A German clients wants to sell his product in China. To save costs, he has a brilliant idea – he wants to build up an online shop in Chinese language and deliver his products to China. After a few explanations I asked, if he already thought about payment methods and ways, how to deliver the products… His answer: Aaaaa…. just like always..

I really can imagine, how his company takes an order, the delivery via bicycle and payment in cash of course..

In China, most online shops work like this (of course, many offer delivery by car)
The client orders online. Big international comanies like Dell can offer payment in advance, because there exists some trust towards famous brands. So they just go to a certain branch of, let’s say Gongchan Yinhang and pay the money on Dell’s account by cash or by bank transfer.

No company which is not completly out of it’s mind offers payment by invoice (if you know an exception, please tell me) in business-to-client trade.

It happened like this, when I purchased my last ticket at a big Chinese travel agency. I ordered online, there was a confirmation via phone (of course the ticket I wanted to buy was not available anymore) and then by SMS, when the ticket was confirmed. One day later, I met a Chinese guy on an old bicycle, paid in cash and got my ticket.

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