The Chinafy Project 

About Mastermind Tokyo

Mastermind, created by designer Masaaki Honma in 1997, often produces no more than three of each item it designs. Punk-inspired graphics combine with beautiful detailing in precious raw materials like diamond to give the collection a unique aesthetic.

Mastermind maximized the made-in-Japan appeal of the brand to charm customers worldwide. The artfully embroidered products made of premium-grade materials attract the rich and famous of Hollywood.

However, to truly tap into the world's biggest online market, China, the Mastermind Tokyo team knew there was more to be done on their Shopify website.

Some quick context…

Over 93% of Shopify sites take 30+ seconds to load in China

The average Shopify website are also missing 20% of resources, and index less than 2% of their pages on Chinese Search Engines such as Baidu

More about why websites don’t work in China.

That’s where Chinafy came in. 

And in just 2 weeks…

The Chinafy Results

(i) A much faster website

Chinafy optimized the Mastermind Tokyo website to load reliably and consistently in China on par with its global original. Comparing the Chinafy version of the site in Beijing against the global original version in Tokyo, the average fully loaded times are respectively -

Chinafy: 11.6 seconds (and visually before)

Global original: Broken at 16.8 seconds 

Below is a time series analysis report of the Mastermind Tokyo site in Beijing and in Tokyo

Measuring Chinafy Deliverables

We deliver improvement across speed and deliverability in China compared to the website. This is an objective user test and confirmed directly during the User Acceptance Testing (UAT). Keep in mind, though, that the Chinafy site doesn't generally exceed the loading time of the site outside of China, although there are exceptions like Mastermind Tokyo and the House Collective by Swire Hotel.

(ii) A more interactive, visual experience

Shopify performance goes beyond just speed; it also involves making a website more deliverable to enable the full user experience.

Common files in the Western library, such as YouTube and Vimeo, do not work in China. This is because the YouTube and Vimeo platforms are blocked in China, therefore any video content hosted and delivered on those platforms will fail to load when a website is accessed from China.

The Mastermind Tokyo team also leverages Chinafy to convert their existing Vimeo video content into a non-branded, China-friendly equivalent on an ongoing basis. By using Chinafy, the Mastermind Tokyo team could continue to manage and build their website as they always have done, and leave any handling, conversions, replacements or removals to Chinafy.

Anything else?

Besides achieving performance improvements that have been verified three times, the Mastermind Tokyo team can also -

Implement the optimized experience in China within two weeks, including testing and User Acceptance Testing (UAT)

Improve access in China without needing a VPN

Optimize the website for China without a separate local site or new domain

Maintain their website on Shopify as usual

Click “Get Started” to achieve ecommerce success in China, with Chinafy.