The core team members have extensive experience thanks to previous tenures in P&G, the American multinational consumer goods corporation. “We aim to build our team and services with a global mindset,” said Gutz Wang, Sales Director of HH Galaxy.

From communication and negotiation skills to business forecasting, and measuring marketing performance, Gutz dedicated himself to sharing these skills he learned at P&G with his team. “I once had a partner tell me how assured and comfortable they were to work with us.”

As a sales representative, Gutz shares the most challenging thing in doing business. “Brands want to achieve business goals with allocated budgets while promoting their brand value. Yet e-commerce platforms would argue for the best prices. Our job is to balance both needs and interests by finding them a sweet spot for an enjoyable collaboration.”

In addition to solid negotiation skills, the HH Galaxy team possesses a great advantage over other e-commerce agencies. “With over 30 partnering e-commerce platforms, we have a sound grasp of their features and user persona. Moreover, we currently serve more than 100 brands and have enormous samples of transaction data at hand. These cross-category and cross-platform data marry with practical data analytics and advertising experience, our team is capable of keenly evaluating successful strategies and tactics for product promotion.”

Comprehensive Grasp of Brands and Platforms

When it comes to onboarding new clients, the HH Galaxy team first helps brands select the right products based on the customer attributes of each e-commerce platform. Then they would help drive their sales by aligning advertising resources and marketing campaigns with each platform’s own campaigns. Taking a casual shoe brand as an example, this client has witnessed an incredible 60% growth in sales since they started partnering with HH Galaxy in 2020. Such success can be credited to the team’s profound understanding of e-commerce platforms.

“The customer base that prefers to shop with Momo, an e-commerce platform in Taiwan, is mainly women between mid-30s and mid-40s. They tend to have clear preferences and personal styles. So we suggest the client offer shoes in plum or pink color on Momo’s platform. In contrast, we suggest selling shoes in grey and black color on Shopee, another e-commerce platform, because the customers here are comparably younger and look for shoes that go for all occasions.” This product selection technique helped the client achieve exceptional sales in last year’s Double 11 campaign.

In addition to targeted product selection, the HH Galaxy team utilizes the “resource exchange” technique when negotiating with platforms. “Many brands working with e-commerce platforms for the very first time often find it difficult in product selection and struggle with offering the best prices to meet the e-commerce platforms’ expectations. However, we can create a triple-win through resource exchange. Examples of this technique include Double 11-exclusive product offerings on respective platforms or different product bundles.”

HH Galaxy also embraces the shopping festivals created by e-commerce platforms. “Besides the annual 6/18, 9/9, and 11/11 events, Shopee launches “double date” campaigns on its platform each month, such as 1/1, 2/2, 3/3, and subsequently until 12/12. Plus, free shipping and discount coupons on the 18th and 25th of each month. So when special offers are launching on the platform, we can help clients optimize advertising resources for better results.” The team currently helps operate 30+ official shops on Shopee, thus they stay on top of trends. “According to our experience, the three days of sales in each month account for 70-75% of a client’s monthly sales.”

Smart Spending: Wise Resource Allocation Drives Sales

With expertise in data, the team found that the 80/20 rule applies to a brand’s e-commerce operation. First, 20% of the items will bring in 80% of the sales. Second, 20% of the sales days contribute to 70-80% of monthly sales. Therefore, advertising resource allocation is the top priority of the HH Galaxy team in addition to product selection.

Previously, a big FMCG brand client chose a single celebrity endorsement strategy, hoping to drive sales in all categories in the Double 11 shopping season. Yet the performance was far from satisfying. “This year, my advice to this client was resource allocation. Instead of splurging all budgets on one celebrity, they can collaborate with different KOLs for different categories and share their campaigns with consumers in late October.” As a result, this client saw steady sales growth with a 30-40% increase compared to the same period last year.

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Integration Creates Greater Growth Momentum

Currently, HH Galaxy is working on integrating, and aligning all functions across sales, advertising, warehousing and logistics, and CRM together. “Ultimately, we will have the same KPI, which is to help our customers achieve their sales goals. Horizontal integration will boost and strengthen our services. The power of integration resembles the ‘boxing combo’ in Japanese manga. When different moves are combined, they will burst out with unexpectedly strong power.”

Horizontal organizational integration will become a great advantage for HH Galaxy. When a sales rep finds that a client’s product bundle (e.g. product A + product B) was not selling as expected, and they would like to experiment with a new bundle (such as product A + product C). “Such an idea can be tested and verified the next day. We can do that immediately because the shipping and logistics are seamlessly integrated and handled by us.” In contrast, if the e-commerce operation and logistics are contracted with different companies, it might take up to two weeks from idea to execution.

“E-commerce is a battlefield where every second counts. Timely verification and adjustment not only save costs but drive better sales results. In addition to modifying the contents of product bundles, HH Galaxy is capable of real-time inventory scheduling. “We have an internal inventory allocation system connecting with all major e-commerce platforms. This system redistributes inventory figures on each platform every 30 minutes, automatically allocating goods to the most hot-selling platforms without manual adjustments.”

The same logic applies to advertising. “Our team will do sales forecast for clients. If we expect the sales to grow in the first 10 days of this month, yet the sales are lower than expected, we can adjust the contents of the campaign or the ads in a timely fashion. If the click rate of an ad is high but conversions are low, we may need to adjust the product offerings. And if the click rate is low, we can replace it with new materials for another shot.”

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Post-Covid Consumer Behavior: Concentrated Orders

Gutz observed that after the pandemic, consumers are making orders more intensively than in the past. “According to data from several main campaigns earlier this year, consumers were less obsessed with countless shopping festivals. Before this year’s Double 11 event, people were generally pessimistic about this year’s sales growth. Lifting lockdown is one of the reasons; hiking interest rates is another reason, as consumers might have less disposable income than in previous years. This year’s sales data showed that consumers would wait for the best timing and make purchases within 1 or 2 days.”

With such insight, Gutz shares his marketing advice for next year: “For the next Double 11 event, I would recommend early spreading on key promotions, reaching your customers in advance. Let them know what your campaigns are, and choose your products as one of the items they would buy like crazy.”