Web Presence In China Launches In Conjunction With Australia-China 2.0 Trade Mission

June 29, 2011 - PRLog -- Web Presence In China opened its Australian office on June 24, 2011, the same day the Hon Kevin Rudd MP, Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, gave a speech launching the Australia-China 2.0 Trade Mission, a government effort to help Australian entrepreneurs sell products and services to China.

Web Presence In China is now in Australia to help domestic businesses profit from China’s mushrooming consumer base, by localizing these businesses’ websites and marketing them on the Chinese internet through a variety of services, including English to Mandarin translation, China e-commerce, and Chinese SEO. As such, Samuel Clohessy, Web Presence In China’s Australian branch manager, feels that he is right in line with the spirit of Rudd’s message, if not his strategy.

“Web Presence In China has opened here so Australian entrepreneurs can side-step all the risks and costs of trying to do business in China physically, and sell directly to the Chinese consumer online. That’s why it’s rather ironic that although Rudd is urging Australian SMEs to be ‘ahead of the curve’, he is undertaking a costly and inefficient, if traditional strategy to do so.”

Clohessy refers to the point in Rudd’s speech wherein the Minister for Foreign Affairs said, “If we are talking about Australia-China 2.0, the first requirement of our business community is to be ahead of the curve…Apart from anything else, it means being in China.”

“Maybe Rudd should be in China for the good of overall bilateral relations, but the Australian business owner doesn’t have to be. The internet and Web Presence In China have made that possible,” says Clohessy. He refers to the fact that over 460 million Chinese are currently online, a number projected to double by 2015. “There are no Chinese in a position to buy Australian goods and services who aren’t online. The Chinese are buying online in numbers that eclipse the western world’s. Why go through the cost, time, and red tape of trying to set up physically in China?”

Rudd himself referred to the inherent risks of traditional models for doing business in China during his speech: “The opportunities are great and anyone doing business in China knows the risks are great as well. I don't underestimate that,” Rudd admitted.

However, Clohessy, who himself lived in Beijing for three years, wholeheartedly agrees with the overall substance and message of Rudd’s speech. “Rudd referenced the government-supported trend away from savings and towards consumerism, as well as the plethora of opportunities this presents for Australian entrepreneurs. It’s just a shame no mention was made of how these opportunities can be exploited without having to deal with all the middlemen and obstacles that await those who try to set up shop in China, instead of using a scalable online approach.” Indeed, the heart of the Australia-China 2.0 Trade Mission will consist of matching Australian and Chinese businesses for partnership. “Whatever companies get matched up in China are certainly going to earn their profits,” Clohessy wryly observes.

He is supported in his views by Joseph Scavera, a Sydney businessman who trades with China and lived there for more than six years. “If I could do it again, I would have started and finished online,” Scavera admits. “The demand is definitely there (online). And reaching Chinese consumers is a matter of setting up some good English to Chinese translation and finding someone to do your Chinese SEO. Add a shopping cart and you’re in business. And don’t forget now you have a store that anyone in China with an internet connection can walk into. It’s an unbeatable way to reach the second tier.”

Scavera is referring to a subject mentioned by Rudd himself during his speech, wherein he identified the wealth of opportunities awaiting in China’s many second tier cities. “The point of what I'm about to say here is the explosion in growth is now occurring in the range of second cities. If you look at what's happening in Sichuan, in Chongqing and Hunan and Hubei, these are growing in terms of real GDP growth at a phenomenal rate,” Rudd claimed. “There are more than one hundred second tier cities in China,” says Scavera. “It would take an awfully long trade mission to visit them all. With a properly marketed website, you can reach all the targeted consumers in those cities without buying a plane ticket.”

So while Rudd and his fellow Trade Mission attendees will be visiting second tier Chinese cities this August 4th through 9th, Clohessy and Web Presence In China will be helping Australian clients go directly to millions of Chinese consumers by translating their websites into Mandarin, then marketing them with a combination of China SEO, Chinese e-commerce strategy, and Chinese social media marketing. “If Rudd wants to see ‘ahead of the curve’ for Australia-China trade, he should visit the Web Presence In China office here in Perth,” quips Clohessy.

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Web Presence in China brings online Chinese customers to western businesses. The company specializes in English-to-Chinese translation, China SEO, and Chinese social media marketing.