As I predicted, the Yuan has decreased in value against Sterling by over 1% in the last 2 days.
It still has a little way to go and we might see similar changes again over the next 5 days. Once again though, this advice is in contrast to the general consensus, so be careful.
A tip for conducting cheap yet highly effective product based market research in China or any other country.
If you are not already using a google adwords/analytics account then set one up.
If you are selling dog baskets and want to determine interest in China then use googles translate functionto translate into Chinese.
Enter this into your adwords campaign and it will give you another chunk of the most appropriate search terms for dog baskets and related products in Chinese, you could get between 10 and 100 suggestions, so pick carefully, then set your bids and off you go.
You can then gain access to data which will show you how many times that search term was used and from this you can begin to calculate the size of the market. Equally you can also determine, by the cost of your bid against your positioning what your likely competition might be.
Direct people to your web site or better still create a web page specific to the region targetted and be genuine in explaining to your potential customers what you are doing and what you are proposing and ask for their feedback, you might be pleasantly surprised at what you get.
It might sound a little complicated for those not familiar with google adwords but it’s really staightforward and the help function is pretty useful. You can set a budget of say £100 per day but of course if there is no interest in your product/search term it will not be used up however if there is and it does get used up maybe you should be booking a flight and getting out there to exploit the opportunity.
‘China’s central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan has come out fighting in response to mounting pressure to allow the country’s currency to rise.’ As reported by the BBC this morning…
Yet further evidence that China will not be badgered into allowing an immediate and uncontrolled rise in its currency. Whilst the UK and Europe are part of the pack urging China to do so it is the US leading it and as such China will dig it’s heals in against the chief protagonist. I love the US, I love the Americans, I have a business there, but they are once again showing their arrogance, right now it is time to back off and leave the Chinese to define their own timescales over this issue.
Be ready for some Chinese fireworks.