The Chinafy Project 

About Harbour Outdoor Asia

Harbour Outdoor Asia is an Australian-based company that specializes in designing and manufacturing high-quality outdoor furniture.

As part of its initiative to grow its market presence globally, Harbour Outdoor Asia worked with Project Promotion Limited to develop their B2B-B2C website on Shopify, targeting the mainland China & Hong Kong markets. However, to truly tap into the world's biggest online market, China, the Harbour Outdoor Asia team knew there was more to be done on their Shopify website.

More about why websites don’t work in China.

That’s where Projects Promotion Limited, a Shopify Partner that specializes in building full-featured and branded websites based in Hong Kong, joined forces with Chinafy to deliver a more performant website in China for Harbour Outdoor Asia.

And in just 2 weeks…

The Chinafy Results

(i) A much faster website

Chinafy optimized the Harbour Outdoor Asia website to load 4.9x faster in China. Comparing the original website against a Chinafy version of the site in Shanghai, the average Page Complete times are respectively -

Before Chinafy: Visually broken at 34.5 seconds

After Chinafy: Fully loaded at 7 seconds, and visually complete at 3.5 seconds

Below is a filmstrip, before-and-after Chinafy comparison of the Shopify website in China:

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 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. The Harbour Outdoor Asia team also leverages Chinafy to convert video content, including those on Vimeo player, into their non-branded, China-friendly equivalent on an ongoing basis.

Anything else?

Besides achieving performance improvements that have been verified three times, the Harbour Outdoor 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 a new domain

Maintain their website on Shopify as usual

Leverage Chinafy Partner Ecosystem to apply for an ICP (Internet Content Provider) certificate, having met the necessary business and compliance requirements independently of Chinafy’s optimization work

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

Note: This case study highlights results achieved at the time of implementation. While specific performance numbers may evolve as technologies and environments change, our team is happy to provide a personalized assessment or share the latest examples relevant to your needs.