Big data offers Jolly good route to success

A customer shops for imported products in a cross-border e-commerce store in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. [Photo/China Daily]

In less than four years, three entrepreneurs have developed JollyChic from a startup to one of China's largest e-commerce clothing exporters, and their ambition is to globalize the idea of affordable fashion and design.

Four years ago, Li Haiyan and his two partners met in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province. All of them were confident of the prospects for China's e-commerce exports, and after paying several visits to overseas markets, they decided to launch a B2C (business to consumer) platform to sell Chinese clothing to Europe, the United States and the Middle East.

The company was founded in December 2012 under the name of Jolly Information Technology Co Ltd. To date, through cooperation with domestic suppliers, Jolly has expanded its revenue from 10 million yuan ($1.5 million) in 2013 to 500 million yuan in 2015.

Jolly Information Technology has also helped up to 1,500 Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises get rid of the label of original equipment manufacturer (OEM) supplier and promote their brands overseas.

JollyChic, the online shopping brand of the company, has become the most influential Chinese mobile e-commerce app within the Gulf Cooperation Council member states of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Ding Wei, one of the three founders and current executive president of Jolly, said big data was one of the keys to the firm's fast growth over such a short period of time.

"Through tracking each product's search ranges, ready-to-pay rates and consumer feedback, the smart system can make simultaneous analysis and calculate the potential orders from time to time, so that Chinese manufacturers can quickly respond to market demand and get prepared for overseas orders," said Ding.

Spending dozens of million yuan on research and development, the company now boasts more than 100 software engineers in Hangzhou and Silicon Valley in the United States.

Big data also helped Jolly unlock huge market potential in the Middle East, and offered more tailor-made products to the area since two years ago. More than half of the company's revenue now comes from this market.

Ding said the Hangzhou-based company will pay more attention to meeting the needs of US and European consumers in the coming years.