Online retailers in China thrive domestically, but they rarely venture beyond Chinese borders. To help promote international expansion, Hangzhou recently held a contest to encourage university graduates to target foreign markets.

University graduates competed with each other to see who could be the most successful online “laowai” retailer. The contest featured cash rewards of up to RMB 10,000 and a chance to win two years of free rent in Hangzhou’s Network Innovation Park.

The winning company, “Albert”, had the corporate slogan, “Technology to shape the future, creativity and wisdom for life”. Albert promotes interactive technology outsourced to independent companies for design and manufacturing. As with other competitors, the Albert team used foreign social platforms to successfully promote its products.

Other participants included “i-life”, an anime online toy retailer boasting monthly revenues of RMB 10,000. The company is currently expanding into Russia and Brazil.

Photo: utexas.edu