LifeVantage, a leading American health supplements brand, set out to conquer the Chinese market using a cross-border eCommerce model. From an early stage, the company knew that the keys to success would be quickly grabbing consumer attention, cultivating brand loyalty, and laying out a sales strategy that was optimized for the local market.
However, LifeVantage was initially unfamiliar with how the China market worked. This led to inefficiencies and parts of the company's strategy falling out of synchronization, resulting in business development challenges.
TMO's Solution
As a one-stop eCommerce service provider, TMO Group was able to build an optimized, legally compliant business model for LifeVantage. Additionally, TMO surveyed bonded warehouses throughout China to help the brand implement a Bonded Warehousing: A Solution for Cross-border eCommerce in ChinaSelling in China through Bonded Warehousing is a cost-effective approach to CBEC in 2024. Here's everything you need to know about this model.cross-border bonded warehouse model.
Following on from this, TMO helped LifeVantage to set up its own brand website, apply for the relevant licenses, arrange customs & logistics processes, and file enterprise registration. This ensured smooth, synchronized connection between the different elements of LifeVantage's strategy. Such optimization helped reduce time consumption in particular.
Then, using Magento (since 2021 Magento is also known as Adobe Commerce) at the core, TMO set up a fast and friendly brand webstore and accompanying Mini-Program. TMO built both with UX and mobile response times at the forefront of the design. As a result, consumers could enjoy a smooth shopping experience, enhancing brand stickiness.
Brand Webstore Design
Mini-Program Design
Initial Strategy Formulation
In order to reinforce the long-term health of the business's development, we tailored a legally compliant cross-border eCommerce business model for the brand. After finalizing this plan, we then provided cross-border solutions to help the brand navigate key logistics processes. Then we shaped a cross-border payment solution to facilitate international cash flow and meet the needs of the brand. Finally, because the brand was unfamiliar with China's customs system, TMO assisted with customs filing and clearance procedures to ensure smooth entry into the country for the brand's products.
Comprehensive Setup Services
After clarifying these preliminary processes, TMO helped LifeVantage to smoothly establish itself as a one-stop business for Chinese consumers. These steps included company establishment, account application, ICP filing, domain name registration, business license application, payment gateway setup, cross-border company filing, and WeChat-related procedures. All these were pursued promptly in order to ensure timely delivery.
Ongoing Support
UX Design
We at TMO crafted UI/UX strategies and designs tailored to the consumption habits, behaviors, and expectations of Chinese consumers.
These included a rapid payment experience to make the payment process as convenient as possible for users, multiple sharing methods to help boost conversions and reach, mechanisms to support frequent promotions and attention-grabbing campaigns, and 'game-ified' membership levels built into the shopping cart functionality to further encourage customers to buy.
The desktop UX design focused on brand image, helping to craft an image of a modern, high-tech, and innovative brand. Meanwhile, the design sensibilities on mobile leaned more towards aligning with Chinese consumer habits and expectations for mobile stores. Therefore optimizations were made for social sharing and functions through WeChat, and speed and convenience were prioritized.
Speed as a Priority
Based on the Magento (Adobe Commerce) enterprise-level eCommerce architecture, TMO crafted a localized eCommerce store with quick loading and fast response times at the core. Key Chinese store localization features included logistics tracking, multiple login options, and mobile phone binding.
TMO kept the front-end React JS separated from the back-end Magento (Adobe Commerce), and the minimized code logic prevented slow loading issues caused by network quality or hardware limitations on the user end. This helps make shopping a quick, painless, and enjoyable experience for the user.
Additionally, as mentioned above TMO optimized the store for the differing characteristics of different platforms. On desktop, building LifeVantage's brand identity and "BioHack" image were key. Mini-Programs focused on leveraging the social side of WeChat to enhance consumer reach and conversions. The mobile PWA Mall site meanwhile was made to feel as close to a dedicated app experience as possible, keeping things running smoothly and swiftly.
O&M Hosting
TMO used high-performance web server software to optimize load times, and the latest caching software to cache static content pages. These help reduce page load times by as much as 80%. The server load-balancer ensures the stability of the system during periods of high concurrent access such as popular sales promotions. In particular this helps reduce order loss due to server stability issues.
TMO adopted the highest-level of cloud server encryption and defense mechanisms to safely prevent DDOS attacks and intrusions, as well as automatically identify and resist malicious attacks as much as possible. In addition, TMO also remotely backs up the web store's database and code base. This helps safeguard against natural disasters or less dramatic server downtime, adding further stability and security to the brand's data.
Cross-Border eCommerce Functionality
A user's mobile phone number and ID card are automatically verified before the order is placed, and customs declaration is automatically handled following payment. The system carries out "3-in-1 order" and "ID card info verification" with Chinese customs to seamlessly integrate cross-border warehousing and logistics. Access to popular payment gateways such as WeChat Pay's cross-border version provides convenience, familiarity and peace of mind to shoppers. The platform also provides transparent and automatic cross-border tax calculation, order volume control, and cross-border restriction reminders to consumers.
Learn More
Interested in starting your own Chinese cross-border eCommerce journey with TMO? Reach out and get in touch to start talking to our experts about shaping a solution that fits your brand's needs today.
