“This will allow us to capture our own private traffic on our own e-comm ecosystem of loyal Havaianas fans within China.” The WeChat mini programs, one of the more popular e-commerce trends in China, are like apps that are already built within the WeChat social platform that offer users tools and services that allow businesses to get closer to their target audience. There are about 1.3 billion WeChat users in China as of 2020. According to Esser, after the successful launch of Havaianas’ digital flagship store in Brazil in September, the business will be launching the platform in other countries this year. The new online store brings in a new operating system for online commerce that allows customers to browse and buy without needing to go through more than two steps during the purchasing journey. It also has an innovative navigation system with editorial content and a search tab for products by colour. Havaianas’ livestream videos with local brand ambassadors, like Li Jiaqi, Liu Tao and Viya in China, have helped the brand set up a strong social commerce presence in the country, and Esser said moving forward, the business plans to continue with the strategy to maximise brand visibility. “In 2020, we had 13 livestreams which brought in an audience of 13 million people, $410,000 revenue GMV, selling 26,500 pairs,” he said. Havaianas also plans to roll out more digital vending machines across the Asia Pacific region this year after recently introducing them to Hong Kong and the Philippines. “This is part of our culture of ‘test and learn’, where we constantly test out new things and different digital initiatives on this journey of transformation. The idea is to fail fast and scale quickly on the things that work,” Esser explained. To reach a wider audience more quickly, Esser suggested brands need to know their way around search engine optimisation (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM). “SEO and SEM – they’re the best places to get big wins quickly,” he said. “And in addition to that, marketplaces. You’re going to get scale and reach and volume across marketplaces much more quickly than brand.com and that SEO and SEM, whether that’s in China or regionally, you can redirect to wherever you like.” Attracting the attention of users on social platforms is one thing but to get conversions, Esser said a high standard of customer service is also needed. “We have a team of about 16 people handling the customer experience in China, talking to people and having a chat,” he said. “The Chinese consumer in particular is a keen user of customer service.” “Our brand awareness in China is very encouraging, but there are many hundred million people who don’t know [our] brand and being able to touch that consumer through competent customer service, by talking to them and answering their questions, is really important conversion.”