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Thomas Moen og Thomas Skavhellen deler våre tanker rundt netthandelens dynamiske verden. Vi tror en ukentlig oppdatering er nødvendig for deg som driver netthandel. Denne podcasten vil ha en mer uformell tilnærming enn tidligere podcast-prosjekter, og sikter mot en enklere og mer direkte dialog om aktuelle temaer innen netthandelssektoren. Vi prater også om annonsering på Meta (Facebook/Instagram), Google, Snapchat, TikTok med mer. Det kommer ut en ny episode hver onsdag.
You know the startup adventure in the nordic she did startup adventures in the us i've visited you a few times in new york where you're like us and new york is the best and we met a few months back down in spain in marbella in the one of the yearly conferences i visit there and now all of a sudden you are just all china you're like china is It's the place to be.
This is an exciting market. And after your little chat with me, I was super inspired, but I was also very curious. And that's why I wanted to have this chat today, because I really want to understand what happened going from Nordics and the US to China.
I think it's a big leap. So what's going on? Why is China so exciting these days?
I think there are many factors to it, but a bit of a background on that, like, you know, when we are building businesses here in the Nordics, It's also either if you're like building businesses in Norway or in Sweden or in Denmark, you know, all these people that are like, OK, let's let's go into Sweden as the next market or let's do the Nordics and so on.
And then we all are prompted of like having this big dream that if you make a hit song in America, then your business is going to explode. And I was the same. I was like people were like, Martin, you need to go to the US.
It's the biggest market. And it is. I mean, don't get me wrong.
It is. So to your point, I moved over to New York the first time, 2013, launching a photo app and everything and so on. And I remember when I came to America the first time when I was 19, I was like, holy moly, mother of God.
You know, when you're like getting neck pains because everything's so big and you're like, oh, my God, little Stockholm and Oslo and Bergen and Göteborg. You're like, it's not even suburbs to the city. And you like feel that the world is such a big oyster.
And you get that going. And I've been doing, I launched three different businesses and set up like operations and everything in the US, in LA and in New York. And it's a massive country.
It's different and so on. It's, yeah, it's just scale, right? Then a lot of things happened in business world.
I sold the company, whatever, whatever. A friend of mine reached out to me that lived in Shenzhen for 20 years, also working in the space that we were working in. And he was like, Martin, have you ever been to Mainland China?
I was like, I've been to Hong Kong. He's like, yeah, but Hong Kong, Martin, is not China. He's like, if you have time, I want to invite you.
Come over here. And I know that you're going to just explode in your head. So I did.
And three years ago, it was the first time I went to Shenzhen. And I got the same, you know, when I was 19 in New York the first time? Now I was like 14.
an old grumpy guy coming to Shenzhen. And I became 19 again. And I was like, holy mother of Lord, this world.
Because the problem is that we are so thought and like so propagandized, or what's the word, here in the West about what China is. And that's the devil. And I think that the US is very good of building that like fear of that.
But I wanted to go there with a blank mind. And I went there. And honestly, Thomas, you met me a couple of months ago here.
And you're like, what pill are you on? Yeah, you were beaming. Yeah, yeah.
But it's the truth. So in the last two years, we started to set up businesses there. We had some friends over.
And I'm just, the thing is, when you understand the Chinese, when you understand their internet, their infrastructure, the supply chain and everything. And like I said to all my friends, it's game over. We don't have a chance.
Okay, so it felt like it was 19 again. But I mean, why? You said all the American propaganda kind of have created a certain image of China that's not accurate.
But what is it with China that makes it so exciting or different? Or what kind of opportunities do you see there? Once again, it's a palette of things, right?
I think it's, first of all, I mean, China has always been considered as like producing. products to the lowest price with bad quality and just like you know send it out all around the world people are coming they're buying resell it and so on and so on i think that is the first thing that is changing.
Back in the 60s and 70s, made in Japan became the quality stamp of what's good products, right? Made in Germany is still today. If it's made in Germany, then pay a gazillion for it because it's German family crafted.
What struck me was the level of technology embracement and how they're operating, how their internet, how their infrastructure, how people are connected. that their phones are just... different device in China than it is for us, right?
Because their internet, they just jumped over computers and everything. They went straight to phones and they built everything around that. I also, I think it's from the Chinese people's perspective as well.
I think the curiosity, the high demand on work ethic and doing good things, I think I'm very impressed by that. I think that the Chinese culture and society is something that I find very fascinating. So it's a mix of everything, I think.
And I think that everyone's talking about China speed. And I don't know if you heard that before, that like wording that. But it's fascinating how quick things go there.
And I think that's from a political kind of way of they like, they have a long term plan with short execution of thinking. And it's just, it just goes so fast. Like I can be in Shenzhen for like six months and I come back and I'm like.
uh what happened here they're just so fast with everything and that gets me super excited okay so that's where it's like to take a simple thing it's like oh my god yeah i mean i i remember your frustration around like legals and processes in the u.s on how long everything takes so what i'm hearing is that operating in china is as much more fast paced than it is in in for example the right there.
Yeah, and it comes with good and bad, right? And I think that my biggest frustration, like even launching a campaign in America, it's more legal thinking. And, you know, if you've done it, you know that it's just like a nightmare.
And don't get me wrong. There are a lot of legal things in China that are super, super important. The difference is that they are so eager to prove, to show.
that they're good, that they, it's just fascinating. I think it's so fun. That's cool.
Yeah. And I haven't been to China yet, but after kind of hearing you talking about it, I definitely want to kind of go and experience it for myself. So, but what you're saying is that first of all, just visiting it and seeing the buildings, the infrastructure, how people are operating and communicating was completely different from what you have been told by movies and games and etc that kind of the world is right so people are are we are are we underestimating the china as a whole do you think i think this is one of the biggest problems i think that we have here in the western world i ask 10 of my friends name three big cities in China.
They're like, name three big companies. from China. Name five.
Name three. They're like, BYD. Nowadays they can, right?
Three years ago, name the three biggest actors in China. It's like one of the biggest movie industry in the world. Name three biggest hip-hoppers or artists.
Name one river in China. I think that the ignorance of our part of the world of not understanding being curious learn that is is one of the biggest threats for our part of the world to be honest because we're so ignorant yeah when you talk to chinese uh entrepreneurs young people they're like name what's the name of the president in you the united states they're like yeah nowadays it's fairly easy to know because he's everywhere but the aspen american what's the what's the you was the top leader in China, named three politicians in China.
Yeah. They don't know. And it's the same thing here in the Nordics, to be honest.
I ask all my friends. They're like, she was a wazoo. No, no, I have no idea.
And this is the most frustrating. Why should I care about China? Yeah.
And they're like, why? I'm like, okay. And I think that this is something that, you know, because a lot of people say to me, they're like, Martin, are you like working for somebody?
Are you paid off? to the chinese get to you and made you a luck in the bathroom yeah yeah they're like have you been on a brainwash camp somewhere because they brainwash everyone there and they're surveilling everything and so on i was like uh what do you mean it's just I'm fascinating on how wrong picture we have of that world.
Yeah. And this is why, and then when we have friends coming over there, they're like, this can't be true. Like I went there with my fiance the first time.
And I mean, Hong Kong, you land in Hong Kong because like Shenzhen is not many European cities have connections even except Brussels to Shenzhen still. So you come to Hong Kong, which is like a mix of London, New York. china strange whatever then you come into shenzhen and you're like i remember her she was she's like uh martin holy what like do you do you buy a coffee in the park and a drum comes and deliver it and i was like yeah welcome to the future it's like and and i think but but but but that is also like the ignorance of business um culture yeah doing doing business with Americans, with British, even the differences of business culture doing deals between a Norwegian, a Dane and a Swede.
I've done it. It's doing business in China compared to doing business in the US. It's also very different.
I think the ignorance is a massive problem, to be honest, Thomas. Yeah. I'm fascinating how people are just like, ah, who cares about that?
I was like, do you... You don't care about the people that run the world. Is that what you're saying?
That is fascinating. Okay, so that's kind of how... One thing is that you want people to open their eyes and maybe go experience China and kind of pay more attention and more focus on that market, right?
But my audience are... entrepreneurs, they're within e-commerce, usually within the small restraints of Norway or the Nordics or something like that. What kind of opportunities, very broadly, would you say lies for entrepreneurs that take a look at China?
What kind of opportunities should they be looking for or could they seek out? I think it's interesting to see the differences of Because, you know, all the platforms that we're working on right now, the Instagrams, the meta platforms, the Google platforms, like the YouTubes of the world or so on. For me, I think they're more copying the Chinese apps nowadays than they're innovating themselves.
Yeah. I think that is just one thing. If you download a number of Chinese apps and get on them, you will see that it's quite different.
I think as an e-commerce player and like my company. was acquired by a live shopping streaming company because they're like, yeah, it's exploding in China. The thing is video commerce and social commerce in China is very different in five, six, seven different things.
And not only that you like should sell live on an Instagram, right? Yeah. There are so many great success stories of Nordic companies doing great live streams and so on.
They are building their like... infrastructure differently. But the thing is, what the Chinese are so well in doing, and this is, I think that, you know, everyone, Temu, Shane, and so on.
But what can we learn from them? Like, they got every consumer addicted of shopping things. Yeah.
And it's like, what are they doing? And then when you see how they bundle, how they structure, how they work with things and so on, how the group shopping is becoming like this, this, this, how they work with discounts and so on. For me, it's fascinating.
I've been studying it a lot now in the last three years, and I still found it just like, it's just so different than I think that just, I would be a small, or what I said to all my friends that have, your clients, your audience. Yeah. Instead of trying to understand why creative assets are not optimized correctly, on Facebook and everything and so on, try to learn more from Chinese behaviors of how online audiences are buying things.
Because Shein and Temu and a number of other apps have already proved that their sales psychology is working on the Western consumer. Everyone hates it because before, remember, everyone looked at Amazon are the best optimizing platforms in the world. Like, yeah, I wonder where they got all the inspiration from.
It's not the innovation director. I think that I have been many times in China, but that's maybe just me. I think that's a very good point there, is to really try to understand what works there and the dynamics of that.
And see things in a much broader picture than just talking about a specific channel or a specific behavior. Me also, I started kind of going down the rabbit hole after we talked about in terms of how China are. governing innovation and how they created the electric cars kind of industry and everything like that.
And they have been serving the Western market very well. And we have basically given them all the feedback that they need in terms of how can they affect us or inspire us to make purchases and kind of want their product. So it makes total sense to...
to try to mimic more of how they're doing their marketing etc um in terms of them more specifically because again i i'm gonna go down there at the start of of next year you said like they're in a mobile they skipped the the laptop uh and they're in like the mobile world now in terms of payments and in terms of how people shop etc etc could you like explain to us lay people a little bit about how they do that in their everyday lives?
I think that the term that everyone is using here in the West is called super apps. So Alibaba, Tencent, they have WeChat, they have their own special apps. I think that what is fascinating for me is that I don't know how many years it took.
I still don't actually think that you can do it properly. You can click on one ad on Instagram and it's instantly ordered. and being on its way to your home.
Honestly, I don't know. It's not working like that. Not here in Spain, for sure.
They cannot even deliver a package here. So believe me. Same in Norway.
No, no, no. It's just like, it's unbelievable how hard it is to deliver a package. I think it's the simplicity and coming back to like what speed is and efficiency and so on.
On their apps, you literally go in, you search or you go in on a mini program or whatever. You find a product, you click it. You don't think of that even more.
It's on its way. And then in some cities, they have this little company called MateOne, which is when you go to Shenzhen, you will see that there is these electric scooters everywhere with guys with yellow helmets. They look super cool, like lemmings.
But it's just delivery guys just running around. And I think they have like two plus million of these delivery guys just in a couple of cities. that like if If I buy something, for example, a cable to my podcast rig or something, and if it takes more than two hours to get it, then I'm like, no, I'm going to take someone else.
I want to have it in 20 minutes. And it's just crazy the expectations what the Chinese consumers are having to choose where to buy from, because it's an endless ocean of options of buying from. So it's like, who delivers the best?
Who is the quickest? Who's this, this, this? So there's so many.
other things that come into consideration. And coming back to those apps, is that, I mean, on WeChat, you do everything on WeChat. I don't know, like, name something that you don't do on WeChat.
I think that you run your business there, you order food, you talk to your school teachers, you order cars, name whatever. It's its own little infrastructure, internet. And then you go over to Ali, and then, I mean...
It's fascinating when you go in a restaurant here in Shenzhen, you will see it as well. It's like you go in, you like order and then like the food comes out, you eat and you go and done. Yeah.
Like what happened here? I was like, oh, we go. Everything is paid for.
It's like, it's all good. It's like, and I was like, who paid? What happened?
I was like, okay, let's go. But then with so many choices and so much focused on pricing and convenience, especially in the West here, we preach a lot about brand building and loyalty and all that stuff. How does that work in China in terms of marketing and building brands and creating loyal customers, etc.?
I think this is, I really don't want to say that I'm an expert in this more than what I've been learning in the last couple of years. couple of years but the interesting thing is it's been price and product and quality that has been main thing right if i can buy if i can buy this thing for this for same price it's better it's i don't care what logo or like how the ASMR feeling is with Apple when you're like, oh, you open up and everyone's like, you know, that was true two years ago, three years ago.
And I think the EV car industry is the perfect example of that because before they were like, yeah, just ship all of these like cars going out. That's going to be good. We lower them on price and so on.
They shipped tons of cars to the West world. Nobody was buying them because there was nothing. Then like, what's missing?
Oh, design, brand, packaging, belonging, community. all those kind of things that comes with a premium price. So they're like, okay, how hard can it be?
Bring in a lot of the white monkeys, as they call them, and just let's learn design and packaging and everything from them. And I think this is also coming back to that ignorance thing. We believe that Chinese don't understand and respect that.
Yeah, maybe a couple of years ago. Now, I would say when you see on Chinese clothing brands and everything, They are already so good at this. When you go into like Huawei concept stores or, I don't know, Nio or call it whatever, Oppo.
It's like, yeah, the Apple concept store. That's cute. They are understanding it.
The Chinese consumer. I mean, what will differentiate you in a brand when the competition and the price is the same? You need to bring something else.
And it's already happening. It's not that they are like, no, it's only price. No, no, no.
It's already happening, especially quality. Like made in China today, in many, many, if you go into many industries, you cannot say that made in China or made in Taiwan is not quality anymore. Those days are over.
It's just over, it's hard to say. That's true. So, you know, we started seeing more and more Chinese brands reaching into the Nordics and the US and the Western market.
um do you think or is it any kind of are u.s brands or nordic european brands starting to also establish themselves and focus on china or still that just like people are totally ignoring that that big market i think that of course many of the biggest brands are there everyone is trying everyone but i think that coming back to it and what i what i learn every day from my friend that lived there for 20 years he's a swedish guy by the way but I guess more Chinese now than in Swedish, is that it comes back to this ignorance kind of thing.
They don't do the homework. They believe that like, oh, as long as we say that we're made in Norway or made in Scandinavia, everyone will buy it. Yeah.
I mean, still the Nordics, Sweden and Norway, we all have a very, very built in like DNA in what's coming from our countries, right? Yeah. But it's not enough nowadays.
It's not enough. And also... Like, it was so funny.
We talked with a client the other day and they're like, oh, we want to spend $10,000 a month going into China on ads. I was like, China is like four times bigger. No, three, four, three and a half, four times bigger than America.
What will get you in America for $10,000 in ad spend on say Meta? Even in Norway monthly, that would probably not give you. So.
That's also is that people believe that, yeah, they are having slavery salaries. So you can pay like 200 euros a month for a social media manager. And it's like, no, that's not true.
I don't like that. Average GDP in the top tier one cities is higher than most of European top cities. So that is not true.
Sophistication, all of those kind of things that we still believe how it is in China. What it was 10 years ago, it's 10 years ago in Europe, it's still the same. Yes, it is.
I worked with Influencer Marketing in 2016. We set up a new agency right now. Have anything changed with Influencer Marketing in 10 years?
Nothing. Honestly, it's the same boring thing. If things have happened in China in the last 10 years, you can't even...
Folk is like, I don't even remember what was here five years ago, Martin, because everything's changing so quickly. Coming back to your question, which was like, are a lot of brands. But this is the same thing.
Like, name the top five biggest athlete brands in America. And people say like, yeah, it's Adidas, Nike, you know, Under Armour, the regular suspects. Yep.
And then you go to Americans or Norwegians and say like, okay, name the top five list of aesthetic. brands in China. Yeah.
And then we'll probably, yeah, it's Adidas, Nike, because, you know, they're on the world. But then when you say like NiNing, Anta, and you name drop those, they're like, what is that? It's like, oh, okay.
And just so you know that Fila, even Fila, I don't even remember the Fila. I had Fila ship 15. I bet you have.
Fila is nothing. Of course, they're revamping because they got a lot of investments on. Fila is a bigger brand in terms of market share in China than Nike and Adidas.
So if you see their top 10 list. Then like Fila is actually a bigger brand when it comes to sales and market share than those brands. And then it's like, oh, why is that?
No, because I think it's a cultural thing that the Western brands are missing. And they're underestimating the Chinese consumer. They're underestimating the speed, how they are changing and the demands that they're having.
And I think that's it. With that said, I don't. the last adidas show in shanghai during fashion week like a couple of weeks ago it was maybe one of the coolest thing i ever seen and it was it was chinese adidas it was not adidas and it was freaking cool that it was just like okay they're serious so like they understand in sweden we had we had you know hm just being closed down in one day in china because of some things yeah Good night.
But it is what it is. And you can call it communism, whatever we call it here. I don't know.
If that is communism and not the free world, I rather want to go with that type of governance and political way of working than the fucking circus in America and corrupting, buying yourself in, being a politician from day one. And as long as you get money from all your billionaire friends. then you are a politician and you become a president.
I mean, yeah. Okay, so let's, you know, me, the audience, we now listen to you. We believe that China is something we should pay more attention to and be more respectful for and be more curious about.
What are the first logical steps towards that? First of all, it's a mindset thing. I think that is the biggest problem.
I think that Folke said it once. He's like, Martin, I've had so many people here in the last 20 years coming here. They're all already so filled up with barriers that they cannot see it.
When you came, you're like, oh, shit, what a beer. They're like, yeah, this is the biggest beer brand in the world. I was like, oh, shit, never heard of it.
Open up your mind and stop thinking of all the things that we've been learned. I think that's a very important thing. If you have the possibility, if you have the possibility, travel there.
Don't go to Hong Kong because Hong Kong is not, it's getting more and more, but it's not. Hong Kong is its own little crazy world. If you have the possibility, you're going, you're talking like, Martin, can we set up?
Like, can we go? Can we meet? Can we bring a team?
Can we do? Go there and experience and see it yourself. You would be amazed that you go to Paris and it's.
Fucking dirt everywhere, shit, old cars, whatever, fallen. You will see when you get to Shenzhen. It's like 70% electric.
It's almost like Norway when it's like 70% electric cars, clean, super, no security, safeness. It's just amazing. Go there.
Another thing, start to study what the Chinese internet is. Download WeChat. Download a number of...
top 10 apps, see what it is. And then there are people that have been there a lot. And I understand because I was super afraid when I was going there in Vingta.
Not many Chinese speaks English like we are used to. You have no idea what the signs are saying. So you're pretty lost when you don't have your guide or something.
It's a possibility to find and source people. There are probably a lot of Norwegian people that are living in, maybe some of the people that are listening here, they're like, oh, finally a guy that talks well about China from the Nordics because I've been living here for 10 years and I don't want to even say that I live in China and Norway because they will kill me.
But that is what I said. I think it's mindset. If you have the possibility, go there, but start to read up on what's happening in that country.
Because what you're reading right now is a lot of propaganda and it's a lot of this, this, this. And it's just not the truth. Very good.
So I'm going to leave a link to your LinkedIn profile below in the description. But you are also updating. I'm getting more and more of my stuff just from reading and following you.
So I think that also makes sense for people to kind of start reading up a little bit. Okay, but cool. I'm super excited to go to China.
I think This chat and also just seeing how you were beaming a couple of months ago down in Spain there, it's definitely something I really haven't paid attention to or focused on at all. And it is like somebody taking your blinds off and like, okay, I can see more clearly now. So I'm super curious.
So Martin, thank you so much for chatting with us. We'll have to do an update in a year or two and see how the market has evolved. But thank you for your time.
Thank you for having me. And see you soon, buddy.