save and keep up with the economic changes.

For example Taobao B2C brand, aka “Tao Brands” that grow up from Tao Bao, do not have the high costs as they are built online.

Example – Vanco chinese brand, very famous in China.

We will meet the bottlneck during development (translated “neck of the bottle”)….. Ping Ji

Next the host interviewed the CEO of Milanoo, company history, 2008 founded. choose fashion clothing, the name Milanoo represents italian fashion (from the city name Milan).

Question and Answer:

Campaign to bring customers to Chengdu to see China and the Pandas. budget is $5,000usd each winner for their trip.

Then we went to open discussion, giving ideas of new products and services to use in the ecommerce sector.

Discussing the return processing in USA problem. How to handle the RMA cases. Let the customer keep it and refund it, not ask the customer to return the item, because they are so big.

Fraud prevention is also an issue, both in delivery, as well as customers lying about not receiving the product, or bad quality when actually it is good quality.

Quality is key.

Made in China is improving steadily as Chinese manufacturers have learned QC practices during OEM brand.

Another interesting thing is the “round table” was all men. There were women who attended the event, but sat outside of the main circle. Maybe because its IT and tech, but also maybe because this is still how a lot of China business still is, man-oriented.

I got invited to attend this “invite-only” 50 seat meetup from my attendance at the last club ecomerce meetup in May.

This event will be in the city of Chengdu, at the Milanoo ecommerce company location. The idea of this Chinese ecommerce group, hiwto.cn is to visit different cities and see the business and ecommerce environment.

And of course like any event around the world, but especially in China, building relationships, trust, and “facetime” with industry colleagues is extremely valuable.

The main event will be tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon, but we will have a lot of team building events, and the flight is planned for Sunday afternoon. The group has synchronized the flights, so I am flying there and back with a group of Shenzhen ecommerce enthusiasts.

Will post more after the event, this is a rather short post from the airport, to announce my trip there and that I will still be traveling a decent amount of time. Connecting….

We had 3 speakers:

1. Larry Salibra, CEO Appartisan Mobile Apps, Guangzhou – speaking on apple mobile app development market
2. 郑伟彤 (Peter Zheng), Product Director in Kingdee, speaking on Business Model of Kuaidi100.com
3. Ryan McNamara , Marketing Director, I-Contain Wireless Technology Solutions, speaking on how GPS tracking affects online businesses.

Like I always say, I need feedback and hear what people want in order to have a successful anything, and we had a rocky road with the internet meetups, trying different formats, rooms, lengths, and schedules. But seems the best situation is to have a round table introduction of everyone in the room, speaker, 10 minute break, 2nd speaker, break, and then the 3rd speaker, to a case study, and then open floor networking and business card exchange.

Some people have even said they would prefer just networking, no need for the speakers…but I think it “puts meat on the bones” and gives some topic and education to the event. Even when there is just pure open networking at the end, most people filter out after 30 to 45 minutes.

And we don’t have drinks or food at the event…again, this is a free event, and the only sponsor right now really is Kingdee for giving us the venue, and the volunteers helping organize and speakers for spending their time to make the presentation and deliver it.

Overall, I am really happy passing our fifth meeting, and hopefully will plan out the next 6 or 7 meetings upfront with dates and get a long term agreement with Kingdee for the room.

Already outlining August (I know, there is July still to determine) where we have a speaker who wants to discuss intellectual property in China and trademark protection for ecommerce businesses…looking for a second speaker to complement it, already have some leads to fill it in.

Other topics coming up are payment processors, social learning / collaboration, and maybe advanced ecommerce listing tools.

I really enjoy planning these events, but seems a long term project with long term value, if kept up and consistent.

Incoming search terms:

• e commerce logo

Turns out it was a Saturday afternoon, (really, up until yesterday afternoon I didn’t get a confirmation of time and place) way out on the other side of Shenzhen in Da Mei Sha (a beach area) in the OCT East resort hotel, called Interlaken (A really awesome hotel based on German / European style and feel).

It was organized by Google China, and invited 30 companies in Shenzhen, mostly on export B2C from China to the worldwide market. Google says this is the first of 7 or 8 meetups it will be hosting in Shenzhen in the upcoming months. Focusing on export driven companies that sell B2C (business to customer/consumer) via online.

There were 2 presentations,

1. Introduction to the enhanced Google adwords platform –
2. Tips and Skills for Your Online Marketing –

After the 2 speeches, they had an open forum / roundtable for the 30 to 40 people who were in attendance. With my very limited Chinese skills, I could gather most were B2C online companies, mixed with some advertising platforms and logistics companies. There was also a VC (Venture capitalist) who promoted her interest to finding new technologies and investment opportunities.

The round table was a bit long, the speaker wanted everyone to get a chance to put their idea in. But it was a very nice environment, the hotel was 5 star (heck, maybe even 6!). Free gift (a laptop bag with google adwords logo), coffee / tea break. And they hosted a great dinner on the sea afterwards, seafood (oysters, shrimp, crab, etc).

As for foreign companies – Paypal was there (they are also eBay, but they seem to focus on the Paypal brand more), Google, DHL.

And I keep getting amazed that Google would host such an event, in USA they never budget these kinds of seminars. It just goes to show you how much different the China market is from USA….Google has to go out and push people, build face to face relationships with its clients….not like USA where we can’t even reach Google or Paypal, etc on the phone. In China, these massive foreign internet / tech companies have live customer support by phone, client meetings, and sales offices throughout the major cities.

And, like usual, I was the only white guy, or any foreigner for that matter. Well, in fairness there were some overseas Chinese who had returned to China for business, and could communicate to me in English. It was all in Chinese….

Damnnit, I have to master the Chinese language, I do feel its improving, but do I take formal classes. I’m traveling too much? Its getting embarrassing now….

冰清心2011-06-20 11:11:07
Just now I read your article about the meeting in Interlaken Hotel on May 7. The meeting was held by us–Foreign Trade Federation, not google. Google is the sponsor. All B2C members were invited by us, and we will hold another meeting in July, in Chengdu or Chongqing, the Southwest of China. Welcome to join us again!
冰清心2011-06-20 11:11:16
We will have publication of Foreign Trade Federation, now providing half or one full page of free Ad for all previsous meeting attendees. Please privde us your recent photo, your comments on our meeting and B2C industry and introduction about your company.Thank!

Incoming search terms:

• Hyper-networking
• china e- commerce
• dhl e-commerce paypal china
• e-commerce and seminar and export and China
• foreign trade federation china e-commerce
• google seminar shenzhen paypal dhl
• oct east shenzhen speaker
• themes e-comerce sale tea

In Hong Kong I have been having tons of meetings with foreigners rushing into the Chinese consumer market. With the fiveislands team in Dongguan and Hong Kong, we can offer the expertise and tools to compete.

98products I learned the hard way, Chinese shopping carts, payment gateways, baidu SEM campaigns and mistakes….jeez I learned the hardest way possible I think, but I learn by being on the ground. I will be adding the Chinese bar products to the cashncarry line of products, along with the photograph camera accessories, photo albums, video game supplies. Talking to a Shenzhen product designer, Karta, about selling his bike accessories in China too, as well as a whole line of products from friends and contacts in USA, Iceland, and other countries.

This is what I had been trying to do for years loadpipe dream and finally I have the support and tools to EXECUTE the plan. But it was also just taking time to learn the local Chinese market, build up a network and knowledge base here over the past few years….and also I see the Chinese ecommerce market more developed and accepting of online payment and shipping…so a few years ago the market maybe wasn’t as ready as it is now. I remember customers having to come to the office to buy, even if it was less than 50rmb (7 usd) value of an order.

Anyway, hoping to build up a portfolio of foreign products and assist them in online distribution in the China market. After years of research and networking, combined with my new deal with Five Islands, I think it’s a pretty sweet set of offerings we can offer people.

Will also keep building up community, networking events, coworking space, and generally an environment of supportive and knowledgeable ecommerce experts in Hong Kong and South China!

Bridging China and USA/foreign internet business….definitely not an easy feat….reading about Baidu trying to buy an English search engine, and google leaving china last year..bridging China to the foreign internet, is uncharted waters. Sure there is DHgate and Lightinthebox , alibaba’s aliexpress, but not really out there to help the gweilo in China.

If it was easy everyone would be doing it. If you or someone you know is interested, contact us at fiveislands.cn, I’ll soon be adding a banner ad on this blog too….creating win-win synergies and exploring the Chinese ecommerce business opportunities together. Also bridging Chinese companies who want to do more ecommerce in USA, have alliances, partners, and friends in America who can help there as well. CONNECTING is what I love to do, and bridging cultures….taming the chaos (that make you fee better Leon!?).

Incoming search terms:

• banner cash & carry shop

On the way back to Hong Kong in the evening, we picked up my new friend, Karta, from a go to b brand of urban bicycle gear – really cool stuff! He is going to work with us in Dongguan on the ecommerce warehousing and logistics, also we are talking about website shopping cart building and promotion – really cool stuff. So we picked him up in Huanggong border of Shenzhen and drove downtown Central, Hong Kong.

Maybe I hadn’t listened to him clearly (yes, those who know me know sometimes I zone out), but was going to a Fashion party to be interviewed by a magazine about his brand of trendy bike clothing and gear. We tried to grab dinner before, but due to time constraints, went right into the party…..which I was not at all prepared for (coming from a factory in China, I was not exactly dressed to shine in a fashion cocktail party…) But Karta, utilizing his charismatic ways, said I was fine like I was. Seemed pretty VIP, but he got me in, and there were fashion designers, models, and high class businessmen everywhere…..I was definitely the worst dressed by far!

But Karta is really doing some cool things, he was just recently featured in springwise for his London double decker bike library which is very creative and unique. He makes clothing specific for bikers in urban areas. Makes me think back to Kozmo online deilvery companyhaving the NYC bikers deliver the videos. Really cool vests and jackets he designs, with so many pockets and using eco-friendly materials.

It was the first time for a major fashion event in Hong Kong, showing us how Hong Kong is moving away from being purely a financial center….but a fashion (and startup) environment too. The event is called “Semi Permanent” and was hosted at Lane Crawford store, and the store itself became the showroom, to act as a creative hub for new fashion and designs.

I had my friend Nagib swing by to meet him, who just got Hong Kong government funding for his startup taxi sharing service, taxizu and is running around at a mile a minute – guy has great energy! He was like “dude, how did you get in here?” Haha, yes, I do feel a bit inferior….

This is why I love the INTERNET. I don’t have to seem so posh, act arrogant like I am “somebody”…..the room was filled with some very interesting characters, but you definitely could feel some rather cold people who were so nervous about their image, who they were with, blah blah.

It made me flash back to the scene from Great expectations where Finn is exposed for his father not really being dead, and embarrassed his father pays a surprize visit to Finn’s art gallery opening party.

But it is a great feeling, to be surrounded with so many “great” people, feeling important, really have to fight hard to not lose sight of your core internal values, a SOLID sense of who you really are….I think getting caught up in trendy groups, if you have an under developed sense of who you really are, you can easily be morphed into something you aren’t , and something you truly aren’t happy with.

But these kinds of events are always a cool reminder of how complex and beautiful the world is. How dynamic….from a factory in inner China to a posh Fashion event, all in one day. Amazing to me.

hahha there’s a photo of Michael on the Lane Crawford website… ohhh so posh.. even I didn’t make it as an ex-editor… and he is ‘grace lam and ”friend”’ hahahahah

Tell him he should introduce me .. if he knows the Vogue China Editor….. is amazing how diversified Michael’s network is.. hhahah

http://www.lanecrawford.com/blog/2011/03/chuang-yi-yu-ling-gan-2011chun-xia-fa-bu-hui

Ask him if this is better than being tagged 30 times on facebook?

Guess this makes it so worth going. so hilarious….its all about just sticking your neck out sometimes.

Incoming search terms:

• grace lam vogue
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So after a few months with the new Dongguan ecommerce warehouse project, we have opened up officially after the Chinese New Years. We will be advertising in a lot of English language magazines and websites in China, targetting foreigners who are doing business in China and want a “helping hand”. I know first hand how difficult it is, and no matter how hard you try to make things clear when dealing with a factory or logistics…things become urgent and crazy last minute.

One of (MANY) the goals Five Islands hopes to provide is ecommerce warehousing and fulfillment. Both on a B2B and a B2C level. Those not familiar with those terms, B2B is Business to Business, and what we would provide is providing an address for your China factories to ship the goods to, and we can consolidate everything for you, either to your warehouse or single client its being exported to….OR, keep some of it in our facility and ship all, or parts of it to other of your clients in America, Europe, or wherever. B2C is shipping from business to consumer, meaning normally 1 small box shipping directly to end customer via postal mail.

Again, this is really exciting stuff, I am talking to a bunch of my foreign friends here and all have various reasons to utilize this facility, such as collecting goods from multiple factories and re-branding. They are also interested in saving money on USA warehousing. Normally people buy high quantity of goods and then ship all of it to an expensive USA warehouse where it will sit for 6 months to a year.

1. It is claiming control of your logistics and supply chain. – Instead of just shipping all the goods directly to your end warehouse or a single customer, you can take stock in China and hold back for future orders. Maybe speculate that you have some rising inventory costs and want to build inventory. We allow you to be flexible.
2. It is allowing USA buyers who sell internationally to route their orders from China directly to their European clients, without worrying about giving their factory the customer contact information.
3. It is allowing Western buyers the tools needed to SELL in China – I have previously posted that we are looking for foreign products to import and sell into China, this ecommerce facility has all the tools required, and we are talking to a few companies already, some in Hong Kong, some in USA.

So these are all exciting things, and I am finding the best people to offer this service to is foreigners inside of China….because they realize the value of this the most…..and are already saying they can do it for their customers too, so may as well let them actually do it.

International business is sloppy….trying to make it more…..clear….and more options. at least this will give some extra tools.

Incoming search terms:

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Finding the right product to sell online is CRUCIAL. I am always asked how I started selling bar products, back in 2004. I kind of wish I knew what I knew now, then, because the bar products market is rather specialized and niche – learn how I got into the bar products industry. Maybe if I had started drop shipping mobile phones and electronics back then….I’d be much more (maybe) financially well off.

The other issue to take into account is to take inventory or not. Taking inventory means it will tie up cash, as well as make it more difficult to change your product line later. I have learned this all too well with the bar products industry….warehousing and logistics headaches galore!

I blogged about a year ago about how to start an online ecommerce business in more general terms. Today I just received this question on all experts about CHOOSING the right product group (a common question, but this question was much more interesting and detailed then the normal ones I get) and thought I would share with everyone today:

You answered this question on 02/18/11

Questioner: adriana

Category: E-Commerce, Web Businesses

Private: No

Subject: ebay store

Question: My husband started an EBay store about 3 months ago and he’s been selling more and more little by little. Mainly used/new electronics that he gets from either Ebay itself, people on Craigslist or Thrifty Store. He is really good at it, I can tell. He is really organized and calculates his profits and control his small inventory really well.

So, I’m wondering if we could have any kind of help on advising us in how to move up to next level, with wholesale retailers and such. It seems that are lot of scams on the internet offering this info anyways.

On top of that, I was thinking of having a section for women on his store as well, so I could sell items as well. However, the items that I’ve been trying were not in demand at all…

Anyways, if an appointment is necessary I’d be more than glad to do so. We are in Los Angeles, CA.

Thanks!

Adriana

Answer: Hi Adriana,

Its great to hear your husband is doing well, and you will join him as well to earn more money!

There are a few things / ideas. You can use ebay to see which items have been selling by doing an advanced search and seeing what has closed/ sold….and if those listings are selling, and for what price. This will help you make a better decision

I STRONGLY recommend you try not to be soley dependant on ebay…they are dropping every day in the market because they keep increasing fees and buyers and sellers are moving to their own .com shops or to amazon.com so I suggest you looking into your own online shop and selling on amazon as well.

more ways to search for demand in product is reverse keyword tools, a free one is:

http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

there you can put in product names / keywords and it shows how much people are looking for and what they want to find. Selling on the internet is all about GIVING PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT….instead of push media w/ television ads that is TELLING PEOPLE WHAT TO BUY. To be successful on the internet, you have to listen to what people want and give it to them.

I would love to meet you for consulting, it is a passion of mine, but I am based overseas in Hong kong / China. I would be open to a phone call or skype call – email me at site@michaelmichelini.com

Hope this helps and Good luck! Main thing is not to give up!

Mike

There is also the idea that you should pick a product line you, yourself are interested in, and a customer of.  This is because a business is mostly serving YOUR CUSTOMERS. I love the article – CEO means customer, employee, and THEN owner (in that order), so if you yourself are already a customer in that product / service industry, then you will understand the perspective of those customers. Also you want to pick a market group inside of the product group, not just sell products- BUT TO WHO? Old women? Teenagers? That is also just as important as selecting which type of products, but which demographic of customers.

The main idea is to DO YOUR RESEARCH. I am not one to talk, as most who know me well know I move quickly…because all talk and no action isn’t good either.  People also use this “market research” task as a way to find an EXCUSE why they have NO TIME to start their own business. That they don’t want to sit down and write everything down, make a plan….

I love getting emails like this, people motivated to do their own business, create value in the world by jumping into the world of entrepreneurship. While I myself cannot call myself a true success story, I have lasted a few years at it, and am not afraid to tell people the real deal. I think its a fine balance of preparation and GUTS to actually execute and do it.

Incoming search terms:

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Those tatending: Michael Michelini, Mr. Dang Shuang (mouse factory general manager), and Mr Huck Liang (mutual friend of the 2 above, owner of logistics company foblc.com).

About the factory: its a smaller one in Bao An district. 1 floor smaller factory, on the 3rd floor. It is going to move to another, bigger location in April 2011 (expected move date) where it will have its own design team and mould room.

It is currently doing all OEM business, its main markets are Spain, Mexico, Poland, Russia, and Korea.  This factory wishes to build its own brand. It also hopes to stop paying Alibaba and Global Sources yearly fee, and build its own website. The factory prefers to do B2B. It hopes to develop a sales office soon.

They are very interested in cooperating with mouse.com but ask what our idea for cooperation is?

The mouse factory suggests 2 ways of cooperation:

• 1) Joint venture – each side puts in maybe 5 workers, to make a team of 10 people. But how to share the profit, and how to share ownership? The factory would be the technical support, product training, design, manufacturing.Each month they can design 1 – 2 new products. Our side would be sales, marketing, web marketing, and distribution.

• 2) OEM – the factory sells the mouse to mouse.com and at a certain price, and mouse.com sells the product themselves.

So these are projects I am working on….this is what I have been building up to for the 3 plus years I’ve been in China…and my experience in America, even in my university with Engineering management and Technology management.

Will keep bargaining these deals.  Have the contacts, experience, and tools necessary.  Just have to stay focused, keep on track…and keep working as hard as I have all these years…..that is what it takes….going the distance, and when you can’t take any more, when you think everything is for nothing and you’re a failure, that is where you can make the difference – this is where the resistance from others has come….the resistance from other human beings…and if you can supersede that….bear more pressure and bullshit that cracks most others….then you can get to the next level.

But these are projects I enjoy, creating opportunity, an agent of change.

Incoming search terms:

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It is just an amazing story for me…..but the China dream may not be over its kind of like that godfather mafia…..just when you think you’re out…they keep pulling me back in! But really, I am going where the money is….the opportunity…and after a crazy 2010 traveling and searching….China is still where its at…

Going back and forth between Dong Guan, Guangzhou, & Hong Kong as well as some trips to Philippines seems like will be my new route….sprinkled with my friends and business contacts in Shenzhen. Gonna be exhausting….but still doing what I’m doing.

Internet marketing and ecommerce….I am getting inquiries from USA and other countries who want to warehouse in China, as that is what I am predicting the future will be…..fulfilling directly from China….and foreigners will need allies inside China to get it done….this is going to be a main trend coming the next few years…and this dong guan ecommerce center will be where its at!

So what is Photogaph.com all about? We hope to launch by end of Feb 2011, and I will be responsible for SEO and foreign sales and marketing…I guess this has been my job for all projects…this is my passion, and skill. So I’ll synergize everything….

Also working on the big “ecommerce package” I’ve been talking to my guys at merchant solutions llc – for entrepreneuers who want to sell online…..give them all they need in 1 package….merchant account , shopping cart solution, product sources for drop shipping from China or USA. Its just such a complex thing…and after years of building connections and knowledge between both USA and China ecommerce and internet marketing…..

But the dream is getting closer…ready to rock….I can keep saying I wish this came together sooner…but like I said, its part of my MBA these past few years in China…..except 10 times better, faster, more precious. And who knows what the future will bring, what 2011 will bring….but photograph.com will be a rockstar website selling professional studio accessories online direct from China.

Right now I’m working on keyword research, market survey, getting the site indexed (it was a parked domain for years), looking for guest bloggers, content plan, sitemap. Lots of work, but already what I love to do, and have building up to for years.