With the development of the e-commerce industry and the increasing use of internet tools, luxury retailers are moving online to improve their service as well as marking on a global scale. In this article, you will be introduced to the 10 top online luxury retailers and their strategies while marketing in China.
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1. Farfetch
Farfetch is one of the biggest online luxury retailers. Founded in 2007 by Jove Neves in the UK, Farfetch has already attracted more than 3,000 brands to join and spread to a variety of markets including China.
To promote their brand in China, Farfetch made a Chinese name by pronunciation to make it easier for Chinese customers to remember. We have seen Farfetch’s success after they launched their Chinese name “发发奇”. Why is it working? Because for a Chinese netizen who does not speak English (98% of Chinese consumers), this name is easy to be remembered, typed, and searched. For any netizen, they can now type 发发奇 on Baidu, the Chinese google to see their official Chinese website jumping out.
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In the meantime, they also launched their official account on different social media platforms including Xiaohongshu and WeChat. This helped them to gain visibility among Chinese customers who are more willing to do shopping online due to the development of e-commerce in China. They unlocked a new sales channel by opening a Tmall store, being the best in class.
2. Larizia
Larizia sells a huge variety of luxury products from different brands from Balenciaga to Alexander McQueen. As a blooming brand, they came to us for support on their China project.
In the case of Larizia, GMA chose to increase their visibility on social media via branding with KOLs on Xiaohongshu, a leading Chinese social media in the fashion and luxury fields. We selected several KOLs with certain audiences and cooperated with them to make posts, introductions, and discussions related to Larizia on Double 11. This festival is also called Single’s Day, happening on November 11th every year, being the biggest sales period in China.
Fans were already posting about Larizia on Xiaohongshu because they were mainly purchasing Alexander McQueen sneakers, which are very trendy in China these days. They were attracted by the variety of the products and the discount offered by Larizia and redirected from Xiaohongshu to the official website of Larizia. Also, since it’s a new brand for Chinese customers, we emphasize answering their questions from shipping to purchasing and custom clearance.
3. Poizon
Poizon is a late Chinese e-commerce platform, especially for fashion and accessories. This is very special for sneakers because Poizon was developed from a sneaker platform called “毒APP” which was offering pre-purchase service for sneakers, online sales, secondhand sneaker sales as well as the identity of sneakers which helped a lot of sneaker lovers to assure the authenticity.
It soon got a huge audience and their trust in terms of sneakers. After their transformation from a platform for sneakers only to a luxury and fashion e-commerce platform, they soon attracted their original audience and spread to other young customers who love fashion and luxury products.
4. My Theresa
My Theresa was launched on the Chinese market recently. They are doing promotion through social media including WeChat, Weibo, and Xiaohongshu. Their main strategy was to create their official store on JD, the second large Chinese e-commerce platform which brings them to the sight of a wide audience. In China, JingDong or JD is the second most important e-commerce platform for fashion purchases, providing local purchases and cross-border e-commerce.
Another strategy worth to be mentioned is that they set up a daily newsletter for customers according to their age, region, and gender which targeted their customers in a very sharp way.
5. Forward
Forward (FWRD) transcends traditional e-commerce with its combination of first-class customer service and an elusive roster of designers. They translated the traditional brick-and-mortar boutique into a singular online shopping experience.
They are not taking too much strategy in the use of marketing tools in China which resulted in lower visibility in the Chinese market. But still, they have their official Wechat account and offer Chinese sales support online.
6. 24S
24S is a luxury retailer under the framework of the LVMH group, doing the retail of luxury products mainly in Europe, but also in a wider range of regions, they have a core advantage which connected 24S, Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche, and La Grande Epicerie de Paris with the 24 Sèvres membership card which allows customers having more choice while collecting they loyalty credit.
In terms of attracting Chinese customers, they made a very nice translation on their official website which increases the consumption experience and made Chinese customers feel respected. Also, they have considerable visibility on Chinese social media like Xiaohongshu / Little Red Book, people discuss a lot about their promotion and their membership cards.
7. Ssense
Ssense is another luxury retailer specializing in emerging designers and streetwear brands. We worked with them to improve their SEO ranking on the Chinese search engine Baidu.
In their objective to expand their business scale, they hope to benefit from the huge Chinese market, but unfortunately, they found it hard to draw the attention of Chinese customers. To help them get more attention from the Chinese audience, we helped them in building up their branding strategy. An official account on Weibo was created for daily press releases which helped Ssense to attract thousands of followers.
8. Selfridges
Selfridges is a British brand doing online retail in the luxury field which entered China with a good adaption. Their branding with Weibo is quite successful with not only daily posts but also giving their thought and opinion sharing. They also launched events for Chinese festivals which led to a growth in exposure and sales in recent months.
Although the customers still need to do purchases on their website in the UK, they have launched support for the payment method preferred by Chinese customers which is Alipay and UnionPay.
9. LN-CC
LN-CC has a huge variety of brands involved, the number is bigger than 250 for women only, and brands for man shows a similar scale. They are also participating in sustainable fashion, household, music, and books.
However, their e-reputation in China was affected in the past months. In China, a negative e-reputation can spread fast and affect your brand image. Many people are complaining about their shopping experience including the items shipped, quality, and after-sales support. This is caused by the lack of a distribution system that fits the Chinese market and social media communication channels. If they can combine their distribution channel with their e-commerce in a better way by using Chinese social media such as WeChat and Little Red Book to communicate with customers, they would highly increase their shopping experience and improve their performance in China.
10. Vestiaire Collective
Vestiaire Collective is a second-hand platform that not only sells second-hand luxury products but also allows users to sell their products on the platform and offers to identify services.
Due to the rising appeal of the second-hand luxury industry, more and more Chinese customers are aware of Vestiaire Collective through different information channels. However, since second-hand luxury is so special for the risk of fake products, there is a lot of negative information on social media sharing their experience of purchasing fake products from Vestiaire Collective. This made anyone who has seen this kind of post feel risky to buy anything from them and harmed their e-reputation.
GMA, Your Ideal Partner in China
Have a Chinese program to launch but don’t know what to do? Don’t hesitate to contact us for a consult!
Having more than 10 years of experience in marketing in China, we can provide you with what fits you and your brand the most and help boost your brand in China.
