Lessons from Temu, TikTok & Beyond: A Strategy Briefing on China’s next E-Commerce Playbook.

Temu, TikTok, and SHEIN are just the beginning. China’s e-commerce giants aren’t winning with price alone — they’re pioneering a new kind of social commerce built on real relationships, hyper-relevant content, and AI-driven discovery. Yet most Western brands still fail to grasp the deeper logic behind this shift.

In this strategy briefing, Björn Ognibeni decodes China’s evolving playbook — from algorithmic trend-surfing to platforms still largely unknown in the West, like Xiaohongshu, where a new kind of social is generating more reach than advertising. The next wave of commerce is already here — and it’s more personal, more intelligent, and driven by playbooks the West hasn’t even opened.