97: How Chinese Products Build Overseas Brands from 0 to 1 | A Conversation with International Brand Operator Eric
Summary
Going overseas is not a “dimensionality reduction” attack; the first challenge is getting through the door of consumer awareness, religion, and local culture. Around 90% of Indonesia’s population is Muslim, and Halal certification may determine whether a product can be manufactured and sold at scale; during Ramadan, fasting leaves livestreamers low-energy, while mouthwash gains traction because of specific needs. Eric’s view is that “going overseas is not as easy as everyone thinks,” but once a team understands and respects the market and finds the right partners, Chinese teams’ advantages in content, media buying, and product begin to show.
What sustains an overseas premium over time is not spotting a category first, but product strength compounded by brand equity. Early entrants in North American ice makers can earn outsized profits when the category takes off, but the spread narrows as supply floods in; the brand becomes the “talisman” that extends the premium cycle. From ingredients, step substitution, and affordable-alternative positioning, to founder or R&D stories, and then from facial cleanser into creams and serums, this is a path that requires patience, thought, and sustained capital.
Southeast Asia’s individual markets are small, infrastructure is weak, and the region is highly fragmented, yet new entrants may find more incremental efficiency there than in China. China’s e-commerce penetration is about 33%, versus roughly 10% or lower across many Southeast Asian markets; logistics efficiency in some Southeast Asian countries may be only 40%-50% of China’s, according to Eric, while Chen Jing points out that markets such as the Philippines and Vietnam are growing rapidly, with Skintific’s online and offline GMV reportedly reaching 1.5B-2B. The key question is not whether the region can replace China, but whether “the people who fell out during the downturn are necessarily the same people who can bounce back when the economy rebounds”; a new cycle may reward new brands.
Southeast Asia’s channel mix is not an either-or choice: TikTok builds the category in consumers’ minds, while Shopee and Lazada capture demand and profit. TikTok covers both Awareness and Interest; it is more expensive as a standalone channel and may not make money early on, but it creates a Halo effect. Flagship stores, C-stores, and distribution on shelf platforms capture the demand. As content, pricing, offers, and conversion improve, Eric believes TikTok ROAS can rise from 0.1 to 1, 3, and eventually 4-5: “Overall, you have to get it moving before you can evolve and iterate.”
The biggest gaps in overseas TikTok are data tools, native creators, and a complete commercial ecosystem. The international version mirrors many domestic tools but struggles to capture a complete 5A audience, leaving operators “shooting blind”; top creators are expensive and their output is uncertain, while mid-tier creators are more efficient. Eric stresses that moving creators over from YouTube or Instagram, or importing a Chinese MCN, does not create an ecosystem: “The native creators within it have to grow themselves.”
Japan and North America are not easier simply because they are richer: Japan is slow, North America is expensive, and both already have strong retail systems. Modifying a PDP in Japan can take 2-3 weeks, versus 6 hours or less in China; operating a single product in North America may cost 7x as much as in China, while brands can continue relying on Amazon, Target, and Walmart and therefore feel no urgent need to be on TikTok. TikTok is still proving itself in North America, and political risk has lengthened the investment cycle, but Eric has no doubt that it can “survive and thrive.”
TikTok is only a catalyst; sustainable international expansion must become an “enter-the-sea” project owned by the founder or CEO. Hook products, sample sizes, and mini sizes should be designed at the product stage, while core products must protect their prices; after an overseas acquisition, a strong team should be deployed quickly, with finance and legal brought in by mandate. Eric’s bottom line is that “the product is your true north,” while strategically, teams cannot stop at a shallow test: “Going overseas is only the first step; entering the sea is what comes next.”
Deep dive
1. The job of “taking technology overseas” is translating China’s e-commerce capabilities for global organizations
Eric has 15 years of work experience, including 10 years focused on e-commerce in China and Asia-Pacific, spanning operations, data, media buying, and middle-office functions. Over the past 3 years, he has also worked across categories including beauty, health and personal care, and baby care. Since January this year, he has gradually shifted his focus from domestic to overseas e-commerce.
The shift reflects the collective overseas expansion of Chinese platforms: TikTok, Temu, Lazada, and others are taking China-developed e-commerce capabilities global, while multinational consumer companies need to understand how to work with these platforms, especially TikTok, which integrates media and sales into a single channel.
Beauty accounts for nearly one-third of his company’s business, making TikTok capabilities in North America, Southeast Asia, Japan, and Europe increasingly important. Eric therefore defines himself as a “worker in technology going overseas”—not someone exporting a particular brand, but someone bringing China’s e-commerce technology and experience to overseas teams.
2. Going overseas is not naturally a “dimensionality reduction” attack
Responding to Chen Jing’s question about whether China’s playbook is comprehensively ahead, Eric first dismantles the most optimistic assumption: “Going overseas is not as easy as everyone thinks.” Once you truly understand local consumers, it may not be that difficult, but “how to knock on the door, and then how to walk through it,” is itself a barrier.
Eric describes the US and China as two large, relatively unified markets, while Southeast Asia contains multiple ethnicities, religions, and festival calendars. Products, content, and communications that have been validated in China cannot simply be copied because competitive intensity is lower.
Indonesia is a case in point. Around 90% of its population is Muslim, Eric says, and having Halal certification may directly determine whether a product can be manufactured and sold at scale. “Without Halal certification, there may be no sales channel at all,” is how strongly he frames the importance of religious compliance.
His conclusion remains positive: once a team understands and respects the market and finds the right partners, Chinese teams’ ability to compete hard in content, media buying, and product can show itself. The advantage only exists after entering the market, not from making judgments about it remotely from China.
3. The religious calendar can directly rewrite “people, product, and place”
In an education-product example relayed by Chen Jing, teaching materials for Muslim markets such as Malaysia cannot casually use pigs as examples. Food brands may also face Halal certification at the brand, store, and individual-product levels, with whole-brand certification being the hardest. Eric says some brands spend roughly 1-2 years on the full process, then later says that even after preparations are complete, obtaining the mark may take another 3 years; the exact timeline is ambiguous.
During his first Ramadan in Southeast Asia, Eric found that daytime fasting from food and water left TikTok livestreamers broadly low-energy, reducing normal livestream output. Yet the schedule of eating only before sunrise and after sunset made mouthwash a fast-moving product.
For him, this is not a cultural curiosity but a “people, product, and place” case: people generate new needs in a special context, and the right product captures them. Before entering a market, teams must be prepared for long-term investment; after entry, they must keep exploring and iterating quickly.
4. Category arbitrage creates short-term spreads; brands extend the premium
Overseas markets can indeed support higher prices, but Eric distinguishes category opportunity from brand premium. The former comes from temporarily scarce supply; the latter can create a more durable profit pool.
He uses summer ice makers on North American Amazon as an example. A category that had not previously sold well suddenly took off, and the earliest entrants captured the most profit. As more sellers arrived, the premium gradually narrowed. “When you have the brand as a talisman,” he says, high prices can hold for longer.
In consumer products, Eric mentions Skintific and the mouthwash brand referred to on the show as Me Too. They may not yet have reached the point where their brands are fully established like Huawei or Xiaomi, but compared with white-label products, they already command meaningful pricing and profit space.
However compelling the brand story, it must ultimately map back to the product. Ingredient strength, replacing steps in a skincare or personal-care routine, and positioning as “an affordable alternative to a major brand’s product” are all product propositions consumers can understand.
5. A brand begins with a repeatable story and a good product
The first type of story Eric lists is founder narrative. Yifidan tells the story of a French founder developing a skincare regimen for his Japanese wife, building its narrative around precision skincare. The products may be made in Japan, span serums, sunscreen, and creams, and reach four-digit price points.
A founder’s experience can become an asset before the brand itself is established. Eric cites Lei Jun and Xiaomi: “Even if your brand was only founded recently, the story from your experience and accumulated expertise can certainly give the brand itself more color.”
The second type centers on ingredients and the origin of R&D: where the herbs came from, why scientists developed a particular ingredient, and which step in the routine the product solves. The point is not to apply a template, but to anchor the brand in “a point everyone can understand and recognize,” then build memory layer by layer through media reach and content depth.
Product-line expansion should follow trust that has already been earned: once a facial cleanser is established, extend into cream and serum. Eric’s 3 prerequisites are “patience, thought, and capital investment,” with funding covering R&D, media buying, operations, and continuous product upgrades—not just buying one burst of awareness.
6. Southeast Asia’s low efficiency is both a cost and an incremental opportunity
Chen Jing’s pushback is practical: Southeast Asia consists of multiple small markets. Indonesia has more than 200M people, while Thailand has only about 66M; every country has different cultural, religious, and localization requirements. For a brand selling hundreds of millions or more than RMB1B a year domestically, digging deeper into China may be more efficient than rebuilding across multiple small markets.
Eric understands the choice. China’s e-commerce penetration is about 33%, while electronic payments, logistics parks, highways, and information networks are highly mature. He cites a comparison in which US trucks travel fastest, China ranks second, and efficiency in some Southeast Asian markets may be only 40%-50% of China’s.
But “difficult” does not mean the opportunity is too small. According to Skintific’s public statements, online and offline GMV has reached 1.5B-2B. Its team was not simply the original staff of a mature Chinese mega-brand; it was a new entrant that saw an overseas opportunity and had fewer existing constraints in China.
Eric’s cycle view is: “The people who fell out during the downturn are not necessarily the same people who can bounce back when the economy rebounds.” He compares the moment to the restoration of the national college entrance examination in 1977-1978 and the wave of people entering private business around 1998-1999. There was no certain payoff at the beginning of either shift, but those who ultimately captured the dividend were often the ones who seized the new path.
7. The “time machine” does not linearly replicate China’s e-commerce history
Chen Jing points out that Southeast Asia’s e-commerce penetration may be only around 10% or lower, while markets such as the Philippines and Vietnam are growing rapidly. Many consumers never fully passed through the PC-shopping era, yet already shop fluently through TikTok and mobile apps.
Eric borrows the “time machine theory” but revises its linear narrative: developing countries do not necessarily reproduce the sequence of PC, mobile internet, and social commerce. They may skip the PC era entirely and move straight into mobile and content commerce.
Generational differences after Indonesia’s election made Eric feel that “TikTok is settled.” People in their 20s and 30s saw a “kind to grandpa,” extremely gentle old man in social content, while people in their 40s and 50s formed a harder impression based on his military and strongman background. The 2 generations were not even discussing the disagreement at the same table.
Eric does not judge the information bubbles as good or bad. His commercial conclusion is simply that social media capable of shaping and continuously reinforcing perceptions has a longer commercial runway.
8. The first overseas infrastructure is a reliable local partner
Eric says he has avoided some of the common Southeast Asian pitfalls because domestic Douyin had already “stepped on enough landmines” for him. The first principle is to find partners who understand the platform, have platform relationships, and can accurately interpret brand instructions.
He has changed his view that relying on relationships to find people is somehow improper. The most reliable overseas resources often come from networks. He starts with platform colleagues, then uses the TikTok team to review internal rankings and recommended lists; established Chinese-speaking networks are also an advantage Chinese companies should not casually abandon.
Relationship endorsements still cannot replace competitive selection. Eric advocates “comparing pitches openly,” because service providers vary widely, and the same agency may be strong in one market and weak in another. A good performance in one market is not a reason to hand over every country.
Brands also need to use their own expertise to fill an agency’s gaps rather than outsource everything. Eric defines the ideal relationship as a strategic partnership: “They tell you more about local consumers’ perceptions, and you tell them how to operate the platform well.” Ultimately, both sides learn from each other.
9. The pitfalls of managing local teams often have little to do with pay
A TSP in Vietnam told a star livestreamer only that “today’s stream was not good and you didn’t put enough heart into it.” The streamer then rode a motorcycle for 1.5 hours back home and said he was quitting. The example reminded Eric that the intensity of feedback Chinese teams consider normal performance communication may not be received that way locally.
After Eid al-Fitr in Indonesia, many employees may feel they have earned enough money and no longer need to work hard, causing people a company has trained for a year to leave suddenly. Chen Jing also relays a story about a Thai streamer who earned around RMB200K in a month, immediately quit to buy a bag, and returned to ask about resuming work after spending the money.
Eric sees the Chinese instinct—“I made RMB200K this month, so next month I’ll work harder and make RMB400K”—as a source of competitiveness, and jokes that “China will definitely conquer the world.” He immediately acknowledges that this may be “biased” and asks listeners who disagree to make their own judgment. The useful takeaway is that incentive structures must be redesigned around local culture.
10. Before adapting to platform rules, understand what the platform wants to monetize
Eric advises merchants to think from the other side: “If you were TikTok today, what would you want merchants to do?” Starting only from the merchant’s perspective leaves a company passively adapting to rules; standing on the platform side makes rule changes look more predictable.
Merchants most often complain that traffic allocation is inaccurate and commissions are too high. Eric attributes the former to a system still being refined, and sees the latter as the platform’s need to improve its margin. After acquiring Tokopedia in Indonesia, TikTok also faces pressure to reach breakeven faster.
The platform’s core demands include richer product supply and more revenue. Merchants willing to spend above the industry average on advertising can communicate with AMs to seek more organic traffic, and can also participate in creator-funding or support programs. “To master a platform’s rules, you first have to understand what the platform wants.”
11. TikTok creates demand; shelf platforms capture it
In the 5A or AIPL funnel, TikTok can raise both Awareness and Interest, so it is inevitably more expensive than a pure shelf channel. TikTok may not make money in isolation at first, but through the Halo effect it can help Shopee and Lazada build the business.
Eric classifies TikTok as an expensive, mindshare-heavy business and distribution as a low-cost business. Brands need to operate on TikTok while also setting up flagship stores and C-stores on Shopee and Lazada, using shelf-platform profits to balance content investment.
The more fiercely platforms compete, the more likely merchants are to receive subsidies and opportunities from both sides. When TikTok supports self-streaming and creators, Shopee may increase similar resources. Chen Jing describes a typical home-furnishings path: users watch a video on TikTok, search and compare prices elsewhere, and may ultimately place the order on Shopee. Eric agrees, while joking that “Lazada doesn’t work” is something he can never say out loud.
As content engagement, free clicks, pricing, offers, and product conversion gradually improve, Eric believes TikTok ROAS can rise from 0.1 to 1, 3, and eventually 4-5. The consumer mindset is: “I can buy something expensive, but I can’t overpay.”
12. Overseas TikTok operations still involve substantial “blind shooting”
Domestic Douyin already has Yun图, the Douyin merchant center, and more complete data dimensions. Overseas TikTok has mirrored many tools, but their practical performance remains weaker, and platform support for the 5A framework is incomplete.
Eric’s 5A sequence is Aware, Appeal, Ask, Act, Advocate. The show summarizes these as awareness, attraction, seeding, purchase, and subsequent sharing or repurchase. In China, the most important layer is the deep-interest A3 Ask audience, because that asset is easiest to convert.
Overseas, consumer-data restrictions and incomplete systems make it difficult to capture these audiences in full. Eric instead relies on behavioral indicators such as 14-day repurchase, 7-day repurchase, or multiple ad exposures over the past 7 days, rather than age, occupation, and city profiles.
He compares e-commerce with playing a video game: only by seeing your own status clearly can you decide your next move. The overseas tool gap means “there is a process of blind shooting,” and brands need smaller experiments and faster reviews to compensate for invisible data.
13. The highest-efficiency zone in overseas creator ecosystems remains the mid-tier
China has already developed a tiered creator system spanning top, mid-tier, and long-tail creators: during major promotions, brands lock top creator slots first and then add volume lower down. Apart from a few cases such as P姐 in Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam are still far from reproducing this hierarchy and are closer to broad-coverage open plans.
Eric observes that top creators charge more, while their output and sales results carry greater uncertainty. Mid-tier creators cost less and offer greater certainty, making their overall efficiency better. This differs from the domestic habit of prioritizing top creators.
Overseas top creators already earn money from Instagram, YouTube, or brand advertising; they do not need to livestream for 5 hours to earn commissions. Many would rather build their own brands. Eric’s explanation is that local supply is not rich enough, creators already bring their own traffic, and private-label gross margins are far higher than commissions.
He uses pet food to illustrate the supply difference. North America’s mainstream market remains centered on extruded kibble, while China has already competed its way into freeze-dried and fresh-food formats. Eric concludes that products genuinely forged through Chinese competition will be very strong overseas, but overseas creators can also build brands more easily when supply is relatively sparse.
14. Moving creators over cannot replace a native ecosystem, and livestream commerce does not grow around one star
Eric says, with clear personal bias, that Southeast Asia “absolutely will not produce a Li Jiaqi,” then acknowledges that this may be overly broad and clarifies that it is only his personal impression. The more verifiable judgment is that local creators still have room to improve in professional explanations, closing the sale, and long-form livestreaming.
Southeast Asian self-streaming may cost more and vary more in quality, while creator livestreams still account for roughly half of the mix. China’s self-streaming ecosystem has already developed, particularly in high-ticket and beauty categories. Moving creators in from YouTube or Instagram can fill short-term supply gaps, but the ecosystem is not built until native creators have grown.
Chen Jing believes Luo Yonghao’s combination of fame and debt-repayment pressure was critical to Douyin e-commerce’s early breakout. Eric agrees it was a landmark event, but rejects attributing growth to one person: earlier RTB advertising connecting Tmall and JD.com had already taught consumers to “see content on Douyin, then click to buy.”
This was not a breakout created by one creator, but an expansion of the field: from entertainment content, to product-seeding short videos, to completed transactions. The platform first established the mindset of buying; creator livestreams could then amplify it.
15. Japan’s DTC is migrating to Amazon, Rakuten, and Qoo10
Eric mainly helps Japanese teams rebuild DTC websites. The company has operated in Japan for roughly 20 years, and he has been involved for 8-9 months. Japan’s e-commerce penetration remains low, while traditional DTC faces the problem that Google and Facebook no longer provide stable traffic.
When owned websites struggle to acquire customers consistently, many brands turn to platforms such as Amazon, Rakuten, and Qoo10, moving from the original DTC setting into markets with existing consumers.
Rakuten has a relatively complete online-offline retail and CRM system. Qoo10 is more oriented toward Gen Z, resembling a large collection of C-stores while also accommodating flagship stores. The leading platform varies by category, so brands cannot simply bet on Amazon based on national scale.
16. The most expensive cost in Japanese e-commerce is process speed
Eric encountered an extreme case in which modifying a product’s PDP, or product-detail page, took 2-3 weeks. The local team explained that the designer had already used up their quota. The same task in Chinese e-commerce might take 6 hours or less.
His pointed summary of Japanese working methods is sharp: “What interests me is that I built a system and have a very clear SOP.” What the SOP ultimately produces may not be the point of interest. “Traveling in Japan and working in Japan are 2 different things.”
Chen Jing contrasts this with the experience of a Singaporean entrepreneur: local people may want to think through 70%-80% before moving, while Chinese teams often think through only 5%-20%, start first, and correct during execution. In practice, management needs to reconcile the 2 ends at around 30%-40%.
Eric believes Chinese teams are more comfortable learning by doing and keep looking for a way through when blocked. Some overseas teams stop and wait for a superior to give direction. His company’s response includes appointing a Chinese person as Japan IT head and finding Chinese-speaking teams inside large local agencies that understand the pace of Chinese e-commerce.
17. Japanese consumers still trust national brands, but younger people care more about homogeneous low prices
Chen Jing says SHEIN’s market share in Japan has surpassed Uniqlo’s because its prices are lower and its styles more numerous. Eric did not verify the figure, but responded from the demand side: “Fast, good, and cheap—this applies everywhere.”
His consumer logic is direct: when quality is comparable and the price is lower, most people choose the cheaper option. Younger consumers are placing less value on brand premiums and paying more attention to whether quality meets their needs and whether the price is reasonable.
Japan’s distinctive feature is that national brands such as Shiseido and Kao still have deep foundations, so international beauty brands are not entering an empty market. Brand equity still works, but it no longer automatically covers every younger consumer.
One response from Eric’s group in Japan has been to acquire local beauty brands and use them to iterate within the category. He admits that competing with Japan’s strong incumbents directly through the parent company’s existing brands is “quite challenging.”
18. North American TikTok must cross 3 structures at once: retail, demographics, and regulation
Eric has been involved in North America for about 3 months and believes TikTok is still proving itself. Unlike Southeast Asia, North American retailers such as Target and Walmart remain powerful, and open-shelf beauty consumers have no urgent reason to leave those traditional channels.
When working on “people, product, and place,” brands need to distinguish Hispanic consumers, native consumers, Gen Z, millennials, and older cohorts rather than treating the US as homogeneous. First determine who is active on TikTok, who has purchasing power, and who is willing to buy there; only then decide on product and content.
At the time, he was helping a major US beauty brand launch a new product line targeting Gen Z. Execution included finding creators, communicating with them one by one, and producing different short videos covering brand promotion, packaging explanations, ingredient details, and advantages over comparable products.
North American regulations further restrict what can and cannot be said, requiring repeated experimentation with creator selection and product claims. Eric therefore acknowledges that North America is “somewhat harder to do” than Southeast Asia.
19. The high cost of North American service providers is concentrated in immature creator supply
TikTok once tested a sample-center model: merchants sent only 1 sample, creators livestreamed from centralized booths, and service providers offered standardized guidance, reducing the cost of shipping samples and training creators individually.
But Chen Jing heard a threshold from service providers: “If you are not prepared to spend millions of yuan, don’t go to the US to become a service provider.” Eric adds that operating a single product in North America may cost 7x as much as in China. When the creator ecosystem is immature, costs are too high to bring creators or brands into the market quickly.
Chinese MCNs such as Yowant and Jiao Ge You Peng can export methods, but cannot build the ecosystem on their own. Eric’s analogy is that the platform builds the stage, while service providers bring brands and creators to perform; only when audiences, revenue, and native creators grow together will the system truly take shape.
Under both the Biden administration and the earlier Trump administration, repeated ban discussions and an anti-globalization headwind have added uncertainty for TikTok. Eric’s next phase of work is centered on North America, so he says frankly, “It absolutely must not get banned.” Overall, however, he does not doubt that TikTok can survive and thrive; he simply believes it needs more time.
20. Price architecture and product fundamentals must come before TikTok spending
Asked whether brands worry about TikTok breaking their prices, Eric says, “First of all, I have no concerns.” Sample sizes and mini sizes should already be designed as hook products, while core products are ones he “would rather die than discount.” Flash sales, gifts, and different sizes should all be designed end to end before entering the channel.
US brands are slow to invest not simply because they do not know how, but because they are not yet at a “dead end.” Amazon, Target, and Walmart still contribute meaningful business. Eric cites Estée Lauder using its acquisition The Ordinary to test TikTok innovation; he heard that it sold more than $1M in GMV in a single day in August or September, using a successful case to prove the channel first.
Eric went through a similar internal sell in Indonesia: after taking a business from zero to 2.5M-3M in 1 year, more regions became willing to believe in the approach and let him test it in other markets and eventually North America. The original text does not specify the currency. “Build 1 successful case, 1 viable model, and then teach it to different people.”
TikTok is ultimately not Walmart or Costco; it cannot take suppliers such as Tyson around the world the way a traditional retailer can. It is only a catalyst and a stage. The platform can push quality problems onto the supply chain, but a brand cannot, so “product quality and quality control are extremely, extremely important.” And “if sales is exhausted, it proves marketing did not do its job; if marketing is exhausted, it proves R&D did not do its job.”
21. The true destination is not going overseas, but turning globalization into a CEO project
Eric says teams must first complete the psychological preparation: overseas business may be small and fragmented, require tolerance for early losses, and expose them to bad partners. But once the strategic decision is made, it cannot be handed to one employee under a business head to test the waters. “It has to be a CEO project. It has to be a founder project.”
“Going overseas” only describes moving outward from China; “entering the sea” means putting down roots. Offices, local employees, organizational structures, production lines, R&D, and scaled manufacturing can all serve as vehicles. Products must also continue to iterate locally instead of leaving the Chinese team permanently floating offshore and operating by remote control.
For overseas acquisitions, Eric recommends sending the strongest people as quickly as possible to change culture, operating habits, and pace. Mature groups may adjust the CEO and leadership team within 6 months and mandate the involvement of finance and legal. Multinationals also rely on systems, digitization, and dual reporting lines so local functions report simultaneously to the local CEO and regional or global functions.
The final point is both a commercial judgment and a personal choice. After moving from head of e-commerce at a domestic group to “technology going overseas,” Eric’s mental state and health actually improved. He urges people of his generation to occasionally “straighten their entire torso,” because “the thing everyone is fighting tooth and nail to win may not be the best thing.” Looking out 3, 5, or 10 years may matter more than defending the small patch of ground immediately in front of you.