Today DHgate will be honored at The AlwaysOn and STVP Summit at Stanford University. We are joining the AlwaysOn Global 250, which recognizes top emerging private companies that create new business opportunities in the global technology markets each year.

We are honored to receive this award, which puts us in the company of some brilliant game-changing technology players. Our team works exceptionally hard to improve our business. Listening and acting on their feedback has brought us to the attention of industry experts like AlwaysOn.

My team and I would like to thank our customers and partners who help us make our platform and services better. Please continue to offer your opinions or suggestions here.

Your thoughts are welcome, as always!

John Lin, chief technology officer of eBay’s Asia Pacific operations, thinks eBay’s marketplace may yet make a comeback in China.

The company, which used to have a domestic Chinese consumer-to-consumer, or C2C, auction website, largely pulled out of the market in 2006 after Alibaba Group’s Taobao.com gobbled up its market share by undercutting its fees. Taobao executives say they plan to continue allowing merchants to sell without paying commissions, and Taobao still has the lion’s share of the online C2C market, but the rivalry between two companies has since taken a more friendly turn, with Alibaba Group’s wholesale platform AliExpress acceptingonline payments via eBay’s PayPal, and with executives on both sides saying cooperation and competition can go hand in hand.

EBay’s current operations in China remain small compared to Alibaba Group and other Chinese e-commerce companies like DHGate, but like PayPal, the company has refocused its energies on export-oriented merchants in China who want to reach overseas buyers on its international websites. In the years since giving Tom Online control of its Chinese marketplace, eBay has created a Chinese Web portal, ebay.cn, a customer support team and a suite of value-added services to acquire more of these types of customers.

Since refocusing eBay’s China business, “business has been growing pretty nicely,” Lin said in an interview at the company’s Shanghai office on Wednesday. He declined to say what percentage of eBay’s marketplace transaction volume came from Chinese merchants, but said that China makes up an increasing percentage of the company’s $60 billion overall transaction volume, with more than double-digit growth every year.

Like most other e-commerce companies in China, eBay’s approach to Chinese clients requires much more hand-holding than would be needed in other markets. Lin says the local customer support team, which consists of dozens of people, must constantly call and otherwise stay in contact with Chinese merchants to advise them on how to improve their global listings. The support team makes recommendations to customers about discontinuing the sales of products that infringe on intellectual property, and about creating free shipping policies, which are more attractive to U.S. buyers. EBay also negotiates with logistics operators and translation companies to provide better rates for merchants who want to use their services.

“In the domestic market today there is still no monetization” because the standard practice, set by Taobao.com, is not to charge merchants commission for listing, Lin said.

“EBay was very frustrated with the low margins in the domestic market in China. I hate to say this, but it’s not a public service,” he said. “We specialize in high margin business,” and cross border trade is “highly profitable.”

He added that eBay’s Chinese merchants, which are predominantly small to medium-sized businesses (in contrast with the high percentage of consumer sellers in the U.S. who aren’t full-time merchants), pay slightly higher rates than U.S. domestic sellers do.

While eBay clearly doesn’t buy into Taobao’s “free” strategy, however, the Chinese website has continued to grow at warp speed in terms of transaction volume, and is, in fact making revenue by other means including sales of keyword-advertising. Analysts estimate Taobao earned between $200 million and $250 million in revenue last year.

Lin and eBay Marketplace Development Director Dandan Cheng argue that price-cutting can lead to a never-ending vicious cycle, in which Chinese companies may never find a way to charge customers, especially if competitors are waiting to undercut their prices when they finally do. Lin says that by building its brand among export-oriented merchants, eBay is “well-positioned for future development in China,” in both the cross border and domestic markets.

Back in March of this year I somewhat hesitantly predicted that there would be no significant movement in the value of the Chinese currency (RMB) as against its major trading currencies like the US dollar and the Euro in the short term. This is still a hot topic of discussion and contention for many international and Chinese clients of my company, www.dhgate.com, as it has a direct impact on the costs of sourcing products from China.

Currently, the Chinese RMB is informally ‘pegged’ to the US dollar at a rate of about 6.8 and this undervaluation was arguably causing trade imbalances between the US and China. The argument goes something like this: while it was good for US importers and Chinese exporters to have the RMB at an artificially low level, at the same time it made products imported from the US into China artificially high thereby hurting US companies

In the past few months it was thought that there was a consensus amongst Chinese policy makers that the peg would be broken and the Chinese RMB would be allowed to gradually rise about 3-5% thereby cushioning the impact on the Chinese export sector. This, of course, was on the basis that the world economy was steadily recovering from the Financial Crisis and there were no other major financial crises in the world.

Well what a difference a couple of months makes!

The dramatic European debt crisis as a result of the Greek bailout and the plunging value of the Euro has meant that any plans for a slight rise in the RMB as against the US dollar are now on hold…again.

The Euro has plunged to its lowest level against the RMB in almost a decade. It has fallen 14.5% in the past 4 months alone and the future is uncertain. The dramatic slump has prompted Chinese authorities to publically warn that China’s exports to Europe are threatened. Indeed, there are a number of anecdotal reports from clients of my company that European importers are cancelling or significantly reducing product orders. This appears to be by virtue of an inability of European companies to obtain normal trade finance because of the severity of the debt crisis together with heavily reduced purchasing power of the Euro.

A number of Chinese domestic economic issues also cloud the picture. The Chinese Stock Exchange has fallen sharply in recent times. This is mainly due to the Chinese government’s attempt to restrict the availability of credit in order to prevent the real estate property bubble from bursting.

All of these factors mean that there will be no short term revaluation of the RMB as against the US dollar. There are important trade and economic bilateral talks next week between the US and China and it appears that the revaluation issue, always a perennial topic in these trade talks, has been taken off the table. The US Government has recently stated that it intends to press China on other trade issues like market access for US companies and increasing the value of US exports to China. The US has announced that it wants to double US exports to China over the next decade.

What does all this mean for US SME importers of Chinese products? I believe that the situation presents great opportunities as the prices of Chinese products available for export will remain low for the foreseeable future and there appears now to be no likelihood of major costs increases as a result of exchange rate issues. From my discussions with my Chinese manufacturing clients, there is now a lot of opportunity to lock in these prices for the future.

More importantly, because of the problems in the European import market, many Chinese suppliers and manufacturers will now shift their focus to other markets, particularly the US. This means that there is the ability to achieve much lower prices from Chinese exporters because of the excess product available. It maybe that there has never been a better time for US SME companies to commence or increase sourcing product from China.

The European financial crisis has sent shockwaves through the global economy and has a number of ramifications for the international trading sector, especially souring product from China via ecommerce platforms. However, like in all things, there is a silver lining for many companies, particularly from the US, who can take advantage of the situation.

Back in March of this year I somewhat hesitantly predicted that there would be no significant movement in the value of the Chinese currency (RMB) as against its major trading currencies like the US dollar and the Euro in the short term. This is still a hot topic of discussion and contention for many international and Chinese clients of my company, www.dhgate.com, as it has a direct impact on the costs of sourcing products from China.

Currently, the Chinese RMB is informally ‘pegged’ to the US dollar at a rate of about 6.8 and this undervaluation was arguably causing trade imbalances between the US and China. The argument goes something like this: while it was good for US importers and Chinese exporters to have the RMB at an artificially low level, at the same time it made products imported from the US into China artificially high thereby hurting US companies

In the past few months it was thought that there was a consensus amongst Chinese policy makers that the peg would be broken and the Chinese RMB would be allowed to gradually rise about 3-5% thereby cushioning the impact on the Chinese export sector. This, of course, was on the basis that the world economy was steadily recovering from the Financial Crisis and there were no other major financial crises in the world.

Well what a difference a couple of months makes!

The dramatic European debt crisis as a result of the Greek bailout and the plunging value of the Euro has meant that any plans for a slight rise in the RMB as against the US dollar are now on hold…again.

The Euro has plunged to its lowest level against the RMB in almost a decade. It has fallen 14.5% in the past 4 months alone and the future is uncertain. The dramatic slump has prompted Chinese authorities to publically warn that China’s exports to Europe are threatened. Indeed, there are a number of anecdotal reports from clients of my company that European importers are cancelling or significantly reducing product orders. This appears to be by virtue of an inability of European companies to obtain normal trade finance because of the severity of the debt crisis together with heavily reduced purchasing power of the Euro.

A number of Chinese domestic economic issues also cloud the picture. The Chinese Stock Exchange has fallen sharply in recent times. This is mainly due to the Chinese government’s attempt to restrict the availability of credit in order to prevent the real estate property bubble from bursting.

All of these factors mean that there will be no short term revaluation of the RMB as against the US dollar. There are important trade and economic bilateral talks next week between the US and China and it appears that the revaluation issue, always a perennial topic in these trade talks, has been taken off the table. The US Government has recently stated that it intends to press China on other trade issues like market access for US companies and increasing the value of US exports to China. The US has announced that it wants to double US exports to China over the next decade.

What does all this mean for US SME importers of Chinese products? I believe that the situation presents great opportunities as the prices of Chinese products available for export will remain low for the foreseeable future and there appears now to be no likelihood of major costs increases as a result of exchange rate issues. From my discussions with my Chinese manufacturing clients, there is now a lot of opportunity to lock in these prices for the future.

More importantly, because of the problems in the European import market, many Chinese suppliers and manufacturers will now shift their focus to other markets, particularly the US. This means that there is the ability to achieve much lower prices from Chinese exporters because of the excess product available. It maybe that there has never been a better time for US SME companies to commence or increase sourcing product from China.

Beijing has become the focus of China as over 3000 government and people’s delegates descend on the capital for a ten day Congress which decides the economic, social, legal and other policies of the country. It is a particularly important and timely meeting as there are a number of pressing economic and financial issues, like inflationary pressures and the valuation of the Chinese currency the yuan, that are uppermost in many people’s minds – Chinese and foreigners alike.

February was a great month for Chinese exports which were up about 45% on the previous year. There is guarded optimism that this trend will continue and I believe that cross-border ecommerce will be a driving force.

Looking at our transactional data and talking to our DHgate.com Chinese suppliers, I believe that foreign companies, particularly US firms, are replenishing their inventories and introducing new product lines. This is a strong sign of increasing confidence in the future.

Also in my discussions with Chinese and international clients and colleagues, I am constantly asked about my opinion on the direction of the value of the RMB. Clearly this has a direct impact on the costs of sourcing and has tremendous importance. You will no doubt have seen and read numerous analyses, commentaries and articles on this issue.

I don’t want to get into a debate of the rights and wrongs of this issue, but I think it’s suffice to say that there’s a lot of misconception and misunderstanding on both sides. I believe though that there will be no significant movement in the value of the RMB in the short term. Whether there will be a slight rise in its value later in the year as some are predicting will depend on the economic performance of the country. In the meantime, China-sourced products continue to remain extremely cost competitive for SME buyers. Stay tuned as there is a lot more to come on this issue.

The other major Chinese financial issues that have the potential to affect Chinese suppliers and overseas buyers are the specters of inflation, wage rises and looming labor shortages.

Despite a recent spike in inflation (particularly in the food, housing and wages sectors) over the past few months, the Government appears to have it under control. With respect to the labor market and costs, I’ll post on this issue in the future.

On a final note, during the Congress, the Government announced a major commitment to the development of China’s ecommerce platform, particularly in the SME sector. This is the first time it has been made a ‘front and center’ policy. A number of initiatives will be promoted to introduce SME online suppliers and manufacturers to better business practices and ecommerce trade. This is a welcome development.

My own company, DHgate.com, is actively developing its training and education programs for our online Chinese clients and welcome this Government policy which complements our vision for the future of high-quality product and service offerings from China’s manufacturing sector. I’ll talk more of these initiatives in a later post.

Spring Festival also involves one of the largest annual human migrations with well over 200 million people making their way around the country; usually back to their home town for a family reunion.

Not surprisingly, China closes down for a week or so. Officially the country is on holiday from the 13^th to the 20^th February; however, the Festival can unofficially run from a week before to a week after these dates. In the case of businesses, most will only close for a few days of the official holiday. For example, at my company, DHGate.com, our customer service team be on holiday between the 13^th and the 16^th but will operate with a skeleton staff from the 17^th to the 20^th .

Most Chinese suppliers and shipping companies will be closed for a few days; therefore slight delays in processing overseas orders may be encountered. The shipping of products that are warehoused in the US and UK should not be affected.

During my recent business travels around Asia and the US, something that has caught my attention is an ad that promotes the ‘Made in China’ brand which is frequently appearing on international television. You may have seen it on CNN. The slick advertisement is a deliberate attempt, (the first to my knowledge), by the Chinese Government to rebuild and promote the China brand in the international market. Have a look at the ad here.

The theme of the ad is ‘Made in China, Made with the World’. Clearly the intention of the Government is to rebuild trust with overseas consumers after a string of product safety and quality issues and also to allay fears that cheap Chinese products take jobs away from overseas countries.

The message is that it’s a collaborative effort. People don’t often realize that over 60% of Chinese exports to the US are produced by firms owned by foreign companies. A computer ‘made in China’ is likely to contain a large portion of imported components. Also, although the final assembly and testing is done in China, the design and specifications were created overseas.

One of the other themes in the ad is that China is now very serious about the integrity of its brands both national and product specific. The commitment to product safety, quality and integrity by the Chinese government and manufacturers is greatly improving. In the future, I’ll detail the efforts being made in these areas.

You can read more about how the site works in the press release pasted below or by logging on to the site here, but what I wanted to talk about in this post is how the launch represents my attitude to business growth.

As frequent readers will know, when I started DHgate I did so to help small and medium business enjoy the same opportunities which had previously only been available to Big Box retailers. We were the first company to fully integrate all aspects of the cross-border wholesale trade with China on a single ecommerce platform, allowing cross-border trade to be conducted entirely online. This process involved (amongst many other things) designing proprietary technology, attracting the web best systems development professionals, securing investors, educating the market and doing everything we could to make it actually work. It hasn’t always been easy, and the work is far from over, but it has certainly been rewarding to watch it, and its users, flourish.

Creating a healthy, prosperous environment where SMEs have the tools they need to thrive fuels good business for everyone. And I know that that extends beyond transactions; SMEs face other challenges where help is also welcome.

I’m not claiming that one microsite will hold all the answers, but perhaps it is a step in the right direction and may inspire others to invest their time and expertise, too. Being open, proactive and supportive is win-win for all involved – and I’m prepared to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak.

So please log on to the site, offer your opinions or suggestions for improvement here and let me know if it helps. It was created to help you, and I want to make sure it does.

DHgate.com First in China to Launch Virtual Office

New Website is Geared to Help New and Growing Online Retailers

Navigate an Ever-Evolving Industry

China’s leading wholesale marketplace and champions of small businesses, DHgate.com, today launched IntroducingSuccess.com, a virtual office created exclusively to support America’s aspiring entrepreneurs and SME retailers.

The free site serves as a repository of information about starting and running a successful online business. IntroducingSuccess includes detailed guidance on all avenues from website tips to international product sourcing – including practical know-how on increasing profits through easy dealings with China-based suppliers.

The site, a first of its kind in this market, features a team of animated professionals all working for fictional start-up company, ‘SuccessCo’. Each team member has a specific area of expertise, such as Susan Oliviera in Accounting and Richard Cooke in Operations, all headed by CEO and Founder, Maggie Succesco. They share their insights and resources with visitors in an easy-to-navigate virtual office space.

Introducing Success is broken into three primary areas. The first is for ecommerce novices and provides a questionnaire for would-be-entrepreneurs and details on starting a business. The second section which provides content ranging from web design tricks to shipping options is geared towards those who might already be retailing, just not online using an international sourcing model. The last section includes marketing and sales tips that can be used by newcomers or experienced sellers. The site also features valuable information on doing business with China.

Ecommerce pioneer, DHgate.com, is the first Chinese company to specifically focus on helping western business owners get the most out of trade with China by addressing everything from “Chinese Business Practices” and “Choosing the Right Supplier”, to useful resources such as ““Taxes, Duties and Customs Considerations”.

This innovative thinking is typical of DHgate.com and Founder and CEO, Diane Wang.

Diane is an experienced entrepreneur who left senior management at Cisco and Microsoft to start Joyo.com, which she grew to China’s most successful B2C site and was subsequently acquired by Amazon in 2004. Having been an ambitious online retailer with little start-up capital, Diane learned the hard way that international trade with China could be made much easier. She launched DHgate.com that same year.

“DHgate.com takes the hassle out of cross-border trade with China, allowing safe transactions to take place in a few clicks of the mouse. 1.5 million small businesses have been able to grow their profits through purchasing from the 500,000 China suppliers on DHgate.com, and IntroducingSuccess.com has been created to take that further.”

IntroducingSuccess.com is a resource hub that helps with the other fundamentals, and is designed to save businesses time and money.

“It was also important to me that the site doesn’t just cater to those businesses which use DHgate.com to buy their inventory – we wanted it to be a place that ANYONE interested in starting an online shop could go for information. That’s why we used a virtual office and separate URL. “

As a market-maker, DHgate.com adopts a forward thinking business model, based on providing “freemium” (free and premium) services to business owners. IntroducingSuccess.com is a free, value-added service which complements the free membership model offered by the DHgate platform. On DHgate.com buyers pay nothing upfront; DHgate earns its revenue through commissions paid by the seller—only after a transaction is completed successfully.

The company is focused on providing easy access for buyers to learn more about making the most of China’s supplier base and making the most of the boom in ecommerce. They frequently update their Facebook page and Twitter accounts as well as running two popular blogs. Blog.dhgate.com focuses on wholesale trends and The Gateway Blog (www.thegatewayblog.com) shares Diane’s personal advice to entrepreneurs and retailers. With webinars, podcasts and even a YouTube Channel in store for 2010, buyers will find DHgate.com a hub for all their business needs. And starting this month, Diane will also host a regular blog entitled “The View from China” on PracticalEcommerce.com.

As Diane says, “It’s not just about transactions – It’s about leveling the playing field for businesses of all sizes and opening up China to the world.”

Although replica product listings are an issue facing all ecommerce platforms across the web, I feel proud that DHgate is setting a new standard for B2B trade. Earning buyer trust is vital, and so we are continually working to better the methods of identification and removal of illegitimate products. Rather than be discouraged by this challenge, I’m excited that DHgate has a chance to really make a difference here.

Recently, we teamed up with brand protection agency, MarkMonitor to develop an automated system to give extra assurance for buyers. The API, which allows automated removal and suspension of questionable products and sellers, is an added safeguard to the platforms comprehensive anti-counterfeit measures.

Through a long partnership with PayPal, we have conducted thorough audits of the sites sellers, resulting in the removal of millions of product listings. We also utilize Escrow to protect buyer’s purchases, only allowing the release of their payment to the seller once it has been confirmed that they are happy with the goods received. Combined with our Trust Scores measure, feedback system and “Ask the Seller a Question” mechanism, buyers have all the tools they need to make a safe purchase. But we will keep going until this is no longer a concern for our users.

What considerations do you make when selecting products for your shop? Share best practice tips and thoughts here.

Entrepreneurs tend to see opportunity in adversity, but the severity of the 2008 downturn sorely tested that. Here’s what four current or former Inc. 500/5000 retailers learned from last year’s collapse — and why they are feeling better prepared this year.

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20091101/retailers-get-ready-for-christmas.html

What special preparations have you made for this year? Are you feeling as optimistic for 2010 as I am?

After reading up on the spending habits of consumers during the month of December, it has become clear that Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving that is famed with having the highest online sales for the year) should more accurately be called Cyber Monday’s in December. It turns out that while Monday is the most popular online shopping day, each Monday in December (including the Monday before Christmas, this year the 21st December) are all significant in terms of generating sales.

As the month progresses, buyers tend to be less concerned with the specific item and more concerned with cost saving – So online businesses with limited stock promotions can still move remaining inventory right up to Christmas. Shipping promotions, too, will help etailers attract visitors, with express delivery giving last-minute shoppers extra peace of mind.

Carol Tice, for Entrepreneur’s “Daily Dose” highlighted another important point for small business retailers to remember:

“I’ve always thought it a funny quirk of our American mindset that news of modest growth such as the NRF forecast depresses retailers. If there’s 2.2 percent growth, that means there will be more sales than last year! Yet all we can do is mope.

The key thing for small businesses to bear in mind is that averages do not have to be your personal reality. A small business represents such a tiny slice of the overall marketplace that your results can vary widely–they could be zero, or this could be your best year ever.” (read full here)

I for one am very optimistic about this year’s performance for small businesses.

What marketing promotions will you be running during the holiday season? Share here and learn from others!