Q. What are the current statistics on Chinese e-commerce?
A: In the Asia-Pacific region, China and Taiwan are tied for third (behind Japan and South Korea) each with approximately $1.1 billion in sales. While only 7.2% of China's population is online, broadband penetration is increasing rapidly to meet demand by a new middle class. iResearch, a Chinese market research firm, estimates that China's online purchases will reach $6.5 billion by 2007, nearly a six-fold increase over 2004.
Q. What is the potential worldwide market for Chinese-speaking customers?
A. According to the
International Technology Union Chinese speakers represent the second largest linguistic group online. Currently there are 184.9 million Chinese speakers online, but the gap between English and Chinese is rapidly closing - Internet usage by Chinese speakers increased 472.2% between 2000-2007.
Q. Do most Chinese web users have broadband connections?
A. The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) reported that the number of broadband users reached an estimated 122 million out of 162 million total users- with 48.5 million of those home subscriptions.
Q. How much does it cost to create a website localized for the Chinese market?
A. Prices vary from project to project. In order to arrive at an accurate quote, we need to know the specifics about your target audience, business objectives and success metrics. We can also provide original research to answer questions for your specific industry and potential competitors.
Q. Do you provide support for double-byte Chinese characters?
A. Yes. We are experienced in dealing with both Simplified and Traditional Chinese characters. We can modify the language encoding of your web pages, system, and database to ensure Chinese audience usability. Our native Asian staff can also handle Japanese hiragana, katakana, and kanji as well as Korean hangul and hanja characters.
Q. Can you help us communicate with Chinese customers?
A. Yes. Our native Chinese team can assist you with customer emails, response translation and other text content. In most cases, the process can be completed within 24 business hours and is cheaper than hiring an in-house Japanese customer relations representative.
