Source: AFP
Wearing hijabs and floor-length abaya dresses over shorts and tank tops, Chinese students at an e-commerce school show off a smartphone camera as they learn how to sell the clothes to overseas TikTok users.
It’s the final day of a two-week course on selling products overseas through the short video app — which despite being blocked in China is a platform more and more Chinese sellers are turning to.
Succeeding on TikTok requires tools to bypass internet restrictions as well as language skills, challenges that have caused an explosion in courses and consulting services.
At the school in Guangzhou in the southern province of Guangdong, an instructor holds up the Middle Eastern-inspired garments on camera and rattles off prices and size information for Muslim shoppers in the UK.
“This is chiffon, it really breathes!” she gushes in English as her protégés model the merchandise and sort through racks of satin robes under the bright studio lights.
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“We teach people which products sell best and which markets are most suitable for their current stages,” 27-year-old Wang Yaxuan, another instructor at the school, told AFP.
Guangdong is home to thousands of factories producing an amazing variety of products, from abayas to espresso machine parts to human hair wigs.
After decades of producing goods for export, Chinese companies are increasingly seeking to cut out the middlemen and market at lower prices, directly to foreign consumers.
Shein, the Chinese-founded fast fashion giant, has effectively cornered the lower Western market using this strategy, with TikTok as a key element of its sales network.
The TikTok Shop launched in the United States late last year, and e-commerce features were previously launched in places like Britain and Southeast Asia.
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A simple scroll to the “Live” tab of the hugely popular app can draw users into multiple live shopping streams within minutes.
Source: AFP
But with TikTok unavailable in China — parent company Bytedance operates its more heavily censored sister app Douyin domestically — smaller businesses are at a disadvantage.
Courses like this one at Mede Education Technology’s eCommerce school help by covering everything from the basics of creating a TikTok account to handling shipping and analyzing sales data.
Tuition starts at about 9,000 yuan ($1,244) for a six-day course.
The students, who range from factory owners to new graduates, often take courses for many foreign shopping platforms, such as Amazon and Southeast Asia’s Shopee.
Information gap
Qiu Zhouwen, a 30-year-old course participant, works for a Guangzhou cosmetics company.
Source: AFP
He says his company signed him up because they hope to eventually sell their skincare line through TikTok.
“Information is part of the cost (of doing business) now, and if you don’t have the right information for the market, your cost will be very high,” Qiu says.
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Wang, the Mede instructor, attended university in the United States and says it can be difficult for Chinese sellers to adapt to the different tastes of overseas consumers.
Chemical maker Donghua Jinlong spawned viral memes on TikTok this month after social media users overseas found absurd humor in the company’s videos about industrial-grade glycine with AI-generated voices.
There are also significant technical hurdles.
Accessing TikTok from China requires VPN software to bypass the country’s virtual “Great Firewall” while bypassing the app’s restrictions on users manipulating their IP addresses.
Source: AFP
VPNs are a legal gray area in China, with authorities occasionally cracking down while generally tolerating their use for business purposes.
TikTok is also caught up in global geopolitical tensions — the US Congress is threatening to ban the app entirely over concerns it could share personal data with the Chinese government.
Wang isn’t bothered by the prospect of TikTok being banned in the US.
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“Our students are not just selling to the US market… the current TikTok trend for Southeast Asia is also very good,” he tells AFP.
Wang says this is not the first time this situation has happened, adding that she believes the United States was trying to “take this huge cake and break up the market.”
Short phrases and clicks
Source: AFP
Mede is one of several organizations running TikTok courses, including others based in Guangdong, where authorities have put up propaganda banners promoting international e-commerce.
Those unwilling to pay high course fees can also seek advice from e-commerce veterans who have built a following on Chinese social apps by sharing TikTok tips.
Molly Zhao, a 23-year-old TikTok live streamer, has been selling products including clothes and electronics online since 2022.
Zhao, who studied in Italy and speaks Italian and English, told AFP her foreign language skills have won her live-streaming jobs paying up to 20,000 yuan ($2,760) each month.
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He regularly posts videos for domestic viewers on Douyin, covering topics such as common English phrases and how to clearly explain shipping rates.
“You have to create the atmosphere,” he explains in a video, adding that using a catchphrase can “make a deeper impression on customers.”
In another video, a smiling, dancing Zhao shares her warm-up routine before a live stream selling gems and crystals to US viewers.
“Time to earn America’s money,” he says in a deadpan caption. “I’ll put on some music to promote myself.”
Source: AFP