Month: May 2019

In a market as saturated and competitive as the Chinese beauty industry, one demographic appears to be outperforming all others; the male shopper. Tmall, China’s largest B2C e-commerce platform recently revealed that the growth rate for men buying beauty products is higher than among women (31% year-on-year growth versus 29%). And the Chinese male beauty market continues to outperform those in other countries, with a projected growth of 15.2% over the next 5 years, compared…

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The global luxury market is changing. Younger consumers are entering the market and information about brands is increasingly acquired via digital channels. China is now the largest luxury market if we aggregate all purchases by Chinese consumers inside and outside China, and the competition there is heating up as new brands continue to emerge in all categories. One of luxury’s biggest players, the French luxury goods company LVMH, and the seventh-best-selling musician worldwide, Rihanna, just…

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Brands naturally have a fear of taking risks, so when they collaborate with influencers, the majority of them tend to stick to the same tried and true formats like having them make sponsored posts or attend offline events. While it’s the KOL’s responsibility to create interesting content on behalf of their brand, these repetitive campaign formats can get stale for both the influencer and their followers. Given this, brands are starting to realize that they…

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Tencent reported their latest first-quarter earnings today, despite exceeding estimates. Although user growth has remained relatively stable, the trend of declining revenue from the online gaming sector continues. In fact, it represents slowest revenue growth since the IPO launch in 2004. Given this, we expect to see the source of revenue coming from social ads on WeChat in the future. 2018 ads revenue of (from left to right) Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, ByteDance, Mini Programs. Photo:…

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There is abundant literature these days on what drives Chinese millennial luxury consumption, and most of it focuses on that generation’s affluent parents’ background or the country’s new financial optimism. Reports have also elaborated on millennials’ changing attitude toward luxury, which has shifted from using it as a status symbol to wearing it as a reflection of one’s personality or wielding it as social capital. But less ink has been spilled on the darker side…

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Marking its 90th anniversary this year, the Italian luxury retailer, Luisa Via Roma, now better known for their e-commerce site than their iconic concept store in Florence, Italy, is ushering in a new era with rapid expansion in China. Last week, the longtime e-tailer (they began selling via e-commerce channels back in 1999), signed a strategic partnership with China’s top luxury e-commerce site Secoo to sell more than 600 luxury and fashion brands directly on…

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Luxury brand CEOs of every type, from technology and hospitality to fashion, all seem to agree on one thing: China is at the top of their agendas, and not just because of the size of the market. China provides a window into the future of luxury markets. In other words, the global luxury market in the future will eventually look like today’s modern Chinese market. So to win in China is to position your company…

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In “Chinese Whispers,” we share the biggest news stories about the luxury industry in China that have yet to make it into the English language. In this week’s edition, we discuss: The first “smart retail” shopping mall, co-developed by Tencent and WandaVictoria’s Secret’s standalone e-commerce store on Alibaba TmallSecoo’s new partnership with fine dining chain Ce La Vi 1. Chinese corporate giants Wanda and Tencent co-launch a smart retail mall – 36Kr It’s been the…

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Shortly after President Trump threatened to escalate the ongoing U.S.-China trade war, analysts began calculating the repercussions for America’s auto and agriculture industries. Yet the impact on America’s tourism industry could be equally damaging. Deteriorating relations between the world’s two largest economies have already affected a U.S. tourism sector that’s seen its growth flatline for the first time in 10 years. And while only three percent of the 80 million visitors to the U.S. in…

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China has become one of the most competitive markets in the world, and the watchmaking industry, like many others, has had to re-adjust to new trends to keep pace with the demands of a radically shifting market there. According to Bloomberg, “ex-factory sales of Swiss watches rose 6.3 percent in value over 2017 to $20.8 billion.” The same report said that this is “the second consecutive year of export growth after downturns in 2015 (-3.3…

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