{"id":2305,"date":"2015-05-11T03:07:09","date_gmt":"2015-05-11T03:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.www.innovationiseverywhere.com\/?p=2305"},"modified":"2015-05-11T03:07:09","modified_gmt":"2015-05-11T03:07:09","slug":"o2o-why-china-leads-the-online-to-offline-revolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/o2o-why-china-leads-the-online-to-offline-revolution\/","title":{"rendered":"O2O: Why China leads the "Online to Offline" revolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

O2O<\/strong> has been one of the main buzzwords talked about during GMIC Beijing<\/a> conference, the leading mobile event in China with 20,000 attendees and a platform for all the Chinese tech giants to announce their innovations.<\/p>\n

Some call it \u201cour industry\u2019s stupidest acronym\u201d<\/em> (Tech in Asia<\/a>), other \u201cthe trillion dollar opportunity\u201d<\/em> (Techcrunch<\/a>).<\/p>\n

If o2o as a concept is so visible in China, it\u2019s also because there, technologies and the hunt for convenience<\/strong> have made it a big phenomenon, with local success stories.<\/p>\n

\"what<\/p>\n

For a quick definition<\/strong>, one might say o2o is anything digital which brings people to shop offline<\/strong>, in real-world stores. Famous o2o startups in the West include Groupon, OpenTable, Uber for instance.<\/p>\n

It matters a lot as e-commerce is still a small share of all retail sales globally, from 1 to 15% in countries as different as US, UK, China and India.<\/p>\n

\"o2o<\/p>\n

QR codes as the natural link for online to offline interactions<\/h2>\n

A few technology trends explain the rise of the o2o concept in China.<\/p>\n

The first one is about is the sheer number of people connected on mobile<\/strong>, on mobile internet, and, even more, on powerful mobile internet. Out of China’s 555 million mobile users, 162 millions are already on 4G, a figure expected to reach 250 million by the end of 2015.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"o2o<\/p>\n

Technology matters too. If the West’s early adopters are keen to mock QR codes<\/strong>, Chinese – and the QR scanner embedded in WeChat, the country’s biggest messaging app – use them heavily. An old stat, from October 2013, counted more than 113 million scans in one month<\/strong> (Adage<\/a>).<\/p>\n

At GMIC Beijing, 60-70% of Chinese participants I saw rushing to speakers to get their contact info did so by scanning their QR code in WeChat, which connects them directly as friends in the messaging app.<\/p>\n