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With the outbreak of the Sino-US trade war and the impact of major political challenges faced by Hong Kong, Hong Kong’s economic development has not been as stable as in previous years, and the business environment and consumption atmosphere have become more stringent, with the government announcing that the economic growth in the second quarter was only 0.5%, a negative growth of 0.3% quarter-on-quarter, and the economy is still not optimistic and conservative in the second half of the year.

While the current challenges are most felt by traditional enterprises that rely on physical operations as their main mode of survival, they can also think more carefully and take advantage of the opportunity to look ahead of the industry by maintaining and enhancing their competitiveness through digital transformation and the development of e-commerce projects.

According to the study on e-consumption in Hong Kong, the number of local consumers using e-retail is expected to continue to grow from 3.6 million in 2015 to 5.3 million in 2021111111, but the e-retail penetration rate in Hong Kong is only 23%, lagging behind Mainland China (67%), Japan (69%), the United States (78%) and Europe (81% in the United Kingdom). Virtue 73%)2.

Catch up with the digital age

In the early 2000s, the concept of using the Internet to develop e-commerce was introduced, but unfortunately there was little attention paid to the development of online business in Hong Kong, because Hong Kong’s physical business and consumption have always relied on the “geographical advantage” factor, and business and services are easily concentrated. However, in today’s chaotic situation, everyone consciously or unconsciously avoids going out to shop, preferring to use their mobile phones to order foodpanda or Deliveroo takeaway for dinner at home on Saturdays and Sundays, and browse different online stores to buy direct high-quality products, which shows the importance of online trading.

It is true that it has now passed the time of e-commerce germination, but the above data tells us that enterprises should seize the “take-off period” of e-commerce, and set their own goals and positioning for the huge potential customer base and the local network market that has not been carved up, and invest appropriate resources in it, which will help the overall business development.

In recent years, e-commerce giants such as Amazon and Taobao have given concrete insights into e-commerce and digitalisation, and have fully demonstrated the potential of the booming business opportunities in the online world, and Hong Kong enterprises should not be left behind.

Use big data to grasp consumer psychology

Hong Kong has also had several major and small economic downturns in the past, so the consumption behavior of local consumers has long matured, and now under the severe political and economic environment, local consumers’ spending attitude has changed to “smart shopping”, and they are more cautious and shrewd in the use of money. The money in hand is tight, and it is natural that they no longer blindly follow the brand star on behalf of the master or the single publicity function of the product, but shop around, so as to ensure that the CP value (cost performance) of the goods in their hands is the highest.

This situation has undoubtedly hit the overall consumer retail, but although the traditional consumption index has fallen, the data on online consumption has not followed the decline, but has risen steadily (see the example of HKTVmall below), reflecting that the “demand” still exists, as long as commercial enterprises can hit what consumers want in online marketing, they are still willing to spend money to buy your products, the key is to know how to use consumers’ big data analysis and interpretation, and then sell according to customer preferences.

Enterprises should understand that the development of e-commerce is not the same as giving up offline physical business, and the transformation of digitalization is not something that can be achieved overnight, enterprises can gradually improve the company’s website page to improve the user experience, establish good reviews on the Internet, and even establish a good online store system, so as to achieve parallel development of online and offline, and link each other.

The combination of online and offline makes use of their respective advantages to attract and enhance brand evaluation online, thereby driving offline business and increasing the competitiveness of enterprises; When encountering challenges, the co-operation of e-commerce and brick-and-mortar stores can also share and transfer some of the risks, helping enterprises to further grow in the midst of challenges.

Opportunity = Opportunity

For businessmen, despite the economic downturn, there is no shortage of opportunities, it is up to you to seize and prepare.

Leaving aside multinational e-commerce giants such as Amazon, Taobao, eBay and JD.com, HKTVmall is a good example of seizing the opportunity to develop local e-commerce. At present, HKTVmall’s daily customer orders have doubled from 2,500 in 2017 to 15,000 in 2019, and the daily order value has increased from HK$1.6 million to HK$7.5 million. HKTVmall also has more than 560,000 customers, an increase of more than three times that of 2017.

There is no doubt that HKTVmall has already taken the lead in the local e-commerce market, and other businesses want to get a piece of the pie, so they need to grasp the digital transformation as early as possible to take advantage of the take-off period of Hong Kong’s online market.

Cited Data :

1. Statista, e-Commerce Hong Kong, User in millions

2. Consumer Council, Online Retail Study 2015