E-commerce sites in China try to lure Chinese shoppers to buy imported goods online on Black Friday. (Photo : www.mnrdaily.com)
Online shoppers in China are preparing for the Black Friday event as cross-border e-commerce sites are targeting Chinese online shoppers, who are interested to buy foreign brands and imported items through global shopping festivals like Black Friday, the China Daily reported.
One of them, Yang Xiaoxing, a female white-collar worker in Beijing, is getting ready for the event with a new dual-currency credit card.
"Since all the foreign brands that I am looking for are up for sale during Black Friday, I am ready to splurge," Yang said.
Customers such as Yang who have higher demands for quality and brand reputation are exactly the targets of cross-border e-commerce companies in China as global shopping festivals have become popular with online shoppers.
The shopping festival, which started on Thursday, Nov. 26, marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season in the United States and other Western countries. It is also the time when retailers offer massive discounts to attract consumers.
Ymatou.com, a Shanghai-based cross-border e-commerce site, said that the company has assured Chinese online shoppers that they would get the same deals that their Western counterparts enjoy during Black Friday.
"There is huge demand in China for imported goods," Zeng Bibo, chief executive officer of ymatou.com, said.
Aside from ymatou.com, online retail giant Amazon.com's China unit is also enticing customers with more overseas products and cheaper shipping costs.
E-commerce giant Alibaba's Tmall Global is similarly planning a special sales event for Black Friday.
Wang Xiaoxing, an analyst with Internet consultancy Analysys International, said that the slower growth rates for online shopping in China is part of the reason retailers are competing with each other to lure cross-border shoppers.
