Global Sources new Chinese website will be rolled out this month. GS has posted a message on GLOBALSOURCES.COM.CN (I assume this will be the domain name) saying that the Chinese website will be debuted with new user interface and new feature. I really have my expectation. Frankly, I am quite disappointed for the previous 2.0 revision of GLOBALSOURCES.COM.
No surprise that GLOBALSOURCES.COM.CN is going to compete with ALIBABA.COM.CN for the Chinese suppliers. This time I play no expert to comment the GS-ALI battle on marketing, sales, nor technology. I want to talk about something important, something important enough to influence marketing, sales, and technology.
I have developed my web browsing habit that particularly attracted to the user experience. But please don’t think user experience is a geek term. User experience is everything from layout, navigation, and a large part go to the presentation such as text, color, copy, which connect you to the website.
Ok, let’s talk something even more fundamental. Behind the big term “user experience,” it is the business culture that shapes the communications. Right, this is what I want to talk about in this post.
Cartoon by Coolkid.
I don’t know how frequent that you have visited ALIBABA.COM.CN. It is certainly a different website from its English version. The presentation, features, marketing copy, you can even find vertical networks and something similar to the value grid, they all appeal to their customers in China.
I remember I met a web guru in Xiamen a year ago and I asked him why all the Chinese websites were designed with so many texts stuffed in the front page. He told me something, that to me, remains very bizarre. He said, “Mr. Choi, in China, we still have many people who read web pages like newspapers, they read, won’t click.” Well, whether you believe it or not, that’s the guru explanation.
But I absolutely believe that people in China live and perceive things quite differently from one city to another. Alibaba has its root in Hangzhou. They certainly know the entrepreneurial spirit of the Zhejiang model and have a lot of experiences interfacing with the local companies in the Yangtze Delta. It is quite different from what we have seen the China in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. Business culture in Yangtze Delta is more “indigenous.”
If you read Chinese, you see the way how Alibaba communicates with the visitors on its Chinese website. Something from the cute name of the Alibaba instant messaging software, to the marketing copy about how to make big fortune, “grab money” and win business in China, and the soldier ant campaign on Alimama, etc., they all connect to the Chinese “Lao Ban” and communicate with them in their language, through effective pidgin.
Well, I certainly don’t expect to see a Global Sources worker bee buzzing on its forthcoming Chinese website. But I wish they have done serious homework this time and not just to flip the English version over. Global Sources has been doing business in China for over 30 years. They know China better than we do.
And Alibaba knows China well too. It is in their blood.
Thanks for visiting this weblog. I am a digital marketer based in Hong Kong. After founding a marketing consulting company, merged it with a trade show company, and completed my tenure in 2007, I am blogging my insight and commentary for marketing and entrepreneurial experience. Now I am the Managing Director of 
