Up2China, a leading facilitator of direct-to-consumer (D2C) operations in China’s e-commerce sector, and Asia Circles, a pioneer in D2C market entry strategies for Southeast Asia focusing on Vietnam, Malaysia & Singapore, have entered a strategic partnership. This collaboration creates unparalleled opportunities for brands seeking to expand into two of the world’s fastest-growing and most dynamic e-commerce markets: China and Southeast Asia.
As the largest e-commerce market globally, China offers immense potential for international brands. However, navigating the competitive landscape presents challenges, such as rapidly shifting consumer preferences, intense competition, and increasingly stringent regulatory requirements. Up2China has a proven track record of guiding D2C brands through these complexities, ensuring a localized and impactful market presence.
Shlomi MAhfouda, Founder of Up2China.“This partnership represents a significant milestone in our mission to make the Chinese e-commerce market accessible to brands worldwide. By joining forces with Asia Circles, we’re creating a gateway for businesses to thrive in China and Southeast Asia”
Southeast Asia, on the other hand, is emerging as the next big frontier for e-commerce, with Vietnam at its core. The region boasts a young, tech-savvy population, growing internet penetration, and a burgeoning middle class. A third of the 100 million population are expected to enter the relative middle class within the next decade, Asia Circles specializes in enabling brands to capitalize on this growth, offering tailored social commerce strategies to succeed in markets that, while promising, require a deep understanding of cultural nuances and consumer behavior.
“Southeast Asia and China are complementary markets in many ways with Modern Trade retail a bedrock for brands building awareness & the right pricing structure. Together with Up2China, we aim to empower brands with the tools and insights they need to succeed across these regions, brands benefit from diversification & scale“
Through this partnership, the two companies combine their expertise to deliver clients a seamless, cross-regional expansion strategy. Brands working with Up2China can now leverage Asia Circles’ extensive network and market insights to penetrate Vietnam and the broader Southeast Asian market. Similarly, Asia Circles’ clients will gain access to China’s massive consumer base, supported by Up2China’s localized knowledge and operational excellence.
Addressing Global and Regional Challenges
This collaboration is pivotal as brands face an increasingly fragmented global market. The Chinese e-commerce landscape has grown more competitive, with local brands innovating rapidly to meet consumer demand. Additionally, geopolitical tensions and economic shifts are prompting many companies to diversify their market portfolios.
Southeast Asia offers a unique opportunity in this context. For brands already operating in China, entering Vietnam and the surrounding region provides a way to diversify revenue streams and hedge against market-specific risks. Conversely, Southeast Asian brands looking to establish themselves on a global stage can tap into the vast purchasing power of China’s consumer base, unlocking unparalleled growth potential.
Unlocking New Possibilities
This partnership underscores the importance of cross-regional collaboration in an increasingly interconnected world. Up2China and Asia Circles are opening doors to new markets and helping businesses future-proof their operations by providing clients with a dual-market strategy. Together, they aim to redefine what’s possible for D2C brands in e-commerce.
About Up2China
Up2China is a leading company dedicated to helping D2C brands navigate the complexities of China’s e-commerce market. Through localized strategies and operational excellence, the company ensures its clients achieve sustainable growth in the world’s largest e-commerce ecosystem.
About Asia Circles
Asia Circles specializes in guiding brands into the dynamic e-commerce markets of Southeast Asia, with a strong focus on Vietnam. The company offers tailored solutions to help businesses succeed in one of the most promising regions for e-commerce growth.
Q&A with Shlomi (Up2China Founder) and Benji (Asia Circles Founder).
1. What inspired this collaboration, and how does it align with your company’s vision for enabling D2C brands to succeed in new markets?
We were always thinking about diversifying our line of business mainly by creating new value for our current client base, and offering SEA as a market to be explored is a no-brainer for us, especially considering our Data solution, DiGate, which is already well integrated with SEA e-commerce marketplaces.
Brands are looking to diversify their revenue streams across Asia, however, markets like Vietnam or Malaysia are no longer auxiliary markets, they offer an advanced retail & E-Commerce infrastructure for brands to leverage. Modern Trade Retail is another channel for brands to develop with relative ease of access for full market penetration across E-Commerce & offline retail. The timing is right to cross-leverage these opportunities alongside China; philosophically we’re very aligned with Up2China, and we genuinely care about brand expansion & brand ‘guardianship’ when it comes to price strategy, branding & positioning. Thus Up2China were the perfect choice of partner.
2. What unique strengths does each company bring to this partnership, and how do you see them complementing each other to benefit your clients?
Benji is a doer; I know him from the days of working together on the Vitabiotics project once we established together their Chengdu office and team as well as some other lines of business we did together like DY stores, TMG stores, and SCRM solutions. Benji is the go-to guy in SEA, and along with their unique value proposition, we think it can be a great addition to our line of business. Our strength is mainly our 9 years of know-how in the Chinese market and familiarity with working with Benji to take projects from scratch and succeed in China.
Shlomi is an immensely smart strategist with a proven track record growing a successful business in China. We collaborated extensively whilst I was Director of APAC at Vitabiotics, much of the ‘best practice’ we’ve learnt in China can be applied to SEA as Chinese technologies like Tik Tok Shop (Douyin in China), invest significantly in social commerce across SEA, the inflection point of SEA’s economic growth meets advanced social commerce tools for brands to leverage & extremely high adoption rates. The first major market Tik Tok launched in was Vietnam, for example.
3. What are the most significant opportunities and challenges for D2C brands looking to expand into China and Southeast Asia today, and how does this partnership address them?
China is the biggest e-commerce market in the world along with SEA, which brings the diversity and dynamic regions that are emerging fast. Our partnership aligns with it ideally to overcome the market challenges currently in China while allowing brands to continue their growth in similar markets that are very different in other aspects.
The partnership addresses access to different retail eco-systems, in China typically Cross Border E-Commerce is step 1, where brands sell solely online. SEA boasts a highly developed retail infrastructure & because brands need to register, they can make full functional claims & list offline the products. This is complimentary to China strategy as brands develop omni-channel & leverage both online & offline awareness. The Chinese also travel extensively in SEA, so cross exposure is inevitable. My mission is to showcase to brands that SEA deserves direct investment & can contribute towards brand growth as a key strategic region, alongside China as the largest consumer market in the world.
For more information, Visit us Up2China , https://asiacircles.co/