There’s been a lot of hype surrounding Asia as an emerging market in the last years. While large corporations such as Apple, GM and LVMH are making billions of dollars in the far East, there are rather few success stories when it comes to smaller businesses. While there may be various reasons for this, we are still convinced that small businesses in Europe and America could do a lot better. Let’s forget about over hyped macro economic data and look into this from a more practical perspective. There are couple points below;
why asia?
Product, quality and price
First of all, forget about competing on price. It’s not possible to compete with suppliers in China, Cambodia and Vietnam on this factor.
Not only do these countries have a huge amount of cheap labor, but due to proximity they can also offer shorter delivery times and lower shipping costs.
That being said we'll move on to what really matters. You may have read that large companies such as H&M and Louis Vuitton have made huge profits on the Asian markets in the last decade.
While this is not directly relevant to small businesses, we want to underline that the market is indeed large enough to fit more than these giants.
Possibly due to a lack of confidence and knowledge, many small businesses tend to assume that showcasing a brand is only useful when it’s already established. This is wrong. A brand, regardless of when it was established, can result in a major increase of a products value.
This is even more important when exporting products to Asia. Since you can’t compete on price, you must compete on quality and perceived value. This is why a brand is a key factor for any western company that aims at exporting to Asia.
While there’s a lot of hype about the “decline of the West” – I need to say something to differ, – Asian consumers are in general considering western products to be of higher quality and value than local brands (with the exception of Japanese and Korean products that also tends to be of an excellent quality).
A common tactic is therefore simply to exploit the country where your products are made. “Made in Italy” or “Made in France” can add a ton of status to a product, even if it’s not an established brand.
There are actually a few reasons for small manufacturing enterprises and trading companies in Europe and America to feel more confident than ever.
People all over the world are getting fed up with mass market products that makes us all look like clones. There are indeed countless of success stories involving small consumer product brands that gain a following simply because they are not mass market products.
While Asia as a whole still needs some time to catch up on this trend, we'd say that the younger crowd in countries and regions such as Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and China are hungry for new brands.