Reference News, March 4 report. The Russian Business Consulting Daily website published an article titled "Trend Factory - Learning from China's Marketing and Promotion Methods" on February 26. The author is Ekaterina Kryuglova and Regina Mingazheva. The following is the translated text:
As one of the most digitized consumer markets, China has become a trend incubator. In 2024, China's e-commerce transaction volume exceeded 46 trillion yuan. This amount exceeds the GDP of most countries in the world. The number of people who shop online reached 974 million (accounting for 88% of the total number of internet users). But what matters is not just the scale of users.
The high level of digital participation in China has driven demand toward social media and video platforms. Most shopping in China is completed through platforms with mature e-commerce models. These service applications turn content browsing into one-click operations: users can place orders within the information flow after seeing the product. Each ecosystem completes the entire shopping process on its own platform: content, payment, logistics, and delivers the order to the customer in a very short time.
Thanks to the digital infrastructure, the continuous updating atmosphere, and the fierce competition among sellers, the relevant market has developed rapidly. Consumers are quickly attracted by new products, so brands regularly launch test series and update their product lines. Excellent Chinese e-commerce platforms enable new products to be listed for sale within a few days, thanks to their developed logistics and promotion tools.
The trend of integration between e-commerce platforms and social platforms has already been evident in China. Large e-commerce platforms have integrated short video and even live streaming modules into their applications, while social networks continuously expand the shopping functions within their platforms.
The demand for self-expression makes popular trends more sensitive to novelty. Consumers choose items that are different and express individuality. Nearly half of Chinese Gen Z prefer brands that offer personalized products. Therefore, product categories related to users' personal emotional expression have grown rapidly, such as engraved lipsticks.
Surprise gifts, known as blind boxes, have become an important category with billions of dollars in turnover. The marketing history of La Bulu dolls well reveals this mechanism: the expectation of rare models and the excitement of opening the box create a strong demand boom. Not only in China, but also large companies in Europe and even Russia have followed this trend.
Feedback forms in real-time. On Xiaohongshu, Taobao, and WeChat, reviews almost appear immediately after receiving an order, and trends follow these signals. Therefore, the emergence of growth points and decline points occurs much faster than in traditional markets.
In China, trends are shaped by consumers, including hosts, micro-influencers, and buyers. New products are not promoted through advertisements, but are introduced in live streams: platform bloggers demonstrate products, conduct tests, and receive immediate feedback. Sometimes, the initiator is the manufacturer itself: the manufacturer releases prototypes, hires hosts, and evaluates product potential based on early data.
If the first videos attract interest, the community will get involved. Users shoot their own versions, unboxing videos, and share experiences, so the platform often becomes the starting point of a trend. The high-density content release by users quickly creates a craze.
When demand increases, factories will expand production scale: changing colors, forms, configurations, making products suitable for different audiences. Competitors will quickly follow up, and similar products appear on major e-commerce platforms within a few weeks. Popular products are more likely to appear on recommendation lists, gaining extensive exposure faster. Thus, the trend turns into a self-reinforcing system. (Translated by Tong Shiqun)
Original source: toutiao.com/article/7613276360391442971/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author himself.