EVENTS

Learnings from China’s Biggest E-Commerce Day

by

Iris Chan

|

This is the featured image caption
Credit: This is the featured image credit
Bigger than Black Friday, Single’s Day in China is an online shopping event so massive that brands can’t ignore its sales impact. Wrestling with brand control, high-end and luxury brands…

Over the last decade, collaborations between luxury brands and contemporary artists have gone beyond mere artistic partnerships towards a new kind of luxury branding.

PARIS – Art and fashion have always developed side by side, for fashion, like art, often gives visual expression to the cultural zeitgeist. During the 1920s, Salvador Dalí created dresses for Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiapparelli. In the 1930s, Ferragamo’s shoes commissioned designs for advertisements from Futurist painter Lucio Venna, while Gianni Versace commissioned works from artists such as Alighiero Boetti and Roy Lichtenstein for the launch of his collections. Yves Saint Laurent’s vast art collection, recently auctioned at Christie’s in Paris, testified to his great love of art and revealed the influence of a variety of artists on his own designs.

In the 1980s, relationships between luxury brands and artists were advanced when Alain Dominique Perrin created the Fondation Cartier. In the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, a book marking the foundation’s 20th anniversary, Perrin says he makes “a connection between all the different sorts of arts, and luxury goods are a kind of art. Luxury goods are handicrafts of art, applied art.”

The Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemparain building in Paris

Bigger than Black Friday, Single’s Day in China is an online shopping event so massive that brands can’t ignore its sales impact. Wrestling with brand control, high-end and luxury brands find the way to take part in the fastest growing e-commerce nation.

One of the most exciting days of shopping is coming up, and we’re not talking about Black Friday. Forbes reported it ‘bigger than Black Friday’ last year, and we can only imagine how much bigger it will get this year. This Friday November 11th is Single’s Day (11.11), a day that celebrates proud to be young and single Chinese people. In addition to being the fastest growing e-commerce nation, Single’s Day has become an annual explosion of online sales.

All kinds of brands leverage this unique occasion in the Chinese market each year, however for luxury brands the day is met with mixed feelings. The association with discounts and widespread availability is understandably called into question on the impact to a luxury brand’s image and perception. Yet, some high-end and luxury brands have made the move into e-commerce in China, at first to have better control over gray-market products, and now also to take their piece of the growing pie of online shoppers and sales.

Following Alibaba’s IPO in 2014, luxury brands looked on as Coach, Burberry, and others opened official Tmall stores to see what would happen to them. Since then, some have remain and others have closed. Other brands have taken a different approach and have been working with third party e-commerce platforms. Among them, most notably, is MEI.com (formerly Glamour Sales). MEI.com is a leader in the China e-commerce landscape since 2009, the first online flash sales retailer in China that focuses on luxury, fashion and lifestyle brands, and has significant investors like Alibaba and Hong Kong’s Chow Tai Fook. Co-founded and led by CEO, Thibault Villet, he joins this year’s Luxury Society Keynote in Shanghai to delve into the details on luxury brands and third party platforms participating in the current growing landscape of e-commerce in China.

Find out more on November 25, 2016 by joining industry leaders and professionals at the 2nd Annual Luxury Society Keynote in Shanghai at Four Seasons Hotel Pudong.

Iris Chan
Iris Chan

Partner & Head of International Client Development, DLG

Iris has 15 years of marketing experience in agencies and consultancies in the North American and Asia Pacific markets, specializing in the luxury category. She has worked closely with brands including Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts, LVMH, Richemont, Ermenegildo Zegna, Christian Louboutin, Estée Lauder Companies and Ralph Lauren. Her marketing experience spans the areas of branding and communication strategy, digital strategy, market research and analysis, media and editorial planning, as well as online and offline activations. Previously based in Shanghai for over five years, Iris now resides in New York.

EVENTS

Learnings from China’s Biggest E-Commerce Day

by

Iris Chan

|

This is the featured image caption
Credit : This is the featured image credit
Bigger than Black Friday, Single’s Day in China is an online shopping event so massive that brands can’t ignore its sales impact. Wrestling with brand control, high-end and luxury brands…

Over the last decade, collaborations between luxury brands and contemporary artists have gone beyond mere artistic partnerships towards a new kind of luxury branding.

PARIS – Art and fashion have always developed side by side, for fashion, like art, often gives visual expression to the cultural zeitgeist. During the 1920s, Salvador Dalí created dresses for Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiapparelli. In the 1930s, Ferragamo’s shoes commissioned designs for advertisements from Futurist painter Lucio Venna, while Gianni Versace commissioned works from artists such as Alighiero Boetti and Roy Lichtenstein for the launch of his collections. Yves Saint Laurent’s vast art collection, recently auctioned at Christie’s in Paris, testified to his great love of art and revealed the influence of a variety of artists on his own designs.

In the 1980s, relationships between luxury brands and artists were advanced when Alain Dominique Perrin created the Fondation Cartier. In the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, a book marking the foundation’s 20th anniversary, Perrin says he makes “a connection between all the different sorts of arts, and luxury goods are a kind of art. Luxury goods are handicrafts of art, applied art.”

The Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemparain building in Paris

Bigger than Black Friday, Single’s Day in China is an online shopping event so massive that brands can’t ignore its sales impact. Wrestling with brand control, high-end and luxury brands find the way to take part in the fastest growing e-commerce nation.

One of the most exciting days of shopping is coming up, and we’re not talking about Black Friday. Forbes reported it ‘bigger than Black Friday’ last year, and we can only imagine how much bigger it will get this year. This Friday November 11th is Single’s Day (11.11), a day that celebrates proud to be young and single Chinese people. In addition to being the fastest growing e-commerce nation, Single’s Day has become an annual explosion of online sales.

All kinds of brands leverage this unique occasion in the Chinese market each year, however for luxury brands the day is met with mixed feelings. The association with discounts and widespread availability is understandably called into question on the impact to a luxury brand’s image and perception. Yet, some high-end and luxury brands have made the move into e-commerce in China, at first to have better control over gray-market products, and now also to take their piece of the growing pie of online shoppers and sales.

Following Alibaba’s IPO in 2014, luxury brands looked on as Coach, Burberry, and others opened official Tmall stores to see what would happen to them. Since then, some have remain and others have closed. Other brands have taken a different approach and have been working with third party e-commerce platforms. Among them, most notably, is MEI.com (formerly Glamour Sales). MEI.com is a leader in the China e-commerce landscape since 2009, the first online flash sales retailer in China that focuses on luxury, fashion and lifestyle brands, and has significant investors like Alibaba and Hong Kong’s Chow Tai Fook. Co-founded and led by CEO, Thibault Villet, he joins this year’s Luxury Society Keynote in Shanghai to delve into the details on luxury brands and third party platforms participating in the current growing landscape of e-commerce in China.

Find out more on November 25, 2016 by joining industry leaders and professionals at the 2nd Annual Luxury Society Keynote in Shanghai at Four Seasons Hotel Pudong.

Iris Chan
Iris Chan

Partner & Head of International Client Development, DLG

Iris has 15 years of marketing experience in agencies and consultancies in the North American and Asia Pacific markets, specializing in the luxury category. She has worked closely with brands including Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts, LVMH, Richemont, Ermenegildo Zegna, Christian Louboutin, Estée Lauder Companies and Ralph Lauren. Her marketing experience spans the areas of branding and communication strategy, digital strategy, market research and analysis, media and editorial planning, as well as online and offline activations. Previously based in Shanghai for over five years, Iris now resides in New York.

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