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.

This is part of the latest ‘mantra’ of the ecommerce industry: ‘frictionless ecommerce’ which involves giving convenience, flexibility and options to a consumer.

The idea of moving money from one person to another, both quickly and cheaply is a relatively new concept. For decades, the banks had a stranglehold on the process. Checks took up to a week to clear, and transferring money from one bank account to another took days, and fees were levied at every step. The introduction of credit cards and EFTPOS made it easier and quicker but provided the credit card companies and banks more opportunities to deduct fees.

There’s no doubt that this will be one of the more interesting areas of development in the ecommerce industry in the future. However, I believe that a ‘frictionless ecommerce’ payments system is still a long way off.

In the current international product sourcing business world, the reliance on safe, cost-effective and seamless payment systems is still of prime importance to buyers particularly those who are sourcing goods from China.

As I discussed in my last post, although China is enjoying exponential growth in its ecommerce sector and the credit card industry is on the verge of major expansion over the next few years, the country is still a cash-based society. There is also a lingering distrust of anything that doesn’t involve cash.

This is particularly so in the millions of small to medium size businesses that power the Chinese private sector. Many SME’s do not have the ecommerce platforms or sophisticated banking systems to handle domestic cyber payments. The same is true for international transactions. A US buyer can’t simply send or wire money to a Chinese supplier if the supplier doesn’t have a foreign currency account held at a Chinese bank. Even if it does, the supplier requires approval from the Government to convert that payment into RMB that can be transferred to its local account. In many cases, such complexity and cost is beyond the reach of most Chinese suppliers.

Even in the area of direct sourcing of Chinese products, the available payment options like T/T or Letter of Credit become problematic because they are simply too expensive for smaller companies and purchase orders.

The ability to simplify the payment options and systems between Chinese suppliers and overseas buyers was one of the major driving forces of the establishment of the B2B intermediary websites like the one I established, www.dhgate.com. Rather than have to make a payment directly to a Chinese supplier which may have limited, unsafe and expensive payment options,( if any at all), sites like mine provide a range of payment options which bridge the gap between overseas and Chinese banking systems and make the process seamless, transparent, cost-effective and safe.

For example, www.dhgate.com currently provides the following payment options:

1. Pay Pal, the world’s leading and most reliable online payments service. Pay Pal have recently announced a partnership with ChinaUnionPay, China’s biggest inter-bank payment and settlement system which will enable more and more Chinese companies to participate in international ecommerce transactions. This is the most popular and preferred method as you don’t need to use your credit card online, payments are traceable and Pay Pal offers its Buyer Protection service.
2. Credits cards like American Express Visa, MasterCard and Discover card.
3. Real time bank transfers.
4. Offline payments like Western Union and other bank transfers.

The difference between my B2B site and others is that we recommend overseas buyers do not deal directly with a Chinese supplier but pay any amounts via the above options directly to www.dhgate.com. The site also offers overseas buyers an Escrow Service which is a licensed buyer protection service. Under this service, DHgate receives and holds the buyer’s payment until the transaction is successfully completed. Only after the buyer approves the products received will DHgate release the payment to the Chinese supplier.

This highly innovative service has been very successful with overseas buyers with numerous cases of money being returned to overseas buyers who were not completely satisfied with the quality or standard of what they had purchased. In fact, it has been so successful that it has now been copied by other B2B sourcing sites and has become the standard for Chinese product sourcing sites.

In recent posts, I have been discussing payment systems in China. Before I continue on that in my next post, today, I would like to talk about Alibaba’s recently developed hacker-technology and how this relates to another important aspect of the business environment here: the competitive situation in China.

One of the key challenges facing China is moving away from low-quality imitation of products and services to more innovative, high-quality equivalents. In fact, this is a key area of investment for my company, DHgate, as we development support and education systems for Chinese manufacturers. Previously, Chinese businesses could create value by lowering production overheads; however, in the twenty-first century, being ‘cheap’ is not enough. I believe the goal should be for Chinese businesses to create value in a totally different way: by innovating beyond the competition.

In recent years, what we have seen is the emergence of a vanguard of dynamic new Chinese businesses that are capable of this. Through DHgate.com, I have found that fostering this attitude internally has allowed us to achieve rapid expansion in international markets. In the West, audiences respond to originality and not, as has been the case in China, to replication.

This has been at the forefront of my mind recently, as one of our key competitors Alibaba, developed and introduced a mechanism which allows its suppliers to access rival backend system and pull content over to their site. This competitive imitation is the hallmark of the old way of doing business in China, and it is a worrying sign that a recognized company such as Alibaba has resorted to these tactics. This is not the environment in which Chinese business will thrive and become true international market-share contenders.

The philosophy we espouse at my own company, DHgate, is that to be the best you have to be able to innovate beyond the competition. First-mover advantage has proven to be key in online industries, but by the time a new feature has been widely replicated, a truly innovative company will already have developed another improvement.

The competitive situation is improving in China. Government regulations are slowly being rolled back, industries are becoming more diverse and dynamic, and a growing number of Chinese businesses have shown they have what it takes to be global leaders in their field.

China’s future lies in developing high-tech, fast-paced, competitive new industries, and I believe fostering a inventive business atmosphere, not competitive imitation, is the quickest and way to get there.

As you’ve likely read recently, lots of big corporations are trying to harnass the power of social networks to help grow their sales. But even if you’re not a huge retailer, you can still leverage social media to share information about your products as well as to communicate with your customers. I like to think of social media marketing efforts as one part of a larger strategy. Lots of people (your potential customer base) like to communicate in different ways. Some will browse to your website for info, others are on email all day and respond to electronic promotions over anything they get in the mail, and others still prefer to rely on recommencations from friends and family that they might find on social networks.

Twitter.com/DHgate

One important thing to remember about the various social networks is that each has distinct functionality and users log on for different reasons. Here’s a quick overvoew of three extremely popular platforms.

Twitter

Twitter users (aka Tweeters aka Tweeple) use this service to share 140 character long updates with everyone who follows them. You can log into Twitter on any web browser, or you can send and receive updates through text messages on a mobile device. Because of the character limit, messages tend to be in shorthand and often reference short links created on tinyurl.com or bit.ly. For companies that want to use Twitter to gather followers, here’s some advice.

First, don’t use the service only to blast out messages about promotions and products. Followers will view your messages as spam and will stop following. While it’s okay to use Twitter to share links to products and special deals, be sure to spend some time seeing what other users are saying about or to you, and engage them in conversations about relevant topics. It’s also a good idea to follow the competition and companies that sell complementary items. There fans will make for great potential customers.

Checkout www.twitter.com/dhgate to see what my marketing team are doing here.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is generally considered the more business/career focused version of Facebook (see below). You’re highly unlikely to find photos from last weekends bar crawl or pot luck dinner and users log in and update statuses less frequently. You’ll find more information about educational and professional backgrounds and users can write recommendations about their colleagues or other business contacts.

The best way for you to take advantage of LinkedIn is to use it to connect to potential suppliers and customers through your existing connections. It’s also a great place to post about job openings ors make requests for contractors and other vendors.

Facebook

Facebook is quickly becoming a one-stop-shop for a wide array of online tasks. It’s 300+ million users previously relied on tools like gmail, snapfish, message boards and blogs to get the same information that’s now available all in one place. Facebook users are more likely to regularly post status updates, links, video clips and other media and the platform makes it easy for anyone to comment on or share information that they find on Facebook or the wider web.

All this makes Facebook an ideal spot to engage with customers and potential customers in a variety of different ways. Companies can do this by creating a Public Profile that represents the brand. One key thing to remember, however, is that if your brand doesn’t have a lot of awareness, there is very little reason to for people to become a fan of your public profile. What you’ll be best served by doing is creating a page that’s purpose is to share useful information about a topic that relates to your business. So if your company, Irene’s Custom-Made Handbags, only has a small group of loyal customers, make your public profile have mass appeal by sharing information about all sorts of trends and information about custom made purses and other accessories. If you become the go-to place to find out which independent bag makers, chances are, you’ll develop a list of followers that will be great to market to.

Check out www.facebook.com/dhgate to see what my company is up to in this exciting space.

Read more tips on promoting your business at IntroducingSuccess.com and let me know what you think!

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.

Recent surveys by the World Bank and the leading international brand development and valuation companies show that Chinese brands are on the move internationally. The big State-owned banks, technology and oil companies are now consistently in the top 100 and a number of them threaten the top 20 in the near future.

Remember that these brands (for example, banks like ICBC and Bank of China, the oil giant Sinopec and China Mobile) essentially did not exist 10 years ago. Much in the same way that the top Japanese brands like Sanyo, Panasonic and Toyota were 30 years ago, and Korean companies like LG, Samsung and Hyundai had no international presence 10-15 years ago.

We are all aware of the times when the phrase ‘Made in Hong Kong/Japan/Korea’ was used in a derisory manner to indicate low quality and unreliability. How things have changed (even despite Toyota’s current woes).

There are now a large number of Chinese companies that are poised to move into the world’s best brands lists in the next decade. Companies like Huawei, Midea, BYD and Haier to name a few.

Take Haier for example. One of China’s largest companies, they are now the 4th largest home appliance manufacturer in the world. You may have seen their low-cost and energy efficient refrigerators and air conditioners in your local stores. In many ways Haier have outmarketed and outplayed GE and the Japanese producers. Expect to see this company rocket up the leading brand lists in the future.

BYD (Build Your Dreams), the Chinese car manufacturer which has a special interest in electric vehicles and is the recipient of Warren Buffet investment, is also a brand that could be on everyone’s lips in the future. I will talk more of them in later posts.

And what does this increased brand awareness and success mean for online retailers sourcing products from China? One of the flow-on effects is that small to mid range Chinese manufacturers, including online suppliers, are rapidly improving their game in order to remain competitive – both in terms of cost and quality. We are currently seeing this on DHgate.com

Read more blogs like this on my “The View from China” blog at Practical eCommerce. Don’t forget to let me know what you think!

Insights from Around the World: China

Despite the winter chill, China was red-hot at the close of 2009.The country’s manufacturing activity accelerated in December at its fastest pace in several years and foreign exports were up USD$130.7bn, up 17.7% year-on-year. J.P. Morgan said it expects China’s growth momentum to continue throughout 2010. All this at the same time as internet shopping in the UK grew at its fastest rate for 22 months in December, as millions of shoppers migrated online to buy their Christmas goods.

Controversy over Beijing’s policy of pegging its currency to the U.S. dollar may continue to concern economists, but for the time being the fixed exchange rate gives China’s factories a nearly unbeatable price advantage against manufacturers in other countries.

The price advantage has grown even larger after the U.S. dollar, and therefore the Chinese yuan, fell sharply against other major currencies last year. Combine this financial situation with the growth of an already mammoth manufacturing industry and you get a retail buyers market.

Retailers purchasing inventory in China via DHgate.com demonstrated some interesting trends in 2009. Although Apparel and Accessories remained strong, technology purchases ranked as the most popular, accounting for around a third of transactions and a rise of over 10% on the previous year. Strong growth was also seen in the Health and Beauty and Home and Gardens categories, both showing year-on-year increases of around 40%. And with total Christmas stock purchasing representing DHgate’s busiest in its five year history, Chinese manufacturers are expecting to see huge growth in 2010.

With an increasing number of Chinese businesses setting up wholesale and manufacturing operations online, those who source from China will have a distinct advantage.  Traditionally it has been the Big Box retailers who benefit from China sourcing. The new evolution of this industry online allows smaller business to also benefit and pass on savings to their customers – increasing profits.

As consumers resume normal spending habits, retailers capitalizing on the surge of quality goods provided by Chinese manufacturers have the potential to expand their market share.

It has been a little while since I have highlighted a Blog of the Month here, but this month I feel compelled to do so.

As many of my regular readers will know, through this blog I share with small business owners my experiences and influences as an entrepreneur, insights on emerging market trends and the relevant ecommerce happenings in China and around the world. I also run a blog on Practical eCommerce that looks specifically at the growing importance of China as a global supply base.

Aside from the fact that I enjoy sharing any information I think others will find valuable, my aim is also to demystify the entrepreneurial process and open up China as a supplier hub for those that will benefit from it most – Small businesses.

Lee Oden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, believes that for small businesses, blogs are useful for communications, PR, and marketing purposes. They can also be used as a content management system for a Web site. In his blog on AllBusiness.com this month, he shares with readers “10 Essential Tips for Starting a Small Business Blog“. His quick list will help those of you considering starting a blog to get off on the right foot. And once you have, don;t forget to add you link to the comments section here!

1. Set goals and answer, “Why are we starting a blog?”

Do this before going out and registering a domain name or anything else. Is the blog going to serve as a journal for starting the business? Is it a search marketing tool? Is it to be used to demonstrate thought leadership and create credibility? Will it be a communication tool for customers? Will it also serve as the main company Web site? Is the purpose some or all of the above?

2. Decide your address.

If the purpose of the blog is to support company brand and audience, then the URL should be part of the company Web site. Ideally, the blog hosting situation allows for a sub directory such as companysite.com/blog.  Otherwise, a sub-domain such as blog.companysite.com will work and you can can host the blog elsewhere, separate from the company Web servers. (IT will like that.)

If the purpose of the blog is independent of the primary company brand, or messaging, then a dedicated domain name such as topicgoeshereblog.com might work better.

It’s tempting to use a keyword-only domain name, but those keywords will not be a silver bullet for search engine rankings. A catchy, meaningful brand name for the blog will go much farther as content can always be optimized for search engine rankings.

3. What blog software to use?

In most cases, WordPress is the way to go. An inexpensive Linux platform hosting account that supports PHP and mySQL can be secured for $10-$20 per month. However, should the blog get really popular, expect to upgrade to support increased demand. It’s entirely worth it.

The blog software will need to be installed on the server that will host it and the database will also need to be set up. This is fairly straightforward, but in all honesty, it’s best to have someone that knows what they’re doing help. As an example, I do very little of the technical work on our blog and prefer to have a specialist (Thomas McMahon) take care of maintenance, adding plugins, design, and functionality updates. We have outside programmers do any heavy lifting in the application development department.

WordPress software is open source, ie free, so if you are code/technically savvy and you have the time to figure it out, it’s certainly doable. There is no one “right way” to setup a blog. There are literally hundreds of shades of gray.

It can cost a hundreds to thousand of dollars for a blog consultant to install, set up, and customize the design of your blog. You’re not paying for the software, you’re paying for expertise that will save you MONTHS of time and allow you to get to market more quickly and efficiently.

4. Modify the design.

After installation of the core blog software, there are a number of customization tasks.

First, the blog design should be modified to match your branding. If you don’t hire a consultant to do this, there are many free templates that can then be customized, but many of them require a link to the author at the bottom. Personally, I’m not a fan of those, but they are a low/no cost place to start. Design customization involves modifying the CSS, JavaScript, graphics, and possibly a few database elements.

The second set of customization tasks involves plug-ins to improve the administration, front end functionality and the SEO friendliness of the blog.

5. Plan your content.

In concert with the purpose of the blog, it’s important to generate a basic editorial guideline for creating content.  The easiest way to manage this is by creating categories for the kinds of content you plan on posting.

Before you create those categories, it’s a good idea to do some keyword research as the categories will become excellent repositories of related content. Why not make it even easier for search engines to understand and rank them?

Once you identify which keyword phrases best represent the content you’ll be publishing, use them to name your content categories. Each time you make a blog post, that entry will be associated with one or more categories, creating a very search engine friendly repository of content.

Create an editorial calendar or schedule of posts to keep you on topic for your audience and true to the purpose of the blog. Leverage interactions with blog readers as well as your analytics to know if your content and keyword picks are productive or not.

6. Who will blog?

In the case of most small businesses, the blogging team is a team of one. That’s fine, just be sure to document what’s working and what’s not so when the time comes, you can get your blogging team mate up to speed quickly.

Since blogger’s block (like writer’s block) can really dampen a good thing for a small business blog, go ahead and keep a good number of posts in draft mode. Add to them as you get new ideas and inspiration. Or facts and examples. That way, you’ll have a steady stream of blog posts ready to publish in advance. In fact, you can schedule blog posts in advance using WordPress.

7. Plan to interact.

Blogging in a vaccum is inevitable blogging death. It’s essential that you solicit comments in your posts, respond to comments quickly, create and enforce a commenting policy. Don’t covet the comments either. Visit other blogs in your industry and write useful comments. Those bloggers may notice you and it can become something more, like an invite for a guest post, collaboration or simply a new online friend.

Make it easy for readers of your blog to save and share your content with sharing buttons or widgets. It pays to create accounts on the more popular services and develop social networks there. Your contacts on Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon and similar services will watch for your next post and vote for the good stuff, which can drive your content to be exposed on more popular areas of those Web sites. More exposure can mean more traffic.

8. Socialize.

RSS feeds come with blogs and it’s worth taking the time to make sure the RSS feed is readily available and obvious for people to subscribe. Submit your blog and RSS feed to our HUGE list of blog and RSS directories.

Set up social profiles on sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn as appropriate and automate the sharing of links from your blog posts to those services. In other words, you could use a service like TwitterFeed to publish your latest blog post to Twitter and Facebook automatically.

Be sure to publish your blog URL everywhere you publish your web site address.

9. Make your pages.

If you’re using the blog as a CMS for a small business Web site, then make your static Web pages such as those for About our Company, Product/Service pages, Contact Forms, etc. The blog can be customized to have a home page like any other Web site as well. That way, visitors arriving on your site can see what they expect from a company selling products/services. At the same time, blogging creates a rich and frequent source of useful content that’s syndicated via RSS, promoted automatically to relevant social channels and leaves the door open for interaction via comments.

10. Use blog and social media analytics.

It’s important that you set goals for the blog, a plan to execute tactics and most of all, measure progress. Most Web site measurement is focused on web analytics and metrics specific to different types of marketing such as with email, SEO or PPC.  Standard web analytics software such as Google Analytics will address the vast majority of your needs.

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.

To keep regular readers of this blog in the loop, I will repost my monthly entries here – So you will have a single hub for all my thoughts on entrepreneurship, running a business and the developing supplier and eCommerce situation here in China. And, if you have any areas you would particularly like me to cover, why not drop me an email or comment below? I’d love to hear form you.

“The View from China”

by DHgate.com Founder and CEO, Diane Wang

On the eve of the Year of the Tiger, I’m proud to present a new blog to readers which will give regular updates on the events and opportunities within the Chinese ecommerce scene. Here, I aim to give an insight into doing business in China and an insider’s eye into the world’s most exciting emerging market.

International ecommerce and ecommerce technology have been my passion for the last two decades. After leaving the security of senior management at Microsoft and Cisco I decided to go it alone. My first company, online consumer marketplace Joyo.com, was acquired by Amazon in 2004, and that same year I founded DHgate.com. My purpose was to create a platform which connects SMEs to the manufacturing hub which is China, and therefore level the playing field.

Despite the global financial crisis, 2009 was a great year for China. GDP growth for 2009 was 8.7% and the country’s manufacturing activity accelerated in December at its fastest pace in several years. Foreign exports rose to US$130.7billion, up 17.7% year-on-year, and analysts expect that the Chinese growth momentum will continue in 2010. Although the Chinese Government is playing it down, it has been confirmed that China has overtaken Germany as the world’s biggest exporter.

As an increasing number of Chinese businesses, large and small, are setting up wholesale and manufacturing operations online, I believe that there are now great opportunities for US retailers, particularly SME’s, to source products directly from China.

Recently, as part of its extensive stimulus packages, the Chinese government has implemented a policy to spur the growth of SME manufacturers and suppliers throughout China. In particular, it has directed local and provincial governments to encourage emerging industries through reform, assistance with market access and fostering local banks to provide finance to expanding businesses.

At DHgate.com, we have seen a surge in the number of Chinese SME manufacturers and suppliers who have migrated online. As these numbers grow, so do the opportunities for US retailers to be cost effective. I believe that there has never been a better time for US retailers to take advantage of the Chinese online sourcing market.

Because of this, I believe it is timely to introduce a blog on the Chinese ecommerce scene which will post regular updates on the ecommerce market in China with a particular emphasis on B2B sourcing.

The regular reports will focus on issues such as trends, new platform innovations, technological and other improvements and government initiatives and policy developments. I will also address pressing consumer issues such as product quality and safety.