HK V China: 5 hot e-commerce tips

What do customers really want from an e-commerce site and how do Hong Kong's tastes differ from mainland Chinese habits and tastes? Market research company GfK's Managing director Eliza Wong offers her 5 top tips.1. In China get noisy and don't be arrogantAlways apply a noisy background on e-commerce portal for China market. Online shoppers in China are keener on websites that are loaded with a bewildering array of content, dizzyingly colourful images and advertising; whereas a "simple and elegant layout", according to Wong, is unlikely to be accepted in China since it may seems too "arrogant" and "unreachable" to them.2. And be direct...For the China market, informative and direct content helps build trust and drive credibility for the site, while Hong Kong's online customers see the complete opposite - they prefer a website with a simplified and creative solution at both the visual and interactive level.3. Links: Less is more for Hong KongAdd more relevant referral links to online shopping portals for the Hong Kong market, less for China. According to GfK's recent study "purchase journey", Hong Kong online shoppers are less impulsive compare to China. Each purchase in Hong Kong has usually undergone a thorough price comparison across online shopping portals; while China-based shoppers purchase more impulsively.4. Hong Kong shoppers, looking not buying Hong Kong people spend a huge amount of time and effort on researching online but actually make the final purchase in-store.5. Simplified simply won't do in HKBear in mind a golden rule - Hong Kong people hate simplified Chinese. They find websites in simplified Chinese "offensive" and "disrespectful". Wong said: "One of our clients has mistakenly applied a website in simplified Chinese to apply to the Hong Kong market, that was a huge mistake". According to Wong, the website drew a slew of negative feedback such as "do you mean Hong Kong people have no consumption power?", "you are looking down on Hong Kong people" and "we are not purchasing on your site as you don't even bothered to change the language to traditional Chinese."In summing up Wong says: "For e-commerce, there is no 'one size fit all' solution, regional differences on online customers' preference are absolutely huge. Senior executives should take different tactics on their e-commerce sites for different markets."Some of our clients have dominating sales on e-commerce site in one country, they get zero in another, because they don't understand the customer preference in different regions."Eliza Wong, is the managing director of GfK Hong Kong and Taiwan, head of operation in Greater China.