Luxury looks to locals
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E-mail China Daily, December 2, 2013
The portal was founded by Zhao Shicheng in 2010, when China's luxury industry was at its peak and luxury e-commerce was ripe for expansion. In recent years, Shangpin.com gained more than 2.4 million consumers nationwide.
Having a single-brand section on a multi-brand site like Shangpin.com, founder and CEO Zhao believes, is an organic way of running e-commerce for foreign luxury labels. He has observed that many single-brand business-to-consumer sites, powered by third parties, failed in the Chinese market.
"Because Chinese online consumers like to shop in a multi-brand environment, where they can choose from numerous of products," he says. If this model is used, Zhao adds, "the brand can maintain its own independent branded stores, which are separate from the brands in our own multi-branded retail area, but can also attract the consumers."
According to Shangpin.com, La Perla will also launch its flagship e-store on the site, and more brands are set to follow.
At the end of last year, Italian luxury brand Salvatore Ferragamo authorized China's Xiu.com to sell its official products.
Tang Xiaotang, a well-known independent fashion critic, says this model will eventually benefit luxury labels' image in the e-commerce sector.
"It has been a running debate among China's online platforms and foreign luxury labels for a long time. They used to say many of the products sold on China's B-to-C sites are not authorized by those foreign labels.
"But this collaboration will stimulate the luxury e-commerce industry to enter a healthy level. It provides a platform for consumers to reach authorized, real products from luxury brands," Tang says.
However, Tang does not think it will help a lot in terms of sales of these luxury labels on its online platform. According to his observation, most of the sales are still made in real boutiques.
"But this model will serve as a 'test' for luxury brands. They will see which regions are potential markets from statistics of e-commerce, and then eventually open stores there," he says.
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