China e-commerce players tap Asean market for growth

In the fourth of a six-part BT-Lianhe Zaobao series on China capital flows to the region, we look at the challenges faced by Chinese online merchants in their S-E Asia expansion

Published Mon, Jun 7, 2021 · 05:50 AM

Asean

Singapore

AS China's biggest online merchants accelerate their expansion plans to South-east Asia, they have also discovered that a lack of understanding of Singlish is putting them at a disadvantage when dealing with Singapore customers.

"Singapore consumers use many acronyms when they type, such as 'RU' for 'are you', and they also use Singlish expressions such as paiseh, lah, leh, lor," Mike Hu, co-founder and CEO of Addin.sg told Lianhe Zaobao. "The customer service staff of merchants in China, who are not fluent in English in the first place, can't deal with this, leading to bad experiences for local customers."