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
Add BT as a preferred source
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."
TRENDING NOW
Frasers Property-led consortium outbids two others with S$2.13 billion offer for Bayshore Drive mixed-use site
GovTech retrenches 93 staff in first phase of agency’s 2-year workforce transformation
A new kind of ‘ceasefire’ between US and Iran where talks, strikes are part of the same process
RTS Link could cause S$290 million net increase in outflow annually for Singapore: study
