Pre-CDRR Reports

Between 2022 and 2026, Ed Sander wrote a series of reports for Tech Buzz China. Before that he wrote articles on his website ChinaTalk.nl. Follow the links below to read these reports and articles.

2026

• Temu Watch #12: Update on Markets, Advertising & Logistics Strategies

• China’s Internet Companies Get Cooking (Part 2) – JD’s 7Fresh Kitchen

• China’s Internet Companies Get Cooking (Part 1) – Meituan & Pupu

• Keeta, Meituan’s overseas expansion - Part 2: Battle for Brazil … and the world?

• Temu's Phase 3: ‘Building a new Pinduoduo’

• Keeta, Meituan’s overseas expansion - Part 1: The Road to Riyadh

2025

• Temu Watch 11: Profitability arrives?

• Temu Watch 10: Logistics in times of tariffs

• Visual Report: JD.com’s JD Mall Strategy

• Pinduoduo enters the instant retail market

• Tencent’s e-Commerce Revival. Part 3: Challenges & Outlook

• Tencent’s e-Commerce Revival. Part 2: WeChat’s e-commerce ecosystem

• Temu Watch #9: Temu’s US Recovery

• TikTok Shop Watch #5: Southeast Asia

• TikTok Shop Watch #4: US, Europe and Latin America

• Tencent’s e-Commerce Revival: Part 1 – WeChat’s Send Gifts Function

• Temu Watch #8: How Temu responded to US tariffs

• Alibaba’s Xianyu (Idle Fish) swims a different course

• Xiaohongshu (Rednote) after the TikTok Refugees’ dust has settled

• Go fetch! JD.com enters the food delivery business (part 2)

• Go fetch! JD.com enters the food delivery business (part 1)

• Temu Watch #7: Will tariffs kill Temu?

• TikTok Shop Watch #3 – A reality check on live commerce

• TikTok Shop Watch #2: Out of Asia, into US & Europe

• TikTok Shop Watch #1: Southeast Asia

• The split personality of Rednote and Xiaohongshu

• 5 scenarios showing the REDnote refugee trend (unfortunately) won’t end well

• China 2025 Outlook: E-Commerce Trends and Electric Vehicle Leap

2024

• Temu Watch #6: Revelations at the end of 2024

• Will they give Amazon Haul lotta love?

• Temu Watch #5: Logistics, marketing, AI and the question ‘when will Temu break even?’

• Temu Watch #4: Challenges for the semi-managed model and product quality

• Shein 2024 update – Part 2: Sales Models and Profitability

• Shein 2024 update – Part 1: global growth, logistics, assortment and product development

• Temu Watch #3: Revenue, costs and profitability

• Temu Watch #2: Under Fire - Compliance and Complaints

• Temu Watch #1: How is the semi-managed model doing?

• Tech Buzz China Video Edition: Social Credit, Temu Demystified

• The Staggering Hippo - Part 2: The Transformation of Alibaba’s Hema (Freshippo)

• Staggering Hippo - Part 1: Ultimate Guide to Alibaba’s Hema (Freshippo) Store Formats

• How Temu’s semi-managed model could change everything …

• It’s Group Buying, Jim, but not as we know it

• The collapse of Alibaba’s New Retail? - Part 2: Hypermarkets, Supermarkets and Convenience Stores

• The collapse of Alibaba’s New Retail? - Part 1: Shopping Malls & Home Furnishing

• Community Group Buying: the ‘US military vs the Red Army’

• What’s up with…? - Part 5: WeChat Channels

• What’s up with…? - Part 4: Douyin Local Services

• What’s up with…? - Part 3: Cotti Coffee

2023

• What’s up with…? - Part 1: Temu

• The long and winding road of TikTok Shop

• Need for Speed 3: Coming soon, from a Meituan warehouse near you!

• Need for Speed 2: Can the front-end warehouse model ever be profitable?

• Coffee Wars: How the arrival of Cotti has sparked a price war

• Whatever happened to New Retail?

• Need for Speed: Instant Retail

• Temu: from $0 to $3 billion in 10 months

• Shein Update May 2023 - Part 2: Nearshoring and Amazonian Ambitions

• Shein Update May 2023 – Part 1: Success Brings Scrutiny

• First Temu order: good status updates, acceptable delivery time and half Amazon’s pricing

• Reports about the death of community group buying are greatly exaggerated …

• Baidu's Ernie Bot: Trying to Ern the Chatbot Crown (with Freya Zhang)

• WeChat Channels - The Hope of Tencent (with Freya Zhang)

• Food Fight! Douyin’s local services business (with Freya Zhang)

• Rain or Shine for Alibaba Cloud? (with Freya Zhang)

• The rebirth of Xiaohongshu (with Freya Zhang)

• Cross-Border Update: Shein

• Cross-Border Update: JD & Ochama

• Cross-Border Update: Bytedance & TikTok

• Cross-Border Update: Alibaba

2022

• Luckin’s Revival

• Temu - Pinduoduo’s Cross-Border E-commerce Platform (with Freya Zhang)

• How Douyin, the Chinese TikTok, broke into e-commerce – Part 5 – Failures and success

• How Douyin, the Chinese TikTok, broke into e-commerce – Part 4: Building an e-commerce infrastructure

• How Douyin, the Chinese TikTok, broke into e-commerce – Part 3: want a meal with that video?

• How Douyin, the Chinese TikTok, broke into e-commerce – Part 2: becoming an e-com powerhouse

• How Douyin, the Chinese TikTok, broke into e-commerce – Part 1: Diversify or die

• Pinduoduo, China’s third biggest e-commerce company, opens a webshop in the west

• Challenges for cross-border e-commerce from China

• TikTok’s struggles with (cross-border) e-commerce in western markets

• About the $1,19 billion fine for ride-haling company Didi Chuxing

• How TikTok moved into (cross-border) e-commerce

• Why cross-border e-commerce from China has become a serious threat

• Cross-Border E-Commerce: Chinese factories have come for your wallet

• Chinese merchants flooded to Amazon … then thousands got banned

• Ochama’s wonderous WeChat account – Part 2: pick-up locations and price comparisons

• Ochama’s wonderous WeChat account – Part 1: Deals you get … when you are Chinese

• China is leaving the west behind in regulating deepfakes

• Where does China’s digital economy go from here? Part 2 – The future of the platform economy

• Where does China’s digital economy go from here? Part 1 – The New Real Economy

• JD.com’s Ochama stores – Part 4: proposition vs reality

• JD.com’s Ochama stores – Part 3: web, app and store evaluated

• JD.com’s Ochama stores – Part 2: ordering

• JD.com’s Ochama stores – Part 1: the introduction campaign

• Is China showing us the way in regulating algorithms?

2021

• Common prosperity dissected – Part 2: Is Xi going after the rich?

• Common prosperity dissected – Part 1: Going for the olive

• The Sisyphean tasks of Pinduoduo’s gamification – Part 4: ‘Duo Duo Crush’ and conclusion

• The Sisyphean tasks of Pinduoduo’s gamification – Part 3: Duo Duo Orchard and Duo Duo Ranch

• The Sisyphean tasks of Pinduoduo’s gamification – Part 2: Collecting beans and earning a fortune

• The Sisyphean tasks of Pinduoduo’s gamification – Part 1: Shake Money

• Ali-blah-blah – Myths about Singles Day

• The tide has turned – Silicon Valley is copying China

• Looking for reasons behind China’s tech crackdown (part 3)

• Looking for reasons behind China’s tech crackdown (part 2)

• Looking for reasons behind China’s tech crackdown (part 1)

• Timeline: Didi’s many clashes with China’s regulators

• Five misconceptions about China’s Social Credit System

2019

• New Retail dehyped: PR versus reality

• New Retail dehyped: When gimmicks are not enough

Before publishing in English, Ed Sander wrote articles in Dutch. These can be found here.