Australian Business Forum’s China Digital Conference 2014 will help Australian SMEs better understand China’s online market.

To be held on October 20 in Brisbane, October 22 in Melbourne and October 24 in Sydney, this year’s China Digital Conference expects over 1000 delegates in all.

Speakers will include Mark Tanner of China Skinny, a Chinese marketing online and research agency.

Tanner believes successfully navigating the Chinese online marketplace comes down to understanding the scale of the market and reacting to target consumers.

He says one way to target consumers lies in the initiation of online-to-offline (O2O) integration. Chinese property conglomerate, Dalian Wanda Group is one of the implementers of this strategy, having teamed up with Tencent and Baidu to build an O2O platform which allows consumers to purchase products via online browsing and have the product delivered to them.

The appropriation of O2O platforms for a wide range of businesses presents a wide range of opportunities for Australian companies engaged in trade with China, believes Tanner.

In his recent blog posts on O2O, Tanner stated: “With 75 per cent of Chinese consumers using their mobile devices to research and purchase products, having online-to-offline integration for your business is essential in reaching your target market in China.”