We get brands and companies earning revenue in China. Stores on Tmall and JD, social commerce on Douyin and RED, the right distributor for your category.
Chinese consumers jump between half a dozen apps before lunch. Each one has its own audience and its own rules for selling.
WeChat微信
RED小红书
Tmall天猫
Pinduoduo拼多多
JD京东
Douyin抖音The playbook changes by platform. See how we help brands show up on each one.
Three ways in. Pick the one that matches where you actually are, not where you wish you were.
You have a product that could work in China. No team there yet, no entity, no store on any platform.
You're in the market and selling. Growth has stalled.
Platform rules keep shifting. Habits from three years ago are gone.
First store on Tmall, first viral RED post, first distributor handshake. Whatever the stage, the same senior team runs it.
Everything you need to go from zero to your first sales in China.
Before you spend a single yuan on platforms or partners, you need a model that fits your brand, your category and your budget. We build the strategic foundation: where to sell, how to sell, who to sell with.
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Start selling in China without registering a local company. Bonded warehouse, customs clearance, a fully operational storefront on Tmall Global or JD Worldwide.
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The fastest way to get your products onto shelves and into warehouses across China. We find the right distributor for your category or act as your distributor ourselves.
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Your brand was built for Western consumers. Chinese consumers read it differently. Naming, visual identity, packaging, tone of voice. This work happens before you launch, not after.
Learn moreYou're already selling. Now make it work harder.
Listings, promotions, customer service in Mandarin, logistics coordination, platform compliance. We run the daily work so your team can stay on product and brand.
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Livestream selling, KOL partnerships, in-app shops. Content that converts in the same session it builds awareness.
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The big sales days do a serious chunk of the year. We pick the moments worth fighting for, build the creative, run the warm-up, stay on the peak day hour by hour.
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Douyin, WeChat, RED, Baidu, Tmall, JD and programmatic. One team planning and buying across every Chinese platform, everything tied back to eCommerce performance.
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Chinese shoppers research, decide and buy in the same scroll. Day-to-day accounts, creator casting from our own database, and sales tied back creator by creator. Run by TheRedScroll.
Learn moreMake your China decisions on current ground truth, not on a playbook from two years ago.
Tmall, JD, Douyin, WeChat, RED. Different audiences, different rules, different ways the money actually moves. A clear map before you commit budget.
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A concentrated training programme covering platforms, consumer behaviour and campaign mechanics. Taught by people who run China every day.
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Fly to China. Visit live eCommerce operations, meet platform teams, watch livestream sessions in real time. Built for decision-makers who need to see the market.
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Articles and analysis written by people who work the Chinese market every day. What platforms are doing, where consumers are moving, what it means for international brands.
Learn morePlenty of TPs (trade partners, on Tmall and JD) and DPs (Douyin partners) will say yes to your brand. Most of them are generalists. They’ll run a store in any category and buy the traffic to fill it. The ones worth having stick to a few categories and already sell to the shoppers there. Our job is to get your brand in front of the one that leads your category.
Two years in, you have a tidy flagship and a big media bill, and very few shoppers come back unless an ad pulls them in.
Cut the ad budget and its shoppers keep buying. They were its regulars long before your brand arrived.
The curves show the pattern we see, not client data.
More than 15 years in Chinese eCommerce put us across the table from the TPs and DPs that lead each category. We’ve met them in person, and they’re all in Compass, our partner database. We pick the ones that fit your brand.
The best specialists turn most brands down, so a cold email rarely gets far. We build the pitch with you and make the introduction. You’ll also have your investment number ready before the partner asks for it.
Once you’ve signed, we run store content and eCommerce campaigns with your partner, plus your social accounts. Offline events too, if they’re worth the money.
We don’t run a TP or DP team of our own, so there’s no one we’re trying to steer you toward. The only question we ask is which partner fits your brand. Finding your partner is quoted as a project, after a first call.
Every distributor we've vetted. Every TP and DP we've worked with. Every channel operator we know by name. Twenty years of relationships, turned into a database. Now yours to search.
Every partner cleared before we add them. Track records you can verify, references you can call.
Category, region, channel, price tier, brand portfolio. The wrong fits drop out before the first call.
The team using Compass on live projects is the same team keeping it current.
Pricing a platform before the partner? Our free budget calculators put a first-year number on Tmall Global, JD Worldwide and Douyin.
Cyril Drouin founded TheChinaPath in 2023, after running Publicis Commerce and Performance Marketing for China and North Asia as CEO. He brought the senior team with him. Operators with 15 years on Tmall, JD, Douyin and WeChat, 75+ brand launches behind them, based in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Paris.
Running brand strategy, buying media, managing eCommerce operations, building social commerce channels on Douyin, WeChat and RED, localising products for the Chinese consumer. Advising brands on market entry, from business model to distributor selection to regulatory setup. Producing content at scale, both traditional studio work and AI-powered production.
We do it on the platforms, with the budgets, with the pressure. Advising from the outside is not our model.
Going independent in 2023 let us put strategy and execution under one roof, with the same senior people handling both. The experience didn't change. The structure did.
Meet the team
Hub Studio is the team behind everything we ship in market. Photo, film, social, livestream, packaging, OOH. Made for Chinese platforms by people who post on them every week.
Key visuals, campaign ideas, packaging, out-of-home. Built for the apps your buyer actually opens, Xiaohongshu, Douyin, WeChat, Tmall.
Crews based in Shanghai. Shoots in Beijing, Shenzhen and Guangzhou when the brief calls for it. Studio days, location days, edit suite, all under the same roof.
AI-generated content on the strongest text-to-image and video models we can get our hands on. Product, fashion, lifestyle, social, high-volume e-commerce. A human reviews every frame before it ships.
Building a design-driven community on Chinese social media
Skincare premium brand from France to China
The partner of pastry chefs, chocolatiers and bakers. Social for South East Asia.
Luxury lights from Italian designers to China
With Chery With Love: co-create Friday campaign
From Finnish fields to Chinese shelves
Sector by sector: what it costs to get on the shelf, and which brands have already cracked it.
Tell us where you are today and where you would like to be. You will hear back from a senior member of the team, not a chatbot or a sales funnel.
