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Simon Young, host of the Digital China Podcast, and Justin Zhang, founder of SkyKiwi

Welcome to the episode 1 of the Digital China Podcast! I’m your host Simon Young from syENGAGE.

Digital China is for western marketers with a Chinese audience. China presents unique challenges to marketers because of these 3 barriers:

1. Language – there is zero similarity between Chinese and English
2. Culture – in 5000 years of history, there’s very little crossover between China and other countries
3. Technology – our familiar channels like Facebook and Twitter are all blocked in China. In their place is an array of unfamiliar channels.

Episode 1: What is a Daigou

For our first episode I talked with Justin Zhang about the emerging trend of direct consumer selling, known in mandarin as 代购 (dàigòu). Justin is founder of New Zealand’s largest Chinese website SkyKiwi,

In July 2016, SkyKiwi held a conference for Daigou in Auckland, New Zealand, attracting over 900 attendees.

Daigou Conference, July 2016

New Zealand and Australian marketers are finding a larger and larger proportion of sales is coming from daigou. Daigou are individuals who are sometimes making a full time living out of buying local and selling back to China via social media platforms.

First seen as a threat by brands, daigou are increasingly seen as an opportunity. But how should brands best engage?

In this interview, Justin explains exactly what a daigou is, and how brands should look at this new opportunity.

Got feedback? Please comment below or email engage@syengage.com.

About Simon Young