SINGAPORE - Kinofy Group, a spinoff of health and beauty company Kino Biotech Group, has officially launched a cross-border e-commerce platform for Singapore businesses and other international brand owners to enter the Chinese market in a simpler, more seamless way.
A key feature of Kinofy, the namesake platform, is its ability to provide merchants with a one-stop solution for their businesses. The solution includes a singular view of their business and customers across sales channels, which allows them to manage products and inventory, process order and payments and build customer relationships.
Kinofy is also built on the popular WeChat platform, allowing brand owners to establish their own shop on WeChat, facilitating the ease of entry for foreign brands into China's consumer market of over 1 billion shoppers.
This significantly shortens the entry time for these foreign brands from the usual one to two years to 2.5 months, along with official product registration approval, said Kinofy Group.
Kinofy Group co-founder Kawee Chong said that it traditonally costs foreign brands over S$300,000 to set up in China. This cost will be reduced to a yearly subscription fee of S$36,000 through the platform, he said.
Local companies will enjoy a 70 per cent subsidy for their first year subscription to Kinofy through the SkillsFuture Singapore grant. A three-day training course will also be provided for subscribers where local merchants will be familiarised with China's economic landscape and ecosystem.
Additionally, Kinofy offers warehousing and logistic solutions at the Ningbo Free Trade Zone (NFTZ) to provide businesses the right infrastructure to reach out to China's 613 cities.
Less than 50 brands are already on the Kinofy platform, including Kinohimitsu, Esthemedica and Naturext, said Kinofy Group.
Currently, the company is focusing on bringing international brands to China, but Mr Chong said that there are plans to expand the platform to bring Chinese brands into Singapore and other international markets, particularly in South-east Asia.
