Selling to Chinese Customers: Tips & Strategies for Australian & NZ Businesses

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If you're reading this you've probably identified a great opportunity for your Australian/New Zealand business to engage with Chinese consumers. You're already off to a great start - being aware, receptive and open to change will put you in a great position to grow with the growing Chinese market in a meaningful way.

In this guide we'll discuss the size of the opportunity, breaking down Chinese consumer behaviour trends and preferences across online marketing, key occasions on the Chinese calendar and the impact of offering familiar and frictionless payment methods.

The Size of the Opportunity

Chinese born and Chinese descendants make up a significant portion of Australia's population. At the end of June 2022 there were 597,440 Chinese born people living in Australia (Department of Home Affairs, 2022) and 1.4 million people with Chinese ancestry (Lowy Institute, 2023).

Many Chinese spend time in Australia for studying, as of July 2023, there were approximately 152,000 Chinese international students (Statista, 2024). Australia is also a top holiday destination, with 535,000 Chinese tourists visiting Australia in 2023 (Statista, 2024). This was lower than the pre-COVID peak of 1.438 million in 2019 but still represents significant growth from 2020-2022 levels and is encouraging considering the economic climate. When Chinese tourists visit Australia, they will often bring their family, visit multiple cities and spend about $9000 per visitor (AFR, 2023).

Ignore these consumers at your own peril!

Strategies for Success

Many Australian businesses have excellent opportunities to engage with Chinese customers - and don't even realise it! These are some strategies that'll give you a headstart on your competitors.

Use Mandarin Where Possible

While most Chinese-Australians can read and speak English well, half would like to see more Australian companies communicate in Mandarin (The University of Sydney, 2023). Many Australians are surprised to learn that Mandarin is the second most spoken language in Australia. Ignore this and it becomes a hurdle, factor this into your marketing strategy and it becomes your key strength.

Use Mandarin for written communications such as your website or landing page translations and in-store promotional materials. For sales and customer service, hire an employee who is fluent in Mandarin who can make customers feel welcome, engaged and properly supported.

Build Trust with Key Opinion Leaders

In an environment where consumers are subjected to a high volume of communications and marketing messages, Chinese consumers crave content which is genuine and engaging, rather than straight-up sales-driven material. This is especially important for online marketing, where users are exposed to high levels of marketing messages and instinctively fail to engage and swipe past content that fails to engage and offer value.

Chinese consumers often follow and trust user generated content from Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) on platforms like Little Red Book (also known as RED). KOLS are considered to be informed and trustworthy and have large, loyal followings. They achieve this by creating content that tells stories that share experiences and display personality. This content is more effective at hooking people in and holding them, as it doesn't appear to be about selling.

Choose the Right Platforms

There are great opportunities to engage with Chinese consumers on social media. While many countries use Instagram, Facebook, X or LinkedIn, Chinese consumers also use different platforms. Whether you're targeting Chinese consumers living or travelling in Australia, or targeting those living in China, it's worth spending time to develop your presence in these spaces.

WeChat

WeChat (or Weixin in Chinese) is a social media, instant messaging, e-commerce and payment platform that is commonly referred to as China's ˜app for everything' (Fast Company, 2017). There are over 1 billion monthly active users globally, while in Australia 54% of all Chinese-Australians aged 18 to 44 use WeChat daily (Lowy Institute, 2023).

WeChat's Moments and News Feeds are similar to that ofInstagram and Facebook, with endless opportunities to engage users with text, image and video content. Like the Meta platforms, content can be organic (non-paid) or businesses can use the WeChat advertising platform, targeting audiences by demographics, interests, device, time, behavioural characteristics and specific exclusions.

Little Red Book

Little Red Book (or Xiaohongshu in Mandarin) is a popular Chinese social shopping app that offers great opportunities for popular and luxury fashion, beauty, retail, furniture, as well as cafes, bars and even real estate brands.

Users share content such as product photos, reviews and tips, with Key Opinion Leaders engaging their loyal followers. Like Pinterest and Instagram, there's lots of likes, comments and shares and users even use it as a search engine for related products.

Like WeChat, Little Red Book also offers an ad platform for brands who wish to consistently and reliably reach a relevant audience of significant size.

Mainstream Social Media Platforms

Popular mainstream social media platforms such as YouTube, TikTok and Instagram are also widely used by Chinese-Australians and can be factored into your customer acquisition strategy. YouTube has similar levels of usage to WeChat with 58% of Chinese-Australians using the platform daily, with Facebook at 49%, Instagram at 38% and TikTok at 26% (Lowy Institute, 2023).

Given that these platforms are also used by consumers from other backgrounds, your content and advertising may need to be more targeted to stand out to Chinese audiences, including targeted hashtags can also be helpful for search.

Due to China's censorship laws, you won't be able to reach people in China via Instagram, Facebook or YouTube.

Key Dates on the Chinese Festive Calendar

Depending on the type of product/service you offer, there may be excellent opportunities to reach Chinese customers in the leadup and during key festive occasions.

Retail and hospitality businesses in particular have excellent opportunities to engage with Chinese consumers. Mark these dates on your calendar:

Chinese New Year

The exact date of this is determined by the lunar calendar and usually falls between 21 January and 20 February each year. The 2025 Chinese New year is on 29 January. During this time family and friends will gather, pay respect to their deceased ancestors and enjoy each other's company over food, particularly dumplings and seafood. Celebrations can last for about two weeks, commencing on Lunar New Year's Eve and finishing up at the Lantern Festival.

618 Shopping Festival

This festival is similar to Black Friday and takes place from 1 - 18 June each year. Initially created by ecommerce retailer jd.com to celebrate their anniversary, this has grown into a major Chinese shopping event with many retailers partaking in large-scale sales and promotions (Marketing to China, 2024).

Chinese Valentine's Day

Chinese Valentine's Day (known as Qixi or Double Seven's Festival), typically falls on the 7th day of the 7th lunar month.

Two things to remember - don't promote umbrellas or shoes as gifts. Giving an umbrella is considered a bad omen as the Chinese name for umbrella sounds similar to ˜breaking up', while giving shoes implies ˜packing off your love'.<img width="154" height="83" src="https://www.novatti.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/china-highlights-top-navigation-logo.png" alt="" loading="lazy" /> China Highlights

Moon Festival

Moon Festival (also known as Mid-Autumn Festival or Mooncake Festival) is a harvest festival that is celebrated on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Han calendar. The 2024 Moon Festival is on 17 September. This popular festival has been celebrated for over 3000 years, celebrating the three core concepts of gathering, giving thanks and praying.

Brands that have successfully catered to this festival include GODIVA and their chocolate mooncake gift boxes and Chinese Tea Cafe brand HEYTEA who launched a new drink called ˜Moon Gazing' (Chin Communications, 2024).

Singles Day

Also known as ˜Double 11', this anti-Valentines Day celebration occurs on 11 November each year, with the date 11/11 cryptically representing ˜single sticks', a Chinese slang term for bachelors. This date is celebrated by single Chinese individuals buying themselves a present. While not as big as Black Friday or other big Chinese festivals, it's worth noting for retailers.

<h2>The Right Payment Methods</h2>

A key part of understanding Chinese consumer behaviour is to understand their common preferred payment methods. There are differences in the common payment methods used in China and Australia, and limits Chinese nationals face when spending overseas. For Chinese mainland residents, there is a USD $50,000 annual limit on money transferred outside of mainland China.

Businesses that are financially inclusive and provide payment methods familiar to Chinese consumers have opportunities to stand out from their competitors, increase customers and obtain larger transactions. It goes beyond these benefits and demonstrates that you understand and welcome Chinese consumers, which is a worthwhile statement to make.

Chinese consumers are advanced in the usage of electronic wallets such as Alipay, WeChat Pay and Union Pay. These are the preferred payment methods for Chinese people visiting Australia and spending RMB. 59 per cent of Australian-Chinese are more likely to buy from a shop that offers the WeChat service (The University of Sydney, 2023).

This is much more than reaching tourists and includes a vast audience when you consider the amount of students, newly arrived migrants and others who are staying for an extended period for business or family reasons.

How Chinese Wallets Improve in-store Transactions

It's important to understand the differences in the evolution of in-store payment methods in China and Australia. While Australians have experienced a gradual evolution from cash, to cards, to mobile phone payments, Chinese consumers lept from cash to mobile payments, many skipping cards entirely (We are Planet, 2024).

There has been significant growth in this space, with over 10,000 Australian retailers accepting at least one Chinese wallet.

In-store payments can be made by enabling clients to scan a QR code that allows users to pay using a Chinese wallet (instead of using a card at an EFTPOS terminal) and send funds to the retailer.

How Chinese Wallets Improve Online Transactions

Online transactions from a Chinese bank account to an Australian business can be difficult for numerous reasons.

Chinese mainland residents are restricted by an annual limit of $50,000 USD on funds transferred outside of mainland China. These restrictions are in place due to China's anti-money laundering regulations and those who wish to transfer depreciating RMB funds into USD.

These restrictions can cause difficulties for those who transfer funds frequently or make larger transactions for items such as school or university tuition, rent, car or the purchase of a home. Even if Chinese payer's are not concerned about the $50,000 USD limit, they face significant costs from bank transfers, or alternatives such as Paypal or Western Union where they face high fees.

Fortunately there is a solution which enables Chinese consumers to make these payments without contributing to the $50,000 USD limit and without excessive fees. Novatti has worked with a number of businesses with high value Chinese customers to implement white-label Chinese payments platforms which allow people in China to pay via BPay from either the Alipay, WeChat Pay or Union Pay Chinese wallets. Chinese customers benefit from these easy, lower cost methods and the Australian businesses benefit from the increased speed in which they receive payments and handle reconciliation.

One example of this is Unilodge, a leading provider of university student housing for most universities throughout Australia and New Zealand. These payments are usually made from family members in China, who are able to make these payments from their Chinese Wallets, with ease and without impacting the $50,000 USD limit. This enables Unilodge to receive payments quicker, results in less time following up on outstanding payments or discussing payment issues with families and enables efficient payment reconciliation.

Mistakes to Avoid

When conducting business with different cultures it's important to recognise and be mindful of cultural differences and being seen to exploit those of a particular background for financial gain (Chin Communications, 2024).

Key mistakes to avoid when marketing and conducting business with Chinese consumers include:

Misuse of Cultural Symbols

Icons like Mooncakes, the full moon, Jade Rabbits, and Chang'e hold deep cultural significance. It's important to ensure that these are used for the correct festive events and are not overused e.g. displaying Mooncakes for general always-on marketing materials.

Language and Translation

The big tip here is to avoid using online translation tools. These are not always accurate and don't always understand cultural nuances that may cause certain communications to be fine in one country, but off-putting or offensive in others. If you don't know someone fluent in Mandarin and English who is capable of translating, it's best to source a NAATI certified translator (the highest level of translator certification in Australia).

Getting Your Business Ready for Chinese Consumers

Are you ready to make your business more inclusive for Chinese consumers? Novatti works with businesses throughout Australia and New Zealand to ensure they're able to offer familiar and easy-to-use payment methods for Chinese consumers.

Offering acceptance of Chinese wallet payments through in-store QR codes and online payment gateways enables you to receive more frequent and higher value transactions from Chinese consumers, greater customer satisfaction and simplified payment reconciliation processes.

If you have any questions or would like to have a friendly chat, please contact us.