How Western commerce platforms increasingly look to China for innovation

“JD.com and Tmall aren’t platforms but virtual shopping malls,” said Victoria Glanz, General Manager of Europe for the e-commerce service provider, FullJet. “We’re seeing many of their characteristics appearing on Amazon’s store initiative.”

Because Amazon lacks the holding power in the discovery phase of shopping, it launched Amazon Luxury Stores in 2020, following the success of platforms such as Alibaba’s Tmall, to effectively connect with consumers to learn and engage with brands.

European brands also have accepted transforming to a more digitised marketing ecosystem, and Glanz sees them as far behind the market and ten years behind China.

“European brands are still shy and not too pushy about being digitised,” says Glanz, “but the younger European shoppers are demanding digital immersive experience and will push the brands to adapt and change.”

But Glanz sees the biggest challenge for European brands is further down the funnel in the conversion phase, not in the discovery phase. Here, brands must adapt the China model by creating more relevant content to convince consumers to buy.

“Even on conversion content, many European brands do a pack shot on commerce. They don’t promote product features or create immersive videos. Most of the content is not designed for mobile,” says Glanz.

Glanz is skeptical that Chinese-style live commerce will become popular in Europe, and it is not just about the massive gap in consumer volume between the two markets. “In China, the platforms dictate the rules on how brands should engage with consumers, forcing all brands to adapt live commerce,” says Glanz.
 

As GM of European operations for Fulljet, Glanz is part of Baozun Group, China’s largest e-commerce service provider. Glanz is also launching Sesame, an e-commerce consultancy.

Victoria Glanz's interview is available on the Shanghai Zhan podcast, a "raw, lively, and regular debate about China tech, advertising, creativity and the intersection of it all", hosted by Ali Kazmi and Bryce Whitwam.

The podcast is now available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, Amazon Music, Xiao Yu Zho and via RSS.