A European law firm that ranks well on Google, publishes regularly on LinkedIn and has a strong English-language website can still be almost absent when a Chinese company searches for the service it provides.
StatCounter’s mobile panel currently puts Baidu at roughly three-quarters of search traffic in China and Google at around one percent. These figures are estimates based on StatCounter’s panel, so they should not be read as a complete picture of the Chinese search market. They do show how little a Google-centred view tells a European firm about its visibility in China.
That matters for B2B services. Chinese companies expanding into Europe need local lawyers, tax advisers, logistics providers and other specialists, and they have to find those firms somewhere.
The rule creates the buyer. It doesn’t name the seller.
Germany offers a useful example. Since 12 August 2026, certain foreign producers selling packaged goods directly to end users in Germany have to appoint an authorised representative for extended producer responsibility.
The representative must be established in Germany and cannot be affiliated with the producer. A Chinese group therefore cannot simply give the role to its own German sister company.
We checked what the German Central Agency Packaging Register, ZSVR, actually publishes. It explains how the requirement works, but there is no list of authorised representatives for foreign producers to choose from.
The producer has to identify and assess a provider itself. The legal requirement is clear. Finding the right German provider is a separate task.
Chinese buyers search with different words and in different places
European providers naturally describe their services in the language used by their own clients. A logistics company writes about “customs clearance”, a law firm about the “EU Responsible Person”, and a tax adviser about “VAT registration Germany”.
Chinese buyers use Chinese terminology and often start with the business problem rather than the formal name of the service.
| European service | Example Chinese search wording |
|---|---|
| Customs clearance | 欧洲清关 / 德国清关公司 |
| EU Responsible Person | 欧盟责任人服务 / 欧盟负责人服务 |
| German EPR representative | 德国包装法授权代表 / 德国EPR授权代表 |
| VAT registration | 欧洲VAT注册 / 德国VAT注册 |
| European fulfilment | 欧洲海外仓 / 欧洲海外仓一件代发 |
These are examples of search queries a Chinese buyer could use when looking for a provider, not a ranking of the most frequently searched terms on Baidu.
Someone searching in Chinese will therefore encounter a different set of pages and companies from someone making the same search in English.
Where the content is published matters as well. A European firm can have years of useful articles indexed by Google and a strong LinkedIn presence while very little of that material appears in the channels used by Chinese buyers.
Publishing in Chinese helps, but it does not solve the discovery problem by itself. Jademond Digital’s Baidu ranking study, based on 10,000 Simplified Chinese search result pages, found WeChat posts in the top three Baidu results less than 1% of the time, and never above 1.5% anywhere in the top thirteen. WeChat and Baidu are two separate channels: publishing an article on one does not by itself make a company findable on the other.
AI adds another gap
Buyers are also using AI to research foreign markets and identify potential providers.
Several AI tools widely used in Europe are not available to users in mainland China on the same terms. OpenAI does not list mainland China among the regions where ChatGPT access is supported. Anthropic does not list mainland China among the regions where Claude.ai is offered. Google’s Gemini documentation lists mainland China as “Workspace only”. Access conditions differ between services and change over time, leaving Chinese and European users with different tools and different information sources.
A European firm can ask ChatGPT or Google which companies provide a certain service and see how it appears in those results. That tells it very little about what a buyer in mainland China sees when asking a similar question.
Chinese managers also use Baidu, WeChat, domestic AI tools, industry media and recommendations from advisers and business contacts.
For professional services, this matters because buyers frequently start with a problem rather than a company name. Someone looking for a German EPR representative, a Polish fulfilment provider or a Spanish VAT adviser can begin the search without knowing any European firms in that field.
The European market looks smaller from China
Europe has many firms capable of supporting Chinese companies. A German law firm has deep product compliance expertise; a Polish logistics company already serves international sellers; a Spanish tax adviser regularly works with foreign investors.
A Chinese buyer sees only the part of that market that appears in the language and channels used during the search.
Specialist B2B buyers rarely need a long list. They usually need a small number of providers they can evaluate, trust and contact. Firms that appear early in that research are much more likely to receive the enquiry.
European regulation also makes the search repeat itself. EPR, VAT, employment rules and other requirements vary between countries, so entering Germany, Poland and Spain often means finding different local providers in each market.
A simple visibility test
There is a straightforward way to see the problem from the buyer’s side.
Ask a Chinese-speaking person who does not know your company to find several European providers that solve a specific problem your firm handles.
Do not give them your company name.
Watch what they search for, which channels they use and which companies they find. Then check whether they can understand what those firms actually do, which countries they cover and whether they look suitable enough to contact.
If your firm does not appear during that process, your Google ranking in Europe is not solving the discovery problem.
And if the person already knows your company name before starting the search, the test starts too late.
The question is not whether someone can find you once they know who you are. It is whether you appear while they are still deciding who the possible providers are.
Where EnterChina fits
EnterChina publishes Chinese-language profiles of European B2B service providers on Xijinmenhu (西进门户 — literally, “gateway to expansion into the West”), explaining what they do, where they operate and which business needs they handle.
We receive enquiries through the platform and manage the initial contact so the European provider knows what the enquiry is actually about.
EnterChina does not trade goods, provide legal or tax advice, or sell lists of leads. We give European service providers a presence that Chinese companies can discover and evaluate before the first conversation begins.
For a European firm, the practical question is straightforward: when a Chinese company needs a provider like yours, is your firm part of the market it can actually see?
Sources
- StatCounter Global Stats: Mobile Search Engine Market Share in China, August 2026 — source
- Zentrale Stelle Verpackungsregister (ZSVR): Appointing an authorised representative — source
- Jademond Digital: Does WeChat Impact Baidu SEO? — source
- OpenAI: ChatGPT Supported Countries and Territories — source
- Google: Where you can use the Gemini web app — source
- Anthropic: Supported countries and regions — source