They provide a rich and fertile digital ecosystem of like-minded people aligned around online communities, common passions or needs, or even groups of friends or individuals. Arguably the largest social platform, they provide unique insight into the Chinese consumer and should be addressed in any comprehensive digital marketing campaign.

For Chinese Internet users, social networking has taken on a very different form than it has in Western countries. In China, the most popular form of networking may just be the traditional Internet forum system, or BBS (forum).

Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) are especially popular, in fact users can upload pictures, videos… and remain anonymous in the forum.  Some of the most popular ones, from local providers, are QZone, Baidu and 51. Chinese citizens are often creating and reading content on blogs or message boards. BBS is the “word of mouth” of China – users discuss the latest trends in automobiles, cosmetics, mobile phones, and more.  They even use them to work together to get discounts – it is not uncommon for BBS users to buy cars at the same time to get discounts.

Arguably the largest social platform, they provide unique insight into the Chinese consumer and should be addressed in any comprehensive digital marketing campaign.

80% of Chinese sites are running their own BBS and the total number of daily page views across bulletin board systems has reached over 1.6 billion, with 10 million posts published every day. The BBS is an undiscovered and untalked about Chinese Internet phenomenon.

The features of BBS can  help the social network users to exchange their ideas efficiently. On the other hand, SNS is a people-centric networking platform but BBS is a topic-centric platform. SNS is to map the social relationship in real life into the cyber space, which in my opinion is one of the reasons people love Facebook; But BBS is there for users to follow the hottest topics and expand your social experience virtually. In BBS, people go there because they are interested in the topics, and whom they communicate with does not really matter.

Is the future of BBS is in danger ?

In fact there are now in China a lot of social network very well-known like RenRen, Sina Weibo, QQ….BBS is still very famous because the Chinese Internet users enjoy a lot exchange on the forums. It is a different point of view in the Western countries.

Let’s see its future!

Here is some essential information you need in order to succeed! A payment gateway is an e-commerce application service provider service that authorizes payments for e-businesses or online retailers.

In China, you have several options to pay your products online. Below, is the payment gateway process of an end-user’s point of view:

1. First choice:  End-users can recharge their accounts and pay online

You will arrive at the Alipay payment page: (this is actually working for any Chinese payment modules http://blogen.bysoftchina.com/news/the-chinese-payment-modules/496 )

First of all, register for an Alipay account which will allow you to pay directly with it. You only can pay 500 RMB maximum by transaction.

If the funds are not enough on your Alipay account, you will be redirected on your bank account (on the right on the photo).

2. Second choice: the payment gateway which will be redirected to your bank

In this case, you need to have a valid credit/debit card. The process is a quite annoying one. For each transaction you have to enter your bank information during your first use.  After that you will have the confirmation of the payment by your Bank. It is important to take into account that the majority of the banks do not support other browsers than IE6.

3. Another choice: Quikpay, related to Alipay !

A new way to pay your product has just arrived in China! Now you can pay by Quikpay (only through Alipay). It is really easy to use; the payment gateway account is linked to the bank account. In this case, the payment process is much faster, your bank account is already saved on your Quikpay account. Then for each transaction, the money is automatically deduced from your bank account.  To be clearer, you have to register on Alipay and give your account information, after that everything will be done automatically.

Other big Internet companies such as Yahoo, Google, and eBay failed in China. With the hundreds of Groupon clones available in the country it’s definitely going to be a hard battle for Groupon.

www.gaopeng.com, the localized group-buying portal funded by Groupon and Tencent, has been launched in march 2011.  Users can sign up in one of eleven cities in China:

Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Chongqing, Tianjin, Nanjing, Suzhou.

Gaopeng provides the same services than Groupon website. Now, Gaopeng has begun accepting email registrations from local consumers, with daily deals promoting local merchants.

GaoPeng subscribers will get free daily emails alerting them to the deals.

The group has already closed 10 of the 80 offices he holds in the country. Hundreds of employees have already been fired. Once will not hurt, Groupon may suffer a failure. In fact, Lashou is its direct competitor in China.

www.lashou.com

Founded in March 2010, Lashou has quickly grown into China’s biggest group-purchasing website with an estimated market value of $1.1 billion.

The company has filed a request of IPO to the tune of $ 100 million. Irony of history: the American (Groupon) had unsuccessfully tried to buy Lashou earlier for $ 500 million. The decision of the Chinese group also acts as Groupon should also use its market entry. This operation is among the most anticipated in the high technology sector, concerned about whether the model of group purchasing is not a new Internet bubble.

If it does not yet have a network as extensive as his American counterpart, however, claims the Asian firm, 1000 daily offers, spread over 500 cities in China. Lashou employs 3,100 people in 184 cities and 46,000 merchants use its services. In late September, the site had almost 16.8 million subscribers. Groupon account for its share of 142.9 million subscribers and has a network of 79,000 partner merchants. The site is present in 145 countries and relies on more than 10,400 employees.

But the U.S. Company, which created a local subsidiary, has difficulty in entering the Chinese market, though growing. According to the China Internet Network Information Center, the number of Internet sites using the sale of bulk purchases in the country reached 42 million by the end of June, rising by 125% in six months.

Groupon therefore adopts a riskier approach but resolutely offensive. A strategy may be also able to attract current and future investors and that could help justify the impressive development of society.

Let’s see in few weeks the future of Groupon in China!

Pinterest is a pinboard-styled social photo sharing website. The service allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections. The site’s mission statement is to “connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting.” Pinterest is managed by Cold Brew Labs, a team based in Palo Alto, California. The website has proven especially popular among women. The site’s founder is Ben Silbermann, of West Des Moines, Iowa.



Huaban, the Hangzhou-based service was crafted by the startup behind Yupoo, one of the earliest and best Flickr-clone in China founded about 7 years ago.

With exact the same idea, features and even web design and layout, Huaban lets users “collect” (just like “Pin” with Pinterest) pictures by uploading local files or grabbing one from existing webpage. You can “recollect” (like Repin) whatever attractive to you and save them onto your “Huaban” (like board) and “Like” pictures “collected” by other users. Moreover, you can create boards under different categories to organize all the pictures you collected.

The potential and the value of Pinterest and Huaban model are really important on the client’s envy. In fact, every users on these social networks show directly their wishes about travel, dreams, interests, decorations. It is a windfall for the brands which want to know how to communicate to their potentials clients. By this way, the brands now can directly contact their clients and respond to their desires.

Chinese e-commerce market is picking up quickly so this social network is again an advanced in order to be closer and more precisely meet their customers.

The benefits for the brands to use Pinterest or Huaban:

-          Increase the virality of its content

-          Boost the traffic

-          Be the first on these social networks

How to use Huaban or Pinterest?

-          Request the invitation

-          Create your account

-          Create your board

-          Pin some content

-          Get some followers

What you can do on it?:

-          You can organize and share photos and videos you find on the web

-          You can browse pinboards created by others and find your way through vertical subjects

-          You can “Repin” items on your pinboard that you find on others

-          You can create groups and contribute to other groups

Now it is your turn to use it!

What is your background?

I was graduated in 2005 from Polytech’Grenoble where I have completed a master in computer network and Multimedia communication. After that I did another Master in Multimedia project management to complete my formation.

I really wanted to move in China, so I obtained a VIE in Bull China in Beijing where I was a project manager. This experience and knowledge acquired during this VIE made me able to be efficient in all tasks linked to this job.

After that I returned to France and I began to work for Bysoft as a project manager for different accounts. I really missed China so I moved to Guangzhou in BysoftChina’s office.

How would you describe your role in Bysoft China?

I am a web project manager (e-commerce and CMS projects) and I have in charge of about 15 developers to answer to the client’s needs.

What are the main projects on which you worked, in Bysoft or elsewhere?

I was in charge of different projects like: Clickjia, BuyMeDesign, Pullin China…

Could you explain the stages of a development of an e-commerce website?

At first you meet the client in order to understand his needs and to explain to him what it is possible to put in place. After being clear in the two parts, you work on the design together and with the designer, at the same time you write the functional specifications. Once design and specifications are clear validated for both sides we can start the development. After that, the quality team will review the whole website and then we can present it to the customer. The following steps consist in training, importing product, finalizing the website and validating with the client before moving online.

How the e-commerce market is developed in China?

At this stage, Chinese e-commerce is still at the initial stage and many aspects are still not perfect. Even many merchants are not still fully aware of the importance of e-commerce.

We can be sure that the next decade will be the decade of rapid development of e-commerce. We can foresee that, according to the following observations:

-        The traditional business model is restricted to an area, whereas e-commerce is not concerned by area restriction. As long as web can be found, the e-commerce is able to exist. As we know, the web is everywhere.

-          Ecommerce reduces the cost. Indeed, the transaction costs and intermediate links are reduced, therefore the transaction is possible between manufacturers and consumers Of course, this will greatly reduce the cost sales for the enterprises.

-          Less advertising costs. E-commerce advertising is carried on the web, from the multi-channel approach to the full range of coverage. Compared to traditional advertising, e-commerce requires less advertising costs.

-          Easy e-commerce. The future world is a network world. Merchants who want to have a foothold in this world can do it very simply, actually, they only need their own website. Then they can start a full range of marketing to promote their website and products.

In short, e-commerce has become a trend in contemporary business. The sooner you start e-commerce the more successful you will be.

Targeting and personalization :

-   Customer segmentation for visitors 

-      Customer segments and rule-based product relations

Site features:

-    Base and special prices by customer groups

-          Ordering by SKU

•Methods

•Entering SKU

•Uploading CSV

•Where

•In Cart

•In Widget

•In My Account

•In Admin

•Can be limited by Custom Group

•Error / Status handling

•Out of Stock, Insufficient quantity, Unknown SKU, etc -

Multiple Wishlists

Create and Manage named Wish lists Public and Private Lists

Mobile:

-          HTML5 Mobile Theme

Integration:

-          APIs

•Initial REST APIs

•Products

•Customer

•Orders •

•SOAP / XML-RPC

•Reward Points

•Order Import

-         Other features

•CMS Page hierarchy by Website*

•Backup and Roll Back*

•Auto Generation of Coupon codes for export

•Captcha support*

•New algorithm for creating layered navigation price buckets*

•Support for adding CMS hierarchy to top navigation

•EU-focused features

VAT ID validation*

UK Cookie Law approach*

Upgraded DHL integration*

•Facebook Open Graph 2.0 Integration*

-          Payment bridge 1.1

Saved Credit Cards with Authorize.Net CIM and Braintree

Card is saved on the Gateway

Use, Add, Delete, Update in Account, Cart, and Admin

Kount Integration

-      Fraud detection

-      Can be used with any PB Gateway

Payment Bridge : New Payment Gateways

•Braintree

•Authorize.net CIM

•First Data

•PSI Gate

•Card Gate Plus

•DIBS

•eWay Direct (AUS)

•Ogone

•Paybox

•Payone

•Sage Pay

•RBS World Pay

•CC Avenue

•Cybersource (API for Japan)

iQubator would like to welcome you to their second eBusiness and Entrepreneurship conference in Shanghai!

The last conference, on October 9 of 2010, was a success with many attendees asking for a new event. Also many of their potential customers have shown interest in kick-starting their presence in China with a conference to understand China better, and to build their network. And what better way is there than through a conference that is fully deductible from our service price?

Informations :

Place: Radisson New World, Peoples Square, Shanghai

Time: Full Day event, March 16th, 2012

Topics:  Entrepreneurship, E-Business regulations, E-Commerce, Cloud Computing, Reaching your customers online in China, E-Commerce Trends and two panel discussions (social network entrepreneurs and second one Seed Capital Investors)

Conference website: www.iqubator.net

Organizer website: www.iqubator.com

Price: 1850 RMB for local attendees, 270 Euro for overseas. (fully deductible from iQubator services), 500 RMB for dinner only. Special packages available, please contact events@iqubator.com

MD5 alternatives

SHA has been designed by NSA, and is being recommended by both French and US government, and a long list of other national agencies. Its functionalities are close to the MD5 and usually works the same way. It is also included natively in modern operating systems, making is more and more accessible without any special installation. For example, PHP and MySQL both support them natively.

Other hashing functions exists, such as whirlpool, ripemd, HAVAL, not counting the current finalists for SHA3, which will be known this year. Feel free to check if they have been cracked before using.

SHA comes in several flavors: there are actually 4 families of SHA : SHA-0 and SHA-1, which have been cracked, in practice or in theory, respectively. So, it is better not to use those. Then there is SHA2, which is the current version, and SHA3, which will be announced in 2012.

SHA2 comes in 4 flavors: SHA256 and SHA 512, with 32 and 64 bits of signature. SHA 224 and 384 are the same as above, but with shorter hash string, and different initial data.

In PHP and MySQL

In PHP, do not use the sha1 and sha1_file functions anymore, both in PHP and MySQL. They use the previous SHA1 that is not considered safe. Instead, you have 3 options.

PHP : hash function

With the recent versions of PHP (> 5.3), the hash extension is available and makes it for a simple drop-in replacement for md5 function.

$hash = hash(‘sha256’, $password);

The first argument hold the actual hashing algorithm, which can be chosen wisely among a lot of them : md2, md4, md5, sha1, sha224, sha256, sha384, sha512, ripemd128, ripemd160, ripemd256, ripemd320, whirlpool, tiger128,3, tiger160,3, tiger192,3, tiger128,4, tiger160,4, tiger192,4, snefru, snefru256, gost, adler32, crc32, crc32b, salsa10, salsa20, haval128,3, haval160,3, haval192,3, haval224,3, haval256,3, haval128,4, haval160,4, haval192,4, haval224,4, haval256,4, haval128,5, haval160,5, haval192,5, haval224,5, haval256,5.

http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.crypt.php

PHP : crypt function

Crypt will use the operating system underlying crypt library, so it is both safe, fast and available most of the time. When there are several hashing methods available, you have to check their availability with a constant check, and use the second argument to configure crypt.

Salt structure for SHA-256 is $5$salt$.

$hash = crypt(`bysoftpassword`, `$5$salt$`);

$hash now contains : $5$salt$N1DNkxPNGXKSVFB4axkeGbYDXafBgvlnuQsIKS2GYkA

To compare this with a previous value, use this :

If (crypt($user_input, $hash) == $password) {

echo ‘Successful authentication’ ;

} else {

echo ‘UnsSuccessful authentication’ ;

}

http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.crypt.php

In MySQL : the SHA2 function

The sha2 function in MySQL will work with 2 arguments, in reverse order from the one in PHP’s HASH function : first the data, being a column a variable, an expression or a literal, then integer, with possible values of 256, 224, 384 or 512. The default is 256, and this will be the case if you pass 0 as value.

SELECT SHA2(‘bysoftpassword’, 256);

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/encryption-functions.html#function_sha2

Prefix and suffix data

If you are still stuck with MD5 for various reasons (data legacy, company in-house recommendation that was not updated, customer request…), or even if you are moving to a new algorithm, there is still one good practice that must be used : add prefix and suffix to your protected data. Do not hash only the data that you intend to protect, but also add a string before and after, making this as long as possible.

$hash = hash(‘sha256’,’this is a prefix, going before the string’.$password.’this is a suffix, going after the string’);

Le longer, the better. This will make is more difficult for brute force hacking to find the original string, and it will be less likely that your user password is actually stored in a dictionary database : there are a wealth of database on the internet, christened ‘md5 crackers’, that hold billions of signature for words, location name, and variations: they will find the original value with a basic search. Prefix and suffix will safeguard your application from them.

MD5 still useful?

With a good prefix and suffix, MD5 is still useful. You may even use it as a decoy for your next application : if hash values have to be produced, why not apply md5 on it, and make it look like your application is actually using it ? MD5 is usually easy to recognize, by its size and character set. Though, if you already applied a SHA256 before, it will lead attackers on a wrong path, making them loose time on it. This is usually all we need.

In order to sell in China, you will need a Chinese website. From the design to the uploading you have to use codes of Chinese websites.

“A very clean design with lots of beautiful images is prohibitive for a Chinese Internet,” said Aline Conus,  E-Luxury Brands.

Here are some important points to observe:

- Flashy colors and lots of text

Yes the Chinese love anything that glitters and catches the eye! A tip bet on flashy colors like pink, orange or green!

A concrete example below:

www.onlinedown.net

www.etam.com.cn

- Pages must be very busy and do not forget the blinking elements!

As we can note on the site www.51jobs.com (job advertisements very used in China) it is extremely overloaded, which makes reading somewhat difficult.

- A very long landing page

On a Chinese website, as www.sina.com.cn, you will find complete information on the Home Page. It is very long and crowded. Just a Home page will be enough in this case?!

- A presence on social networks

The Chinese are becoming more adept to new technologies and not hesitate to buy their products on the Internet. The issue of a brand to be present on social networks is to increase significantly its reputation and visibility.

Cultural differences are always a problem to overcome when you want to create a website in China for the Chinese.

Internet use is booming in China. Brands must adapt to usage patterns of the Chinese web. The usability of a site must meet the expectations of users. It is therefore important for a brand wishes to settle virtually in China to realize its website in accordance with the design criteria previously explained.
Therefore meet these criteria and so you can satisfy the Chinese Internet users!

In four years (2006 to 2010), the number of Internet users in China has increased by 40%. A growing number of Chinese Internet users are accustomed to shopping online because of the affordable and easy to use.

Between 2006 and 2010 the number of Internet subscribers in China increased from 438m to 138M.

The market potential of retail sales on the Internet in China is growing so it is now necessary to develop delivery systems for quality and speed. There are many shipping companies in China and here is a list setting out the main and most influential.

          EMS (by China Post)

EMSChina Post Express Logistics Co., Ltd. (China Post Express Logistics) was approved by the State Council, China Post Group in June 2010. It is the oldest business mail in China which integrates logistics service provider. EMS is established in 31 provinces in China which is explained its ability and effectiveness to provide so many services to the Chinese.

China Post Logistics mainly engaged in domestic express courier, international express, contract logistics, fast goods and other services, domestic and international courier services include excellence, standards, and economic levels and different time collecting payment and other value-added services, contract logistics include warehousing, transportation and other supply the entire process chain.

China Post Express Logistics adhere to the “treasure every moment, every step carefully,” the service concept for the community to provide convenient, safe and reliable door to door delivery logistics services, is committed to being continues to lead the Chinese market, the most comprehensive service capabilities, the most globally competitive and large-scale international development of modern logistics and express companies.

ShunFeng(顺风速运)

ShunFeng, SF Express established in 1993 in Shenzhen, is a operating international and national mail delivery service for domestic and business enterprises.

As its competitors, SF Express also focuses on enhancing the quality of service, responds to the China market demand (including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan regions) and establishes a large information collection, marketing, logistics, courier and other services

For a long time, good luck to strengthen the company continued to invest in infrastructure, actively develop and introduce a high-tech information technology and equipment, and constantly improve the level of process automation, to achieve the transfer of the whole shipment process, all aspects of information monitoring, tracking, query and resource scheduling work to promote the continuous delivery network optimized to ensure a steady improvement in the quality of service, laid a customer service satisfaction, industry leading position.

The SF vision is to become the most trusted and respected company-speed operation.

“FIRST” is the English abbreviation SF core values, respectively, to take good faith (faith), integrity (integrity), responsibility (responsibility), service (service), team (team) the first letter combination.

STO (申通快递)

In 2007, STO was established in 1997, replacing Shanghai Tong Sheng Industrial Co., Ltd. as the STO Network Corporation to exercise the right to manage the entire network, with registered trademark “STO STO”, responsible for the STO network of franchisee licenses, business guidance, brand management. With the diversification of the domestic express delivery needs, the STO continues to provide traditional courier services, it is also actively exploring new business, including cooperation with Alibaba Group, C2C and B2C e-commerce logistics and distribution services, third-party logistics and warehousing services valuables channel payment collection services business in China (including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan regions) the establishment of a large information collection, marketing, logistics, express and other business organizations were received to establish a nationwide network of customer service, while , is also actively explore the international components services, electronic commerce for the country’s most important logistics providers.

“STO 2011, received the “2011 China Top 100 logistics companies brand value”, “China’s logistics industry awards year 2011 the influence of enterprise”, “2011 Best Employers in China’s logistics industry enterprises”, “2012 China Logistics Alliance vice chairman of investment and financing unit. ”

In the future, STO wants to continue to develop national brands and increase investment in order to provide more high quality services.

Below are other delivery systems in China :

YTO(圆通速递)

ZTO(中通速递)

Yunda(韵达快运)

ZJS(宅急送)