China digital
China is another digital world.
Entering China is not translating a European site. Platforms, search habits, payments and trust signals all work differently.
Localise, don't translate
A translated page answers questions a Chinese buyer is not asking, in an order that does not match how they decide. Localising means rewriting the argument, not the sentences: which proof comes first, which objection is handled, what a credible company looks like here.
First: can they even reach you?
Before any strategy, a practical test. A site that loads slowly or not at all from mainland China has no marketing problem to solve yet. Common causes are easy to fix and easy to miss:
- Fonts, maps, video or analytics loaded from services that are blocked.
- Hosting with no presence in Asia, so every request crosses the world twice.
- Embedded social widgets that simply never resolve.
- Forms that require an email address where a QR code would convert better.
Where attention actually is
Search does not behave the way it does in Europe: a large share of discovery happens inside apps rather than on the open web. WeChat is infrastructure rather than a social network — account, content, payment and customer relationship in one place. Xiaohongshu carries a different kind of weight, closer to recommendation than advertising.
Your Chinese name is a decision, not a translation. Phonetics, meaning and availability all have to work at once — and it is very expensive to change later.
Measuring without Google
Google Analytics is not a reliable option for a China-facing site. There are local and self-hosted alternatives that work, and choosing one early avoids discovering six months of missing data later.
Questions we get often.
Do I need an ICP licence?
It depends on whether you host inside mainland China. Hosting outside avoids the filing but costs speed; hosting inside requires a Chinese legal entity and a process that takes time. The right answer depends on how central China is to you.
Can a Shopify or Webflow site serve China?
It can work, with care: removing blocked dependencies, choosing where assets are served from, and accepting that some performance ceiling exists. Whether that ceiling matters depends on your market.
Is a WeChat official account worth it in B2B?
Often yes, but not as a publishing channel. Its value in B2B is usually as a credible identity and a contact path — the place a prospect checks that you exist and then reaches you.
We can test what a visitor in mainland China actually experiences on your current site, and tell you what is worth changing first.