GB Group’s products are placed in a Shanghai shop with live-stream retail. Its longer-term place in the Nordic cultural projects is being built in parallel.
Case type
Market validation and entry
Sector
Ergonomic workplace solutions, interior design, and creative learning materials
Client
GB Gruppen
The company and the question
GB Group is a Danish company in Holstebro. It makes ergonomic workplace products, interior design, and creative learning materials for children.
The China work covers one part of that: creative learning games. Children build with them and learn through play.
That category matches what China says it wants from early years education. Creativity and invention, not rote learning.
The question was how to enter a market where the position GB wants takes years to build, without standing still in the meantime.
Challenge
The timing constraint
The long game is the Nordic cultural hubs. These are Nordic-branded venues going up in Tier 2 and Tier 3 Chinese cities, combining retail, culture, education and community space.
GB fits them. Creative learning materials belong in a place built for middle-class families spending on their children.
The problem was time. Those venues take years to open. A Danish SME cannot sit out those years with no sales, no brand and no learning.
Two constraints shaped the work:
- The long-term strategic position required patience the company could not afford to sustain commercially without near-term activity.
- The near-term activity had to be commercially serious enough to generate income and brand recognition, not just hold the market position.
The entry needed two horizons running in parallel.
Solution
Two horizons in parallel
We structured a dual-horizon entry. The long-term path remains anchored to the cultural project integration - product placement and brand presence inside the Nordic cultural projects as they open. The near-term path runs through a Shanghai shop with live-streaming retail capability, where GB's products are placed and a branding campaign begins.
The Shanghai live-stream shop provides three things:
- Direct revenue from product sales into the Chinese consumer market
- A brand-building venue where GB's product story is communicated to the live-stream audience
- A learning environment for what works commercially in China - what products, what pricing, what messaging - which informs the longer-horizon cultural project positioning
Our role is local representation: operating the entity, managing the Shanghai shop placement, structuring the live-stream activity, and ensuring brand alignment with GB's commercial and quality standards.
Implementation
Entity, shop, and live-stream
A Chinese legal entity has been established to operate GB's commercial activity in China. The entity carries the operational and commercial responsibility for the near-term activity.
GB's products have been placed in a Shanghai shop with live-streaming retail capability. The shop serves as both the physical commercial point and the live-streaming venue. The branding campaign has begun from this venue.
Shanghai's live-stream commerce sector reached approximately RMB 494 billion (EUR 65 billion) in retail revenue in 2024, with municipal targets pointing to RMB 600 billion (EUR 79 billion) by 2026. The infrastructure for live-stream retail at scale is in place; the question for any foreign brand entering this channel is execution - product fit, presenter capability, and channel-native content design.
Status
Both horizons running
The Shanghai shop is operational. The live-stream branding campaign is in early-stage execution. Initial commercial results from the live-stream channel are being measured against the entity's near-term income objectives.
The longer-horizon cultural project integration is planned for the cultural-commercial hubs as they open. GB's product placement and brand presence in those hubs will activate when the venues do.
The two horizons are managed in parallel: the Shanghai shop generates near-term commercial signals and builds Chinese consumer recognition; the cultural project integration secures the longer-term strategic position.
Value
Why two horizons work
The structure converts GB's China entry from a single-horizon decision into a parallel commercial and strategic test.
For GB Gruppen, the dual-horizon approach provides near-term commercial activity and revenue while the longer-term cultural project position is built. The brand develops Chinese consumer recognition through live-stream retail and a physical Shanghai presence - both of which compound in value as the cultural project venues open and GB's products are placed there with established brand equity, not as unknown new entries.
For the Chinese legal entity, the live-stream shop activity provides operational revenue and a commercial mandate, rather than a long wait for the cultural projects to mature.
For us, the engagement demonstrates a structuring model for Danish SMEs whose strategic fit with the cultural projects is long but whose commercial timeline cannot accommodate a pure long-term play. The Shanghai live-stream shop is the bridge: revenue and recognition in the period the strategic position is being built.
The principle: when a brand fits China long term but cannot wait, run the near-term selling alongside the long-term play.
