Second 'Digital Salon' in Shanghai
Created by China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba, “Double 11” on Nov 11 (11/11) has become China's – and perhaps the world's – largest online annual shopping event. Alibaba rang up total sales of 91.2 billion RMB (€13.4 billion) within 24 hours this year on Double 11.
Reason enough for the Bertelsmann China Corporate Center to devote its second Digital Salon on Nov 20 in Shanghai to the topic of e-commerce. The first Digital Salon event last April in Beijing focused on the subject of digital marketing.
Conference for companies in which BAI owns a stake
Corporate Center colleagues once again invited around 80 employees from Bertelsmann China companies and from startups in which BAI (Bertelsmann Asia Investments) owns a stake to the two-day conference, which was held this time at the Shanghai campus of the China European International Business School. A total of eleven speakers from various companies, market leaders and startups alike, discussed various aspects of e-commerce such as market developments, trends, verticals, cross-border trade, and services.
Exchange of know-how
The first speaker was Tianzhuo Deng, Vice President of jd.com, one of China’s biggest online retailers. Qi Chen, Founder of the rapidly growing BAI portfolio company Mogujie, presented the vertical strategy pursued by the leading mobile shopping platform for women.
Chen Dandan, Founder and CEO of online shopping startup Taoshijie, explained the differences between the needs of Chinese middle-class buyers and customers abroad, and how Taoshijie managed to build an active online shopping community and stimulate user-generated content.
BAI also has a shareholding in Tuanche, China’s biggest automotive group-purchasing platform. The company’s COO Shuhong Deng spoke about one of the biggest problems of verticals: The relatively high costs incurred in attracting new users.
Very positive feedback
In addition to the market leaders, three other companies, whose business consists of providing services to the e-commerce sector, also shared their insights. After two days of intensive exchange of information and ideas, the participants’ feedback was very positive.
Tan Jianrong, Founder of the BAI shareholding EMIE, an Internet-based technology company, was also impressed by the Digital Salon: “The Salon offers us a platform to interact with the guest speakers and other participants about various e-commerce-related aspects and perspectives. Many thanks to Bertelsmann for offering this opportunity to pool the width and depth, macro and micro of the industry know-how, so that we can refine our thinking and understanding of our own businesses.
