Luxury brands in China double down as sales surge, with store openings in malls and online
- Wealthy Chinese consumers deprived of their shopping trips to Milan and Paris have spent big on luxury at home, with sales of some brands doubling in China
- In response, brands are expanding more in China, opening stores and launching e-commerce platforms, while shutting stores in underperforming markets like Europe
On the southern Chinese island of Hainan, a duty-free shopping paradise, domestic tourists keen to spend will often patiently line up for an hour or more to enter a Gucci, Tiffany or other luxury brand store.
With the coronavirus pandemic having sent most of the world’s luxury spending into a tailspin and China the only major economy expected to show growth this year, high-end brands now depend more than ever on Chinese consumers like Zeng for sales.
Their propensity to spend, which extends across China’s biggest cities, is spurring luxury brands to double down on the Chinese market – embracing e-commerce and pushing ahead with store openings whereas in most other countries such plans have been postponed or scaled down.
Lavish events are also back. Louis Vuitton menswear designer Virgil Abloh held a spring/summer fashion show before a live audience in Shanghai in August.