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摘 要

跨境电商是电子商务与对外贸易相结合的新产业,也是响应国家号召,推出的”互联网 外贸”的具体体现与落实。跨境电子商务能够打破国家间地理的限制,是推动我国企业走向国际市场的重要平台。然而有效的营销策略是跨境电商取胜市场的关键,电商需要研究在不同的文化背景下实行新的营销策略。

本论文将首先综合运用营销策略、跨文化、电子商务理论,形成文献综述；通过案例分析,归纳总结出跨境营销中的文化差异下的营销策略,最后对全文进行归纳总结,指出研究的局限和不足。

关键词:跨境电商；跨文化；营销策略

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements i

Abstract ii

摘要 iii

Table of Contents iv

Chapter One Introduction 1

1.1 Background of the study 1

1.2 Significance and purpose of the study 1

1.3 Layout of the thesis 2

Chapter Two Literature Review 3

Chapter Three Cross-border E-commerce Marketing Strategy in Different Cultures 5

3.1 Product strategy 5

3.1.1. Product categories selection 5

3.1.2. Brand naming strategy 7

3.1.3. Product description 7

3.2 Price strategy 9

3.3 Promotion strategy 10

3.4 Place strategy 12

Chapter Four Conclusion 14

References 15

Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Background of the study

Cross-border e-commerce is a new industry combining e-commerce and foreign trade. It is also a concrete embodiment and implementation of the "Internet foreign trade". With the implementation of the "Belt and Road initiative" in China, more and more Chinese companies are going international. Cross-border e-commerce can break the restrictions of geography among countries, expand sales channels for Chinese SMEs (Small and medium enterprises), and help them achieve transformation and upgrading of foreign trade. It is an important platform for promoting Chinese enterprises to enter the international market.

Effective marketing strategy is the key to cross-border e-commerce to win the market, but cultural differences may sometimes make marketing strategies ineffective in other countries, and even have the opposite effect. E-commerce companies need to study how to implement new marketing strategies in different cultural contexts.

1.2 Significance and purpose of the study

According to the data from the China Electronic Commerce Research Center, the total value of retail import and export through the Customs cross-border e-commerce management platform has reached 90.24 billion yuan since 2017, an increase of 80.6% year-on-year. (2017) This shows that China's cross-border e-commerce has been growing by leaps and bounds. This is an inevitable result of economic development and reflects the huge market potential and development needs. In spite of the rapid development of cross-border e-commerce, there are also some barriers, and cultural difference is one of them. Different national cultures also respond differently to the development of e-commerce. For example, the buyer's payment method, the acceptance of the price and nature of the goods, or the difference in behavior and values, to some extent will inevitably affect the development of cross-border e-commerce, so we need to analyze the cultural differences so as to find the right marketing approach for different countries.

1.3 Layout of the thesis

This thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter One is a general introduction of this thesis. It presents the research background, the significance and purpose of the study and the overall structure of this thesis. Chapter Two is mainly about the literature review on internet marketing strategy and cross-border e-ecommerce marketing strategy in different cultures. Chapter Three discusses cross-border e-commerce marketing strategies in in different cultures, such as product strategy, price strategy promotion strategy and place strategy. Chapter Four makes a conclusion, points out the limitations, and gives suggestions for future study.

Chapter Two Literature Review

The word culture comes from the Latin word "colere". The word now more widely accepted comes from Ernest Gellner, who called culture "the socially transmitted and sometimes bank of acquired traits (1997.3)."

Cultural differences are not limited to languages and religions, but exist in every aspect of life. Since the modern times, scholars at home and abroad have achieved fruitful results in researching cultural differences.

The famous American magazine "Electronic World" used the title of "The Biggest Obstacle to the Success of the Global Market" to conduct a survey on the transnational culture of the world, and finally found out that cultural differences are the core factors of corporate success.

In the field of international research, Greet Hofstede conducted a survey of cultural values ​​on IBM's (International Business Machines) company's 116,000 employees in 66 countries during 1980. The survey was divided into six dimensions of cultural differences. It is the Power Distance Index (PDI), Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI), Individualism (IDV), Masculinity (MAS) Femininity (FEM), Indulgence and Restraint (IND). Powder distance index (PDI) measures the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations accept that power is distributed unequally. Uncertainty avoidance index measures the degree of psychological acceptance to unknown or indefinite things. Individualism dimension is used to measure the attitude of people towards personal interests and collective interests. Masculinism and femininity index indicate a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles associated with men and women. Indulgence and restraint are essentially a measure of happiness. After a long period of time, Greet Hofstede introduced Michael Bond's "Confucian Spiritual Power" dimension, known as "Long-Term Orientation, LTD" and "Short-Term Orientation" (Short-Term Orientation (STD), which means the degree to which people can delay or shorten their social needs, materials, and emotions.

American scholar Edward T. Hall divided the culture of diversity into High Context (HC) and Low Context (LC) (1990). Contextual culture refers to the distance between the speech of the person, the cultural background of the community, and the society. It is the environment in which language is used, including all subjective and objective factors (2005).

Nitish Singh combined the four dimensions proposed by Geert Hofstede and the context of Edward T. Hall. (2001) The first one applied cultural value differences to cross-site analysis. In 2004 Nitish Singh did a research in Italy, India, the Netherlands, etc. When he analyzed and used these theories, he discovered and sorted out such laws: Consumers' content, culture, and values ​​are more in line with the country's website, and consumers are showing stronger desires and ideas for shopping. (2004)

Zheng Bingxiu and Li Qiaolin (2000) explored the impact of language and writing, aesthetic concepts, values, religions and customs on cross-cultural marketing. He pointed out that cross-cultural marketing need to grasp the principle of seeking common ground while reserving differences, and seeking commonality among countries in different cultural contexts. At the same time, we need to realize that the culture is in continuous development. Only by grasping this key and adapting to changes in culture, cross-cultural marketing can succeed. At the same time, He Weijun (1996) proposed that cross-cultural marketing mainly involves three aspects of cultural context, cross-cultural managerial theory, and the cultural theory of marketing mix elements, and proposes that 4Ps (products, prices, places, promotions) all contain cultural elements. Therefore, grasping culture is the key to cross-cultural marketing, whether online or offline marketing.

In summary, if a company wants to achieve marketing success, it should develop different marketing strategies according to different cultures, so as to avoid the risk of cultural conflicts.

Chapter Three Cross-border E-commerce Marketing Strategy in Different Cultures

3.1 Product strategy

Cross-border e-commerce companies are in a period of vigorous development. However, they are facing numerous challenges. Among them are vague product strategies. The cross-border e-commerce export products are homogenized seriously, and technology content is low and there is a lack of intellectual property rights and the sense of protection. The e-commerce platform is full of fakes and the proliferation of copycat products. In this situation, for export products, consumers in many countries value the product itself, such as the North American market. Americans believe that the big trade company is a guarantee of quality.

The implementation of product strategy is consumers' rational perception and presentation of a product or an enterprise, and it is very difficult to change consumers' perception. How to present cross-border e-commerce products (enterprises)? How to select an accurate product category and create a suitable brand name and win a favorable position in the market? That's a hard question.

3.1.1. Product categories selection

In cross-border e-commerce, the primary aspect of cultural differences is the difference in lifestyle and behavior. Different sales strategies should be formulated in different countries. China's manufacturing companies have a strong production capacity, but in terms of product selection, they cannot simply equate domestic demand with foreign demand.

First of all, the export selection of products should highlight the cultural needs and taboos of the region. Religious beliefs can effectively reflect social customs and life habits. People in different religions have different taboos. For example, Islamic does not eat pork, drink alcohol and prohibit women from wearing makeup and decoration. Thus, alcohol and jewelry are not the good selection for export in these areas. In order to make a good choice in international marketing, we need to conduct investigations of the countries where markets are located and what are their religious beliefs. Besides, personal and regional preferences are another selection method for product strategy. For example, women consumers in Brazil prefer to wear tight-fitting clothing. And in terms of clothing size, due to the different ethnic groups, there are still some differences in the size of foreign countries. Taking festivals as an example, colored eggs, flags are extremely popular during the Easter or Independence Day. They value these festivals a lot. If companies are familiar with cultures of target market, they are able to take holiday effects in a short period of time and have success. What’s more, the masculine and feminine dimensions will also influence the product selection. Products that symbolize male authority and personality, such as electronics manufacturing and sports industries, will be more accepted in masculine countries. The products that symbolize women characters, such as arts and crafts, home decoration, etc., are more likely to be favored by feminized countries.

Secondly, the selection of products should highlight the brand cultural connotation. What motivates people to buy? Fashionable designs, innovative logo placards, and exquisite garment materials can all be the driving forces. If a product itself is good enough in a specific aspect, it will also be a driving force and we need to create a unique selling point to drive consumption. Individualism-oriented consumers prefer products that are rich in personality and creativity. Collectivism-oriented consumers prefer decent and standardized products. For example, United States, a country demonstrates individuality and pursues personal interests and development; and China and Japan are typical collectivist countries. According to dimensions of individualism and collectivism, the design features and selection of products are various. Consumers in different countries have different preferences for clothing style, design, colors, and even brand names and logos. For example, in the Islamic countries, it is advisable to adopt consumer-preferred cultural symbols and patterns in product design and production. For example, eagle is a sacred fetish in the Middle East and the African countries. Because of this, Li Ning created the "Eagle" series of products (shoes and clothes) with ingenuity in these areas and finally achieved big success. Therefore, the first step in the selection of cross-border e-commerce companies is to position the end-customers and the group of products, and to select products according to different customer needs.

3.1.2. Brand naming strategy

One of the external forms of the brand is textual symbol. It has certain cultural connotations and clear identification. The "Posion" perfume, produced by Christian Dior hit the market when it enters the European and American e-commerce market. The name “Porsion” attracted so much attention. The brand name relies on Western individualist value to create a new cultural image, thus highlighting its distinctive characteristics, and catering to consumers’ preference.

When "Posion" is translated into Chinese, its brand name is "Bai Aishen" in order that it conforms to Chinese people's implicit mentality. There are many other examples. For example, the Japanese cosmetics brand "Kissme" was translated into "Qishimei" instead of "Kiss Me" when it entered the Chinese market. The translator used transliteration instead of literal translation, mainly considering the culture of target market. The word "kiss me" is too explicit rather implicit. It does not accord with the characteristics and personality of the Chinese.

Therefore, when companies translate or create a brand name into another language, they should pay attention to its cultural connotations. In general, the translation methods of brand names include transliteration and free translation. (2001) Whichever method is taken, the connotations of translation in the target language should be taken into account. (2009)

3.1.3. Product description

Keywords.

Language, the basis of culture, most of time is related to cultural differences. The language misunderstandings will hinder the development of marketing. For this reason, the further you step into the process of cross-border e-commerce, the more language barriers you will face.

When it comes to language style, Chinese corporate websites are more meticulous than American websites in terms of interface neatness. The former use rhetorical devices (comparisons and pairings) and multiple attributive modifiers to limit core information, because the language style and idiomatic expression have a direct impact on the presentation of cross-border e-commerce online shops. The foreign consumers mainly acquire the key information of products from the title and they pay more attention to objective and concrete facts. Therefore, as a wholesale trade platform of foreign trade, the online shop on Alibaba International Station etc. should highlight its information function when it sets the title to present the product name to foreign consumers and tell consumer what product each picture shows. Too many modifiers will shadow the key information of product. The product name and description should also be as close as possible to the idiomatic expression of the main target market and eliminate cultural differences. For example, textiles are best described as "terylene" instead of "polyester". And most of time, the unit of textile is described as “Rectangle” or “Roll” instead of “meter”.

Conversion rate is the first determining factor of natural search rankings and AD search rankings. Company runner can increase the conversion rate by filtering keywords and constantly optimizing the product. Keywords filtration is the most important method to bring in the visitor volume. Company runners need to understand the idiomatic expression to ensure that target customers can search for the product by clicks. For example, the British use "rubber" instead of "eraser" while the Americans use "eraser", the British use "trousers" instead of "pants" while the Americans use "pants". Sometimes, when you are searching for a product but it has several descriptions, the result you get is quite different by using different keywords. Take "ear wear" as an example. The categories of ear wear include "ear stub", "ear drop", "ear ring", "ear clip", " ear hook" and so on.

Therefore, in the face of different cultures, people should pay attention to using an appropriate brand name, product description and appropriate keywords to get more exposures.

Pictures

In a cross-border e-commerce online shop, pictures are one of the direct and expressive ways to display the product characteristics. It visualizes commodity information and serves as a way to show the corporate culture. The color and style of the product image will directly attract consumers. In order to better promote the company's products, cross-border e-commerce companies should have in-depth understanding of the target market's cultural customs and use cultural practices to promote their own products. For example, people from different regions have diverse preferences for color. “Chinese Red” is the typical color for joyous occasions; Red, green and white all are lucky color for Western Christmas; Europeans dislike black; Brazilians dislike green; and Japanese dislike yellow. When selecting and creating a product image, the sellers need to consider the cultural differences of color connotation. In addition, consumers will pay more attention to the product details when they are shopping online. Thus, product details should be displayed as much as possible. The picture plays an indispensable and important role in the process of presentation. Take textile fabrics for example. You should highlight color, material, and fabric texture to meet the demand for product information from the target market. From the view of product preference, the customers’ aesthetic perception of product image should be taken into consideration when companies are determining products’ packaging, shape, and style.

3.2 Price strategy

Product pricing refers to the value of a product, measured by how much money consumers are willing to pay. The cultural differences in various countries and regions make them a little bit different in product pricing. It's unadvisable to set a high price in Southeast Asia for the same product while it's acceptable in Europe. Therefore, sellers should do a market research before setting a new product pricing, and then combine product pricing with customs’ actual purchasing power.

Effective pricing is a major factor in the successful operation of international business and becomes an important part of the overall marketing process. In the context of cross-border e-commerce, buyers are able to use the Internet medium to search the prices of the same products from all over the world for comparison. In order to promote sales, pricing should be standardized because of transparency of product price on the Internet. The price consumers are willing to pay not only depends on the value of the product itself, but also on consumer's identity. The consumer’s identity or value is often related to his or her cultural background because of the different shopping idea. And the same products have different presentation on prices in worldwide markets. It is quite interesting that in some countries, especially Japan, once the price of a product is determined, it will be very difficult to raise the price again. Therefore, the initial pricing must be treated with particular seriousness.

In Western or other developed countries, high price symbolizes high quality and value. Taking the Russian and Indian markets as an example, they believe that imported goods have better quality than locally manufactured ones. So online shops in these countries adopt the country-of-output effect and adopt appropriate high-price strategies. Or taking Japanese market as an example, although the price of local manufacturing products is higher than that of the price of imported ones, Japanese are also apt to adopt high-price strategies for high-quality products to meet customers’ pursuit of the value of goods. Sometimes the price that sellers offer is higher than that of their competitors, but through promotions, advertisements, and or coupons, lower prices are offered on key items. The promotional prices are designed to attract new customers or retain them and to improve regular customers’ loyalty. According to the above reasons related to price culture, the discount rate should be set in an appropriate range.

Secondly, sellers should pay attention to customary expressions of price. For example, consumers who want to purchase textile in countries like the United States, Bangladesh, and India, prefer to the "yard" price, while Canadian consumers are accustomed to the "meter" price. One yard is equal to 0.9144 meters. For the same fabric, the price in "meter" is slightly higher than in “yard”. (2017)

3.3 Promotion strategy

The purpose of promotion is to meet the consumption needs of consumers and it gradually becomes a social and cultural phenomenon. The globalization of cross-border e-commerce has already broken the space and time barriers, though cultural differences cannot be avoided. The consumption habits and patterns in different countries, as well as the way consumers perceive cultural difference, have their own cultural imprint. To a certain extent, culture has become a key factor affecting online foreign trade companies. In the context of cultural differences, an unsuccessful promotion strategy may destroy the brand and commercial relationships that were built by long-time efforts.

The development of information technology has brought about changes in promotional methods that can be divided into traditional promotion methods and cross-border e-commerce online store promotion.

Traditional promotion methods include advertising, public relations, personal promotion, coupons, and other methods that are different from cross-border e-commerce online store promotion. On-site and off-site promotions are the two main strategies of online store promotion.

On-site promotion

On-site promotion is usually influenced by the following two factors: exposure rate and the acceptance of promotional methods.

Firstly, exposure rate is one of the most important ways to attract customers, and online stores strive to improve the exposure of products by any means. The online shop runners on Alibaba International Station can place pictures on the home page through the window function, or use P4P (pay for performance) to provide services for target consumers. After taking these measures, runners can increase their shops’ click-through rate and exposure rate.

Secondly, the acceptance of promotional methods is diverse for different people because of their distinctive cultures. For example, the French prefer the coupons in the form of “three for two”; the British like those in the form of "XX% off". Thus the representation of price can be expressed as "Get US $7.00 coupon or two for one offer", “Save 33% on xx product “or “buy one and get one free” .

Therefore cross-border e-commerce online stores need to choose different promotional strategies in different cultural contexts.

Off-site promotion

The strategy of promotion in cross-border e-commerce should focus on customer's behavioral habits. The more suitable the promotion mode is with the target customer’s behavior habit, the better the marketing effect can be achieved. SNS marketing, deal marketing, and search engine marketing are three main marketing modes in most countries and gradually become popular to acquire information for shoppers. These three marketing modes become a part of their life, so foreign trade companies should launch promotion methods according to different product features in different platforms. In any case, the target customer's behavior habits should be put in the center.

These three off-site promotion platforms also have their own pros and cons. The SNS (Social Network Services) marketing stream platform includes Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and so on. However, they are not available in some countries for national policy and cultural reasons, such as China, Cuba, Iran etc. The cross-border e-commerce runners should be familiar with target customers’ behavior and choose the effective social network services for promotion. In this way, the promotion will have a better effect. Under the SNS promotion, enterprises attract fans through social networking sites, and then enterprises will cultivate customer loyalty and trust through frequent interaction with customers to enhance a corporate image. (2004)

Deal marketing website is a discount platform. What’s more, the advantage of search engine marketing lies in its simple operation and huge advertising traffic to get more exposures. Latest statistics of NetMarketShare (Data statistics website) in March 2018 show that Google search engine is the most popular one worldwide with a share of 61.77%. Thus Google could be a good choice for promotion but it needs a huge expense. Under the premise of a pay-per-click fee of $8, Google Adwards advertising can hardly get satisfactory returns on investment if there is no brand and product differentiation, and financial advantage.

3.4 Place strategy

In 2004 Nitish Singh made a website analysis in Italy, India, the Netherlands, etc. He analyzed and applied into practice the theories of six dimensions proposed by Geert Hofstede and the high and low context of Edward T. Hall, then Singh discovered and sorted out such laws: consumers' content, culture, and values are more in line with the country's website, and consumers are showing stronger desires and ideas for shopping.

Therefore, it is vital to choose an appropriate cross-border e-commerce platform according to the local consumer's website using habits and preferences. It can avoid what we call "psychological distance and uncertainty" of buyers. And the more promotion methods are in line with the target user's behaviors, their perceptions of quality of life (2009) and preferences, the better the marketing effect can be achieved. Generally, there are two main online website platforms: self-built and third- party platform. The typical and popular third-party platforms are Amazon, AliExpress, and eBay. Therefore I will briefly discuss the characteristics of these three platforms and the reason why people in different countries prefer specific platform according to their habits and values.

Building a self-built trading platform model requires great funds, technical personnel, inventory, overseas warehousing, logistics and distribution, so now small and medium-sized enterprises in China are unable to build self-built cross-border. Therefore, most of them rely on third-party platforms to engage in cross-border e-commerce activities.

Amazon, AliExpress, and eBay are the three main third-party trading platforms adopted by small and medium-sized export enterprises in China.

In countries where uncertainty avoidance index is high, people will be cautious and tentatively defensive in face of unknown and unfamiliar things, so as buyers, they pay more attention to professional content related to the product. For example, people in United States and Canada are less concerned with the price of products compared with those in developing countries. However, they have strict requirements on quality, labeling, packaging, and instructions to meet market demands. Amazon's product positioning is relatively high-end, so most of its target markets are developed countries. These buyers have stronger purchasing power and high loyalty, and more emphasize the quality of goods.

However, countries like Africa and India focus on price issues greatly. AliExpress, as the "International Taobao" of Alibaba Group, has a low platform threshold, convenient operation, and most of its product positioning is low-end. On the one hand, domestic sellers take logistics costs into consideration. Most buyers choose low-value "small and beautiful" products for sale. Therefore, the hot selling products on AliExpress mainly are fashion accessories or small size sports products. On the other hand, a majority of the overseas buyers are located in developing countries. The level of income and consumption is relatively low and limited and sellers value the product's cost-effectiveness and emphasize less on high-end brands.

The product categories are more comprehensive with both high and low value-added products on the eBay platform. This platform brings a large number of young fans and engages in personal item transactions (C2C, Customer to Customer). The overseas markets are quite mature, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Germany. These markets have the characteristics of strong per capita purchasing power, the popularization of online shopping ideas, consumption habits, and complete logistics and other supporting facilities. Consumers have higher requirements for product quality and shopping experience. Sellers will not only choose high-definition products but also provide services comparable to "retail standards".

In summary, these three platforms Amazon, AliExpress, and eBay all have their own characteristics, and all of them complement and compete with each other. Therefore, when trading between countries with great differences in degree of uncertainty avoidance, it is necessary to do more investments, strengthen communication, and use the suitable methods to open the market. What’s more, when you are choosing a specific platform, you should be familiar with customers’ habits and value that can show expected price level, product loyalty etc.

Chapter Four Conclusion

Cross-border e-commerce narrows down the distance between buyers and sellers in different countries, and cross-border e-commerce online shops gradually becomes high-speed information highways for both parties. When we are engaged in cross-cultural marketing, we should respect culture and realize the geographical constraints. Because of the region and race differences, multiculturalism will lead to different viewpoints towards the same things. As a symbol of historical and cultural records, language is also a carrier of culture and it is inseparable from social culture. What’s more, religion belief, habits and customs are the symbols of culture, and culture is the reflection of them.

Challenges and opportunities coexist, so as hardships and hopes. Cultural differences will also bring hopes in the merchandise marketing process. In order to improve the effectiveness of marketing, sellers should further understand and analyze the cultural elements of consumer identity, custom, language expression, etc. in the target market, and select suitable marketing strategies to enhance the adaptability in different cultural environments. It’s also important to build signature brands, improve product quality and service awareness, provide a good shopping experience in the process of marketing. What’s more, it will help enterprises step further and have great success by creating unique and personalized products, segmenting groups, cultivating customer loyalty and relying on the trade environment and supporting policies made by the country.

References

(1)吕仲生. 浅析多品牌营销策略设计 [J]. 东方企业文化, 2013, (22).

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