How do brands and products Made in China go global? This is a question that the two co-founders of Ye Consultants Ltd., Konstantinos Chatziioannou and David Valle del Barrio have been thinking about since the epidemic. Chatziioannou said: “We should not only assist customers to successfully market their products to overseas markets, but also actively use marketing tools to help Chinese brands reshape their own value, so that Chinese manufacturing can flourish.”
Ye Consultants Ltd. is a company registered in Hong Kong and operating in Shenzhen. It provides a series of services such as professional and international marketing and promotional content creation to Chinese and foreign companies, for different consumer electronic products.
Chatziioannou from Greece and Valle del Barrio from Spain first met in Barcelona, known as the “Flower of Europe”. At that time, Chatziioannou was still attending university in Barcelona. The two connected, their interests and hobbies are similar, and they love languages and different cultures. From good friends to partners, they have known each other for more than 16 years and have become tacit partners.
“In the beginning, the reason for coming to China was because of the trend of China’s economy and the infinite potential hidden in the electronics manufacturing industry,” Valle del Barrio said. “I immediately shared this idea with my friend Chatziioannou, and asked him to consider coming to China to work.” With enthusiasm, the two decided to register a company in Hong Kong after accumulating several years of work experience in Shanghai.
Chatziioannou told reporters, that China has become a powerful industrial production country. The market share of Chinese companies engaged in electronic technology and exporting products in European countries has been rising continuously, reflecting the improvement of China’s manufacturing technology and overall strength. At present, electronic products made in China are winning in the global market with high quality, large quantity and low price.
During the epidemic, they launched Content2Sell.com platform and online service sales increased by nearly 60%.
Faced with the impact of the epidemic, on the one hand, China’s manufacturing industry will cause short-term production lag due to delays in resumption of work and slowing circulation; on the other hand, the impact of consumption, services, and exports will also spread to the manufacturing industry, reflecting a manufacturing decrease in business orders and inventory. Chatziioannou said: “The negative impact on China’s manufacturing industry at the beginning of the outbreak means that we are unable to promote new projects and launch new products. Therefore, the sales of Ye Consultants Ltd. are also declining.”
However, by paying attention to market demand in time, listening carefully to customer feedback, and effectively solving customer pain points, Ye Consultants Ltd. has transformed and innovated their online services.
In order to reduce unnecessary meetings with customers during the epidemic, the company’s self-developed Content2Sell.com business platform, allows customers to upload product-related materials communicate with customers online, and produce effective multimedia marketing content.
“Instead of letting customers rack their brains to come up with a marketing content that suits their products, it is better for us with a professional background to think, research and consider all aspects of the product, and understand its design principles, usage methods and manufacturing opportunities,” Chatziioannou Said.
The reporter learned that Chatziioannou and Valle del Barrio had professional backgrounds in product marketing and product technology at home and abroad before establishing the company. Among them, Valle del Barrio has been responsible for product design and graphic design in the Netherlands, Italy, China and other consulting companies, and has led and participated in different engineering projects.
“People who do product marketing need to know a little bit of technology, so that they can be more comfortable when creating product content,” Valle del Barrio said. “Therefore, my advantage lies in being able to easily communicate electronic products with technical complexity and understand them at once.
At the same time, the Content2sell.com business platform provides customers with transparent pricing, standardized, one-stop shop content creation services, including multilingual content translation, copywriting, flyer and brochure design, packaging design, photography, videos and animation.
After the establishment of the Content2sell.com online platform, the order sales volume of Ye Consultants Ltd. has increased by nearly 60% over last year. Under the normal situation of epidemic prevention and control, the pace of the company’s team work has obviously become faster and stronger. The reporter saw that in this simply decorated and brightly lit studio, the staff were facing the computer, proficiently operating various post-production special effects software, and working without distraction.
“Content2sell.com can reduce the offline negotiation time between customers and the company. We maintain close contact with customers almost 24 hours a day through the chat platform to ensure that the content we produce meets the marketing needs of customers. For those customers who cooperate with us for the first time, they are often pleasantly surprised by the quality and efficiency of our work.” Chatziioannou is very proud. “Usually we will complete all multimedia content production except for videos and 3D animations in less than a week.”
“The increase in orders have caused the team to work a lot of overtime. Overtime on weekends has become the norm. For this reason, I am also grateful to everyone for their hard work with us,” Chatziioannou smiled. “In order to relax everyone, we went to KTV to sing two weeks ago. We sang both Chinese and English songs. We all had a great time.” In addition, the reporter found that a massage sofa was placed in the corner of the studio, Chatziioannou said. It is purchased for the team to take a short break and relax their muscles.
Speaking of why he came to start a business in Shenzhen, Chatziioannou said: “Shenzhen is the first place for new consumer electronics products in the world. There are many talented industrial engineers and designers, as well as strong industrial productivity. The new products they launch are increasing day by day. The electronic innovation technology may be unique in the world.”
Chatziioannou said that China’s manufacturing itself is diversified. There are areas with low added value and areas where technology is already leading. Manufacturing capabilities need to have very rich technical connotations. This is also the reason why many international brand manufacturers cannot do without Chinese manufacturing.
At present, Made in China is an indispensable part of the global industrial chain. It has a stake in many international brands and shares the same glory and shame. Just like Apple and Foxconn, it seems that no one can do without.
For Chinese enterprises, it is a long-term process to transform the brand image from “low cost, low price” to “high value, world-class”. With the globalization of the market and the in-depth development of the Internet economy, more and more consumers’ requirements for product quality, are already based on international standards. Therefore, Chinese manufacturing companies must use new perspectives and strategies to face the opportunities and challenges to better integrate China and the world.
