E-commerce Guide For Chinese New Year 2022 🚀

We could learn a thing or two from the Chinese when it comes to celebrating the native New Year, also referred to as the Lunar New Year. The festival stands as one of the largest e-commerce opportunities for businesses worldwide:

• Retail sales during the Chinese New Year celebration were clocked at $123.4 billion last year, with past years' figures being significantly higher. (Source: World First)
• A report confirms that during the Spring Festival, e-commerce product categories like food, cosmetics & fashion see a jump in sales of up to $147 billion across major cities in Asia. 💪🏻

This year too, Chinese markets are exploding and the festivities are all over the internet.✨

What's different this year? And why does it matter?

2022 Lunar celebrations coupled with strict Covid restrictions amid the Omicron outbreak have impacted not only the country’s vast e-commerce ecosystem but also the global supply chain. Of course, that would happen when a trading entity like China pauses its business end-to-end for over 3 weeks. 😲

Like Klub, this piece is all about approaching growth with a fresh perspective instead of getting caught up in the challenges of the dynamic market. Before we get to our business recommendations, it is imperative to address the downside of these events:

• As of today, China’s ports are dealing with cargo backlogs for exports like furniture, electronics, fashion & accessories, etc. and freight charges have hiked by over 54% in the last 15 days. 👒
• Importers across Asia are tackling shipment delays and countries dependent on Chinese service providers for both luxury & necessity-based industries, are struggling to find an alternative shipping route after 6 Chinese ports were shut down on 24 January. ⚓
• The average import-export transit time now is around 44 days – a huge deflection from the pre-pandemic norm of 16 days. 🚚         (Source: China Macro Economy)

This is where Indian D2C entrepreneurs are reinventing the game with quick & efficient strategies to maintain their New Year momentum and not let the Chinese trade crisis make a dent in their business.

Here’s the cheat sheet on how Indian founders are taking on challenges, growth-first: 🚀

1. Optimize your inventory planning basis new delivery timelines ⏳

Build a strong picture of demand that incorporates both structured data (orders) and unstructured data (social media listening, trends & fads, popular events, news). This would also include revised budgeting for emergent orders, marketing & promotional advertising, and new service providers.

2. Time to deploy backups and backups of backups ⚡

Indian founders are replacing their Chinese suppliers with partners that can bridge the inventory & raw material gap. For urgent deliveries, it makes sense to check for alternative transportation. Additionally, you should mitigate risk by tapping vendors outside China, even better if it is Indian vendors like logistics partners, insurance vendors, packaging providers, marketing agencies, marketplaces, etc. #VocalForLocal starts at home, right?

3. Score the fuel to your engine - Fast & Flexible Capital 🤑

To fund these new plans, go for financing options that don’t alter your equity structure or pile up documentation hassles. This is where complementary capital formats like Revenue Based Financing, bridge financing & invoice discounting can help you. Lucky for you, you can find all these solutions and more with a growth partner like Klub.

4. Brace yourselves for orders & a turbocharged business 🧨

Deploying growth capital on high ROI use cases like inventory planning, raw material sourcing, performance marketing & working capital directly translates to better returns on your costs. Perfect headstart before the sale season!

More than 200 founders are gearing up to stay ahead of the market disruption curve and as India’s leading RBF investor, we understand how businesses need to be proactive, to stay on the path to grow & become bigger. If your business is seeking growth capital to stay on course, you are in the right place! Apply now 🎁