hybris AG, a leading international multi-channel commerce platform vendor, hopes to ride China's online consumption boom by providing e-commerce software for business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) companies.

Burghardt Groeber

As an increasing number of multinational corporations are eyeing China's explosive e-commerce market, hybris is poised to help clients achieve multi-channel sales, which is regarded as "imperative" to a successful online business, said Burghardt Groeber, vice-president of hybris Asia Pacific, during an exclusive interview with China Daily at the China E-commerce Expo held in Shanghai on Oct 16.

The Munich-headquartered firm has released a simplified Chinese version of its multi-channel suite software, which can provide organizations that wish to open business in China a seamless solution across all business channels, including online, mobile and social networks.

This unified platform provided by hybris manages all aspects of business, from brand engagement to shopping experiences to financial transactions, and provides streamlined content authoring, management, content delivery, and optimization capabilities. Thus, businesses will be able to adapt Web and mobile merchandising to the demands of the global marketplace in a short time.

"Organizations often delay multi-channel commerce implementations due to time and resource concerns, because these projects require a broad range of relevant knowledge and expertise, a large team, business requirements and technology planning," said Groeber, a veteran of the software industry.

Foreign fast-fashion brands, which provide affordable versions of new styles that can be brought from the catwalk into stores in two weeks at the shortest, are tapping into China's e-commerce. A drive to win new customers online and in emerging markets helped Spain's Inditex, owner of the Zara brand, deliver a glamorous first-half balance sheet in 2012.

Zara's competitor H&M, a Swedish brand, is also beefing up its online arm as the company celebrated the opening of its 100th store in Nanning, capital of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region in September. Currently, H&M runs a Chinese-language website, which only displays merchandise and does not support online purchase.

The idea of a Chinese online business is not the same as setting up an operation in China, Groeber noted. "Sometimes certain vendors have large volumes of shipments and revenues generated from the Chinese market on a daily basis, but they don't even have a Chinese operation," he said.

But as many foreign vendors are poised to drum up interest from local consumers, they have to tap into the local market, he said, making it inevitable to joust with local e-commerce rivals. The main aspect to focus on is how to make the brand's e-commerce experience truly relevant and innovative, he said.

For example, foreign fashion brands should integrate fast search functions, use complex promotions, and more importantly, launch China-specific products that are unique only to the original sites.

As the e-commerce segment starts to mature, fewer Chinese consumers now cite cheaper prices as the major reason they go online. An increasing number of consumers now are motivated by shopping convenience and product variety.

"What we are seeing is the growing tension between an authorized site on Tmall and the company's original site. If merchants can sell certain items only through the original channel, there will be less dependency on Tmall in the long run," Groeber said.