Candice Liu is president for business at ePRO E-Commerce, where she is responsible for strategic direction, operational management, investor relations and marketing.
The company has more than 1,000 employees, based mainly in Shenzhen and Shanghai, and owns several e-commerce websites such as DealExtreme.com, a business-to-consumer site that sells Chinese-made gadgets of all kinds, and MadeInChina.com, a retail and wholesale B2B site linking Chinese manufacturers of consumer products with overseas buyers.
Liu is a true e-commerce veteran, having worked in internet businesses for 13 years. After graduating from the University of Southern California (USC) with a business administration degree followed by an executive master's degree from Beijing's Tsinghua University, Liu started her career selling software to firms in the US, South Korea and other countries.
She then worked as business manager and network marketing manager at pAsia Inc, setting up their real-time bidding site, CoolBid. She left to co-found eDynamics, where she ran the company's e-commerce subsidiary, which later became a popular women's shopping site on mainland China under the name 'Taiwan Shop', before joining ePRO in early 2011.
She believes there is huge scope for the online retail business in countries such as Brazil and Russia, her fastest-growing markets. 'The reason why we are doing this business is because e-commerce is a trend of the future retail market, and it brings people together around the world, so it's easy for overseas people to get online,' she says.
Liu saw the potential of the internet early on. 'I have been doing e-commerce since 1998, when nobody knew what e-commerce [was],' she says. 'The first day when I went to USC, my professor taught me that this is about making money. So if you don't want to do business, go and do something else. I chose e-commerce because [...] I saw the real money there.'
