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Below, we have recapped the event’s highlights and merchant tips for people who may have wanted to attend.

Succeeding in International Ecommerce through Four Considerations

Frankie, Head of International Growth for Hong Kong at Shopify, shared international ecommerce approaches using the Shopify platform. Frankie introduced the “store approach” and “domain approach” for brands that would like to target multiple markets with localized languages and currencies. A single-store approach had the benefit of simple administration, pricing, and one currency base at checkout. The multi-store approach would mean multiple independent Shopify stores that would each have their own currencies, inventories, domains, and third-party app installs.

Frankie provided examples of online stores such as Juicy and Allbirds that used single-store and multi-store approaches to achieve multicurrency offerings for online shoppers. Hong Kong merchants can now select from a range of solutions for multi-currency payments, including Shopify Payments, third-party gateways such as Stripe, or different currencies with multiple Shopify stores. Finally, Frankie mentioned common apps that merchants use to serve an international market, such as Langify for language switching, auto currency switchers, and shipping solutions such as Easyship or Zhenhub.

Strategies to Grow a B2C Brand Exclusively Online

Next, Roman Khan, co-founder of Linjer, shared how he and his co-founder Jennifer Chong built a global fashion label with tens of thousands of customers in 70+ countries. From its Hong Kong headquarters, Linjer makes sales exclusively through crowdfunding campaigns and its website, with over 70% of sales coming from North America and Europe. Roman highlighted how the company raised US$ 3 million to make collections via Kickstarter and Indiegogo, with their iconic “Tulip Bag” securing over 3000 pre-orders before launch.

Roman highlighted the unique considerations of an online-first brand, including product market fit, making sure there is a scalable supply chain, limiting SKU complexity, having a clear go-to-market strategy and understanding the fundamental formula: Sales = Traffic x Conversion Rate x AOV.

Using Crowdfunding Campaigns as a Marketing Platform to Go Global

Barron Zuo, Senior Manager for Strategic Program at IndieGoGo, also joined the event to share how IndieGoGo has helped from brands from the Greater China region launch or go global. Barron shared how the crowdfunding platform can be used not only for fundraising, but customer discovery, market validation, raising brand awareness, and market entry.

For new consumer electronics, the platform is a way to raise capital for manufacturing through consumers who have made pre-orders. For established global brands, IndieGoGo can also be used to do market validation and customer discovery, which can contribute to consumer insights that refine the final product. Finally, Barron shared how products such as Aurora & H1 and Omnicharge from China, Luna Moon in Taiwan, and Moka Cam in Hong Kong leveraged the IndieGoGo platform to establish credibility and reach audiences in the US and European markets, creating global brands overnight.

Connecting Ecommerce Service Providers with Hong Kong Merchants

As over 60% of registered attendees for the Shopify Meetup are already selling online, we have introduced Hong Kong-based ecommerce service providers marketplace to help merchants improve online customer experiences, while simplifying operations and logistics. Alex from Wave Commerce shared case studies of how Shopify has been used by global companies like Nixplay for B2B sales, Mayarya for global fashion retail, Evomotion for a global product launch, and ReelCosmetics for localizing a UK brand into a Chinese market.

Hong Kong-headquartered AsiaPay introduced their service offerings as a TTP, ISO, and PF payment service provider in 13 countries, 12 languages, and 144+ currencies.

Zhenhub, showed how their logistics service can provide seamless online store integration for world wide tracking and inventory management.

Finally, Cloudbreakr shared how their AI-optimized platform helped brands find benchmarked influencers in 7 Asian countries to promote their products through the most suitable channels.

After the event presentations, the attendees stayed behind to speak to solutions providers and ask follow-up questions to presenters about growth strategies that were relevant to their target markets.

If you would like to discuss growth opportunities for your ecommerce brand, please get in touch!

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