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Lilies are everywhere in the Baihe office, because they
have the same Chinese pronunciation as the company name.
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Tian
Fanjiang, founder of Baihe.com. |
Baihe staff constantly improve their services to meet subscribers’
needs. |
One-year-old Baihe.com is China’s largest cyber matchmaker.
As successful an operation as its US counterpart, eHarmony.com,
Baihe has more than 5.76 million subscribers -- an impressive
proportion of China’s 110 million netizens.
Finding marriage partners is increasingly difficult for young
Chinese metropolites, according to statistics. “The sonic
modern lifestyle, broad preference for a more extravert personality
and increased awareness of personal worth all combine to challenge
traditional marriage and courtship rituals,” says Tong Xin,
professor of sociology at Beijing University.
There are fears that this updated approach to love and marriage
will cause social problems. Every Tuesday and Saturday, hundreds
of anxious parents gather in Zizhuyuan Park to exchange information
in the hope of finding ideal matches for their offspring. There
is a similar scenario each Thursday and Sunday in Zhongshan Park.
“I am totally occupied with my work, my only social contacts
colleagues and former classmates. On the occasions they have introduced
me to new people the lack of common conversation topics has made
it an embarrassing experience,” Liang Yu says. She refuses
to take her parents’ advice and try a matrimonial agency
because as she sees it, “Only complete failures in love would
seek that kind of help!”
Tian Fanjiang is the CEO of Baihe.com Online Technology Company,
Ltd, which he founded in May 2005. At the time he left his job
at the top management consulting company Accenture, Tian and his
associates had decided to open an SNS (social networking service)
website for those seeking to make friends online, widen their
circle of business contacts or simply marry. It was soon apparent
that 80 percent of subscribers were looking for marriage partners.
At the time Baihe was founded there were 100 or so matchmaking
websites in China. One of them, love21cn.com, based in Shanghai,
had accumulated over 500,000 subscribers since its establishment
in 2003. It claims to have helped 30,000 people find marriage
partners.
Most matchmaking sites ask subscribers to give personal details
such as age, personality, type of work and level of salary by
means of a present code. Liang, 27, publicized her basic information
on several sites and met six net-friends before finding the right
man.
Tian Fanjiang used eHarmony, the most successful matchmaking
website in the US, as the template for Baihe.com. EHarmony was
founded by a 70-year-old psychologist. With the help of other
specialists, he formulated a questionnaire comprising hundreds
of questions in dozens of dimensions, designed to highlight the
most compatible partners.
Baihe subscribers fill out a questionnaire jointly compiled by
the company and a Chinese college. It works on the principle of
whittling down the millions of candidates to a small group of
those most compatible. This was a hugely successful method, and
in just six months the number of subscribers reached three million.
“We were stunned, but then I remembered that at the time
we founded Baihe, investors told us: ‘By next year, the number
of hits on you website should reach 10,000 a day,’”
Tian recalls. In the months following, Tian set to work upgrading
Baihe servers to accommodate an ever-greater users’ flow.
“One of my best friends introduced me to Baihe after it
helped her find a good guy,” Liang Yu tells me, continuing,
“After registering, I was asked to spend 30 minutes on a
psychological assessment. When the test report came out it seemed
to me to make sense. The website is completely professional, scientific
and trustworthy. It introduced potential partners to me, via their
test reports, at the rate of three per day. When I finally chose
one that seemed suitable, we began seeing each other. He is now
my husband.”
When searching for a spouse, the Chinese emphasis is on the prospective
bride or groom’s marital history and family background. The
latter takes greatest precedence because, in the Chinese view,
marriage unites not only two persons but two households. Baihe
recently provided a new service whereby relatives of a matched
pair may chat and get to know one another on the net.
With its five million subscribers, Baihe’s current priority
is to improve its service. It has achieved this by redesigning
its web page, and providing chat rooms and BBS. Baihe also offers
a service for buying sweethearts virtual gifts and sending them
short messages via their mobile phones, on a paid basis.
Tian’s knottiest problem is how to impose fees on subscribers.
Paying customers are the main source of profit for overseas Internet
matchmaking websites. The 20 percent of eHarmony’s seven
million subscribers that are paying customers brought the company
a profit of US $70 million in 2004 -- 15 times the turnover of
the Chinese Internet matchmaking market.
In China, profits are inhibited by technological problems as
well as conventional attitudes. “We initially attempted to
charge customers, but failed. So we started to improve our services
to meet the market, which I believe will pay off, ” says
Tian with confidence.
A report by IResearch, a consultant company that specializes
in topical Internet issues, predicts a bright future for websites
such as Baihe. The report, entitled Research on Chinese Internet
Matchmaking Market in 2005, confirms that Internet matchmaking
is profitable. Netizens intending to make friends online in 2005
increased to 46.4 million, an increase of 39.3 percent over 2004.
IResearch predicts that this figure will hit 110 million in 2008
and that the market revenue will approach RMB one billion, 70
percent of which will emanate from spouse seekers.
The success of matchmaking websites reflects changes in attitudes
towards marriage on the part of Chinese youth. As Tian Fanjiang
says, “Matchmaking websites mainly aim for netizens aged
about 30, because they grew up with the net and generally reject
the traditional matchmaking mode that relies on old friends or
parents.”
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