Starting sales to China

Discussions
#1

I decided to start a separate topic.

I think now we should start to sell software licenses to China.

I started to create a landing page in Chinese Simplified that will be hosted in Hongkong to have better internet connection to mainland China. And we uploaded video to Chinese video hosting Youku.

What marketing channels are working efficiently there? What advice you can give about translating texts and videos?
Will it work If I offer a free license for Chinese users for the help with localization ( I have heard that a tiny fraction of Chinese speak English).
How to find decent partners in China?

#2

I don’t know what type of software do you intend to sell, but a year ago I bought an OBDI-2 Bluetooth car module (~ $3+free shipping from China) and to my surprise it came with a mini-CD with software. My first thought was like “Wow, these guys are awesome, even made free software with the module.”

But then I’ve noticed that there is a subfolder with a crack patch. Then from the about box, glanced the web page of the software vendor and opened their web site and guess what - it was no longer available (a German company kaput). So good luck if you think that the followers of Confucious will respect software licensing (have you read the teachings of Confucious by the way?)

#3

I have not read Confucious. But I have had a few sales to large Chinese companies who heard about our software popularity on western markets. And they there happy even with English versions of our product.

So Chinese buy software. At least big companies.
And I know that in General just a tiny fraction of Chinese people speak English. So Chinese localization could help.

And another point: who could imagine in 1990 that Russian users will pay for the software licenses. And now I have plenty of Russian paid users. I would say that software piracy in Russia at least among companies / SMB is about the same level as in France. And also it helps if your copy protection system preventing the existence of a good working cracked version. Like there are plenty of cracked versions of our software, but thanks to additional delayed checks they all work as a kind of demo versions.

And right now with that corinavirus pandemic/recession it seems that Chinese economy will be in better shape than western economy.

#4

Worth a read :confused::

“Bottom Line: Do not ship or transmit your software or other technology product to China without first making sure it complies with both your own country’s laws and those of China.”

#5

Hey Matrix

I am currently located in China. Do hit me up if anything i can help with.

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