Client Case Study
Shopify China
Paving the Way for Shopify China Through a Trust-Driven Approach
At Glance
Launched Shopify’s first-ever branded events
in mainland China, signalling a new chapter of direct merchant engagement in the region
Attracted a highly curated group
of experienced merchants, many of whom expressed strong interest in ongoing partnership discussions
Built trust and credibility
through premium, face-to-face experiences, laying the foundation for long-term merchant advocacy and expansion across China.
Background
Shopify is one of the world’s leading commerce platforms, giving millions of merchants the tools and platform to kickstart, grow, and manage their online businesses.
Known for its user-friendliness, powerful customisation options, and broad ecosystem of apps and integrations, Shopify has become the platform of choice for entrepreneurs and brands in over 175 countries.
In China, however, Shopify operates under a specific set of constraints. Lacking an official sales team or direct marketing capabilities in the mainland, Shopify China depends on strategic partnerships with local tech and social media companies to promote its platform.
While the region holds vast potential, breaking through the highly competitive and saturated market has proven challenging.
The Challenge
Shopify faced limited brand visibility in China and could not rely on conventional marketing channels.
Unlike in other markets, Shopify China does not have an official in-market sales team. Instead, it relies heavily on strategic partnerships with local technology and social media companies to drive paid advertising and outreach efforts.
Despite these efforts, Shopify faced major barriers to growth in China:
Brand Perception Issues
Many merchants were already aware of Shopify, but saw it as unsuitable for the Chinese market, particularly due to localisation gaps and past experiences.
Marketing Restrictions
Shopify was restricted from conducting brand-led marketing campaigns and could only activate them through partner channels, which limited message control and consistency.
Weak Conversion Funnels
The Chinese market is saturated and hyper-competitive, and Shopify lacked the funnel infrastructure to convert awareness into qualified leads.
Lead Quality
Existing outreach efforts often attracted low-quality leads that did not align with Shopify’s target merchant profiles.
Cultural Expectations
Local merchants highly valued face-to-face interactions and personalised relationship-building, something Shopify’s existing partner model struggled to deliver.
Lack of In-Market Presence
Without a physical presence in mainland China, Shopify had difficulty cultivating long-term trust and credibility with local merchants.
Our Approach
With Shopify China unable to run brand-led marketing or maintain a direct sales presence in the mainland, Brew designed a strategy rooted in offline, in-person engagement.
Rather than rely on broad digital campaigns, the focus was now narrower, but no less impactful. Brew’s plan for Shopify China was centred on building trust through real-world interactions, connecting directly with merchants in spaces where credibility, familiarity, and face-to-face communication matter most.
Live events became the cornerstone of this approach, offering a way to humanise the Shopify China brand and foster meaningful merchant relationships.
1. Strategic Focus on High-Value Merchants
Targeting high-growth regions like Shenzhen, pictured above, enabled more focused outreach to experienced merchants
Together with the Shopify China team, Brew aimed to develop a pipeline of Shopify Plus merchants.
We specifically targeted merchants with businesses generating over USD 5 million in Gross Merchandise Value (GMV). This metric represents the total value of goods sold over a certain period through a particular platform, including e-commerce marketplaces.
To reach this niche group, efforts were concentrated on Jinhua and Shenzhen, two of China’s most influential e-commerce and industrial regions. These cities were chosen not only for their merchant density but also for their reputation as innovation hubs in cross-border commerce.
Both cities offer a strong concentration of merchants with the infrastructure, scale, and global ambition that align closely with Shopify Plus criteria, making them ideal launch points for targeted outreach and event activation.
2. High-Touch Merchant Qualification
Targeting high-growth regions like Shenzhen, pictured above, enabled more focused outreach to experienced merchants
Brew recognised that attracting the right attendees was more valuable than drawing a large turnout.
To foster this, our team personally reached out to up to 80 merchants per event, conducting online calls in advance to introduce Shopify’s partner ecosystem and ensure personal connections with each merchant.
This outreach process resulted in a carefully filtered group of 15–18 merchants who were carefully vetted for alignment with Shopify Plus criteria.
In-person attendance remained consistently strong, with over two-thirds of invited merchants showing up on-site.
Nearly a third of attendees expressed clear intent to continue discussions with Shopify China, demonstrating both strong interest and the quality of the lead pool.
3. Leveraging Local Networks for Targeted Promotion
Working together with local associations helped Brew ensure the quality and relevance of attendees at Shopify China’s events.
To amplify reach while maintaining lead quality, the Brew team partnered with the Guangdong E-Commerce Association (GDeBA).
This organisation actively supports local businesses in navigating international markets, provides training programmes related to e-commerce, and helps businesspeople connect with logistics partners and other stakeholders.
GDeBA helped us leverage their extensive network of entrepreneurs by promoting Shopify China’s events through WeChat channels and merchant chat groups, including those built from prior events.
Brew provided custom event posters with QR codes for easy sign-ups and access to event information. This was followed by personal phone outreach to build legitimacy and answer any questions, helping merchants feel confident about engaging with Shopify.
4. Prioritising In-Person Connection and Relationship Building
Chinese merchants place a high value on face-to-face interaction when evaluating new platforms and partnerships. Brew tailored our engagement and the event experience to reflect this cultural preference by hosting intimate, high-touch gatherings designed for direct conversation and trust-building.
Hands-on conversations at these events helped merchants understand how Shopify China could support their business goals.
These connections were established long before the actual event took place, with proactive outreach efforts including personal phone calls, pre-event introductions to Shopify partners, and one-on-one conversations to understand each merchant’s business needs.
By the time merchants arrived at the venue, they were not just attendees, but already part of a growing, trusted network.
Felix Chen, Senior Partner Manager of Shopify Greater China, shares his insights with event attendees at the Meet Experience in Jinhua.
Every event was also designed to deliver meaningful value to merchants.
At the Meet Experience in Jinhua, held in collaboration with Feishu Shenno, experts from both Shopify and Feishu Shennuo were present. They shared their insights on how merchants could leverage tools like AI algorithm optimisation and data intelligent analysis to solve core pain points such as traffic acquisition and user conversion.
These are effective, actionable strategies that aim to help merchants improve their digital operations and overall competitiveness.
5. Hosting Premium Events to Signal Commitment
By selecting premium venues, Brew helped reflect Shopify’s professionalism and long-term commitment to the China market.
Brew ensured that each event was hosted at a high-end venue, such as the Renaissance Hotel in Shenzhen, to reflect Shopify’s professionalism and market commitment.
The agenda was carefully curated to encourage meaningful interaction. Attendees participated in small-group roundtable discussions, guided networking sessions, and direct consultations with Shopify’s local partners.
These touchpoints often took place in relaxed, welcoming settings such as afternoon tea gatherings, creating an environment where merchants felt comfortable asking in-depth questions, sharing candid feedback, and exploring the platform’s capabilities in a more personalised and open-ended way.
This approach from Brew helped build trust and confidence in Shopify as a strategic partner for global e-commerce expansion.
Delivering Qualified Leads Through Human-Centred Strategy
Shopify’s branded event series in China marked a significant strategic milestone: the company’s first time independently hosting in-market events on the mainland.
This shift from passive brand participation to active, Shopify-led engagement has helped reshape merchant perceptions and open new pathways to conversion.
The events attracted a curated group of high-potential merchants, aligning with Shopify Plus-level criteria.
On-site attendance exceeded expectations
with the majority of invited merchants showing up and actively engaging in roundtable discussions, one-on-one consultations, and partner introductions.
Initial follow-up interest was strong
with multiple merchants requesting deeper conversations with Shopify partners.
Equally important, the groundwork was laid for future merchant advocacy. Select attendees are now being invited to participate in livestreams and webinars to amplify Shopify’s credibility in local merchant circles.
This initiative also created a repeatable framework for market expansion.
With six to seven events planned across the remainder of the year, Brew will continue to support Shopify in efforts to strengthen its presence in China’s key regions.
By focusing on sustained, relationship-driven engagement, we help Shopify nurture long-term merchant trust and steadily grow its base of qualified leads.
Our Approach
When Collectius came to us with significant gaps in their SEO expertise and online visibility, we tailored a comprehensive approach that was designed to overhaul their digital presence and drive measurable improvements. Here's how we proceeded:
- SEO Audit: An on-page and off-page SEO audit was conducted to identify areas for improvement
- Google Search Console Installation: Google Search Console was installed on the Collectius website to monitor and track their analytics
- Digital Content Strategy: We produced a digital content strategy pack to help Collectius enhance their SEO goals
- Backlink Acquisition: Backlinks were purchased to improve Collectius' domain ranking Keyword Research: Extensive keyword research was performed to align content and SEO strategies with relevant search trends
Comprehensive SEO Audit
We initiated our process by conducting a detailed SEO audit for Collectius. This audit was crucial in pinpointing several critical areas where the company was underperforming.
Key issues we found included suboptimal keyword utilisation, missing meta descriptions, and poorly optimised content that wasn't fully aligned with target search queries.
Having identified areas for improvement, the Brew team worked with Collectius’ web development team to implement these fixes.
Following the initial SEO audit, we conducted a focused technical SEO audit for Collectius. A technical SEO audit is a thorough examination of a website’s technical infrastructure as it relates to its visibility and performance in search engines.
It evaluates several key elements, including site architecture, page speed, mobile-friendliness, indexing, crawlability, security, and use of technologies that may impact search engine access and efficiency.
This was a critical step to ensuring that the website’s infrastructure met modern search engine standards, which is pivotal for improving search rankings and user experience. Our audit revealed several key technical issues that needed immediate attention:
Slow Loading Speeds: We identified that the Collectius website had slower than optimal loading times. Slow speeds can significantly affect user experience and negatively impact search engine rankings. To address this, we optimised image sizes, minimised the use of blocking JavaScript, and implemented more efficient caching policies to enhance page load performance.
The Lack of a Sitemap: The absence of a sitemap was another critical gap. Sitemaps are essential as they help search engines more intelligently crawl the site and understand its structure. We created and submitted a comprehensive sitemap to Google, which facilitated better indexing of the website’s pages.
Mobile Optimization: Our audit also found that Collectius’ website was not optimised for mobile users. The Brew team provided detailed guidance to Collectius' web development team on best practices for mobile optimization going forward. This included advice on implementing accelerated mobile pages (AMP), optimising button sizes and touch targets, and ensuring text readability without requiring zoom.
Tracking & Monitoring of Collectius’ Web Performance
To better monitor and track the effectiveness of our strategies, we installed Google Search Console (GSC) on Collectius’ website. GSC allows us to gain valuable insights into the site's traffic, search performance, and any crawling errors, thereby enabling us to make data-driven decisions.
With data from GSC, we can identify which pages are performing well and which might require further optimization. This helps us refine SEO strategies and target specific issues with precision.
Digital Content Strategy
Recognizing the importance of content in SEO success, we crafted a comprehensive digital content strategy pack specifically tailored to Collectius' needs.
This strategy involved developing four customer personas and two end-user personas, representing the diverse segments of Collectius' audience. These personas helped us understand the distinct needs, behaviours, and preferences of different user types that interact with Collectius' services.
From this foundation, we were able to pinpoint the types of content and topics that would resonate most strongly with each persona. Leveraging these insights, we developed a series of SEO-optimised articles.
Each article was carefully written by our copywriter who made sure that keywords used were relevant with Collectius’ offerings and aligned with the interests of potential clients.
Taking this approach allowed us to attract more organic traffic to their site and significantly enhance visibility for these targeted search terms.
Backlink Acquisition
To strengthen Collectius’ domain authority and improve their search engine ranking, we strategically acquired high-quality backlinks. This effort was aimed at boosting their profile against competitors and increasing the trustworthiness of their site in the eyes of search engines.
Through our targeted backlink acquisition efforts, we gradually improved the organic traffic to Collectius' site.
As their domain authority increased, so did their visibility in search engine results, leading to more visitors naturally finding their way to the website without the need for paid advertising.
This steady increase in organic traffic not only enhanced their online presence but also contributed to higher engagement and conversion rates.
Outstanding SEO Results for Collectius
Our comprehensive SEO strategy delivered impressive results for Collectius, significantly enhancing their online visibility and search engine performance. Here are some of the key achievements:
Significant Traffic Growth
Over a period of six months, we achieved more than a 60% increase in organic traffic to Collectius' website. This surge in visitors was a direct result of our focused improvements in SEO practices and content strategies.
Expanded Keyword Reach
There was over a 70% increase in the number of organic keywords that Collectius ranks for on Google. This expansion in keyword coverage helped broaden their visibility and reach a wider audience interested in debt collection and financial services.
Top Rankings in Local Searches
Collectius' website achieved first-page rankings on Google's Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for targeted searches in Singapore and Malaysia. Ranking on the first page for relevant searches significantly boosted their brand's visibility and accessibility in these key markets.
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