Website brings brands from abroad to Chinese consumers

Haixuan.com of IZP Co, a high-tech company in Beijing's Zhongguancun, works as a bridge between overseas brand owners and customers in China.

"We built Haixuan.com as a platform to help foreign enterprises get access to the Chinese market easily and fast," said Luo Feng, CEO of IZP, which deals with big data and e-commerce.

The website, which launched in May, connects brand owners and authorized distributors from more than 15 countries with customers in China.

It covers 5,000 brands and 100,000 types of overseas goods including clothes and bags, cosmetics, food and wine, home appliances and digital products and office supplies.

"Big data allows us to help enterprises market their goods efficiently," explained Yi Rangyue, CEO of IZP's business platform company, when interviewed by Beijing Daily.

IZP was set up in 2008 and now cooperates with 21 telecom operators from Europe, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific regions, and hundreds of thousands of website owners to collect user data.

It uses the data to gain a deeper insight into the customer behavior, habits and preferences.

By doing so, IZP can further help overseas brand owners and authorized distributors find target customers and promote their brands and products to them.

Luo said this was Haixuan.com's advantage compared to other cross-border e-commerce platforms in China.

IZP improved its logistics services to compete among Chinese cross-border e-commerce businesses including Taobao and JD.com.

The company spent 320 million yuan ($52.3 million) to build its bonded warehouses in southwest China's Guizhou province.

"Overseas brand owners and distributors may store their goods in our bonded warehouses and they don't need to pay duties until their goods are bought by Chinese customers," said Luo.

The warehouses mean Chinese customers can receive overseas goods within five days of buying them online, compared to the typical 20-day wait for goods shipped from abroad.

IZP took another step to improve its logistics service in October when it bought Parma International Airport in Italy's Parma city.

The company plans to run nonstop flights from the airport to its freight cities in China.

Once the flights start, goods from European countries including Italy, France and Germany will fly to China directly and will take about a week to get to Chinese customers at a much lower cost.

IZP has its own cross-border settlement platform, Globebill Co, which works with 168 overseas banks from more than 70 countries and regions.

Customers in China can use China UnionPay, Visa, Mastercard and JCB cards on Globebill to buy overseas goods through Haixuan.com.

Statistics from the Development Research Center of the State Council showed that Chinese customers bought overseas goods worth more than 70 billion yuan online in 2013.

"China is a very attractive market for overseas companies but most of the companies lack good access to the Chinese market," said Sun Bo, marketing director of Haixuan.com.

IZP signed a deal with British luxury goods dealer Visage in June when Premier Li Keqiang visited the United Kingdom with a delegation of Chinese entrepreneurs.

IZP and Visage agreed to help British brands get quick and easy access to Chinese customers through IZP's overseas e-commerce platform, Haixuan.com.

In April 2013, IZP and SFR, France's second largest telecom carrier, signed a deal for "French products to China".

The deal was expected to help French enterprises easily enter China's market at a lower cost.

"Within three years, some 150,000 French companies will be featured on haixuan.com," said Luo, in an interview in September 2013.

Contact the writers at wangsujuan@chinadaily.com.cn and songmengxing@chinadaily.com.cn