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28/10/2018

Net-A-Porter Will Be Available In China Through Alibaba And Richemont JV




Net-A-Porter Will Be Available In China Through Alibaba And Richemont JV
A joint venture has been formed between Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba and the owner of the powerful e-commerce platform Net-a-Porter, which is also the owner of Swiss luxury group – Richemont, to offer luxury products to Chinese consumers.
 
Net-a-Porter and Mr Porter would be the two mobile apps that the joint venture would launch in China. These apps would be separate from the two platforms’ non-Chinese versions. Online store versions of Net-a-Porter and Mr Porter would also be hosted on Alibaba’s Tmall Luxury Pavilion. This is a program by the Chinese firm to make available to the Chinese consumers those Western luxury brands that they find difficult to get access to in China. According to Alibaba, the first multi-brand distributor to have a spot on Alibaba’s platform would be Net-a-Porter.
 
Here is a significance presence in China of a number of luxury brands that are sold through Net-a-Porter such as Burberry. These brands are already available through the Luxury Pavilion or they have their own physical outlets.
 
However it is likely that a vast assortment of new brands that were previously unavailable would now be accessible for Chinese consumers through the joint venture between Alibaba and Richemont. Here is however no guarantee of the inclusion of every single Net-a-Porter affiliated brand, emphasised Alibaba. It is expected that most of the more than 300 luxury brands that are available through Net-a-Porter would be accessible to Chinese consumers through this new venture even though neither of the companies have provided any details of the particular brands from Net-a-Porter that would be carried on Alibaba’s platform.
 
According to Alibaba’s figures, almost one third of the total luxury market of the world is accounted for by the Chinese market which makes it the largest luxury market in the world currently. There has been an astonish rise in the number of Chinese consumers purchasing luxury hoods in recent years – and those luxury brands from outside of China have been more popular among consumers. About 77 per cent of all of the luxury purchases made by Chinese consumers in 2017\6 was made from abroad while the rest was made domestically. There have been huge investments made by brands such as Tiffany & Co and Moschino with the aim of targeting Chinese consumers driven by a growing appetite for Western luxury brands.
 
“Chinese customers at home and abroad are an increasingly important customer base for Richemont and for the broader luxury industry,” said Johann Rupert, chairman of Richemont, in a statement. “Our digital offering in China is in its infancy, and we believe that partnering with Alibaba will enable us to become a significant and sustainable online player in this market.”
 
According to McKinsey, more than half of the global luxury market would be accounted for by China by 2025. A largesse section of those lovers of Western luxury goods are young and digital-savvy. The average age of purchasers of luxury products in China is 35 years according to Alibaba which is 10 years below the average ago in developed economies.
 
(Source:www.glossy.co)

Christopher J. Mitchell

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