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The biggest challenge was perfecting the means to turn hard plastic into lovely open fibres that would provide all of the softness and texture of wool. It took 7 years to create the perfect textile, that not only has the look and feel of wool, but is also machine washable, stain resistant, environmentally friendly and suitable for indoor and outdoor use.

Today, back in their Devonshire home, Tasha and Barney and the Weaver Green team are excited to offer beautiful recycled rugs, blankets, footstools, cushions and bags that offer all of the benefits of plastic without any compromise in style, feel or value. We hand loom all our lovely textiles and use artisans throughout Europe, Scandinavia and Asia to make our gorgeous, soft, practical products.

We take care to ensure that everyone involved in the process of turning a discarded plastic bottle into a beautiful herringbone rug or a Juno bag is treated fairly and paid accordingly. Our South East Asian and Turkish weavers are independently inspected to ensure the safe and fair working conditions of our craftsmen and women, while we finish all of our textiles in our Devon based rug rooms.

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Our Story | Recycled Rugs & Textiles | Weaver Green

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The biggest challenge was perfecting the means to turn hard plastic into lovely open fibres that would provide all of the softness and texture of wool. It took 7 years to create the perfect textile, that not only has the look and feel of wool, but is also machine washable, stain resistant, environmentally friendly and suitable for indoor and outdoor use.

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As it stands, as an online retailer we are currently operating as normal with most deliveries and online orders going ahead as planned (depending on some warehouse closures). We are following government guidelines and all employees are working from home so please allow an additional time to reply to queries.

Currently 2 person deliveries are not operating and will be sent 1 person where possible.

Please feel free to contact us before ordering to confirm any delivery timescales or if your order might be affected during this period.

We wish all our customers the very best in this difficult time and please stay safe.

Established in 2012, Zurleys has been operating online for over 7 years.
We bring your affordable furniture direct from our suppliers who area based in the UK and Europe. We pass our savings on to you and you will always receive the best possible price for that item. Most of our items are between 20-40% below the RRP!

more about us

Whatever your taste in furniture - classic, traditional, mirrored, shabby chic or industrial you can find a diverse collection of cheap furniture items. All our affordable furniture is made to a high quality and delivered straight to your door.

We understand at Zurleys that furniture is an important part of your home. Building the perfect home on a budget is of high importance for most. Our cheap furniture prices allow you to stretch your budget and create that fantastic home you dream of.

Our furniture comes direct from the manufacture so you can be assured that we keep our prices low with no extras charged.

We also bring you those high-end designer styles at cheap furniture prices as well as the trendy must have furniture items that will enhance your current home decor.

We offer free premium fragile delivery services through our UK on most items*, delivery partners include UPS and Kinetic Logistics as well as many more.

We deliver our furniture to customers across the UK and Ireland.

Most of our furniture suppliers are based in the UK and Europe.

Featured In

Daily Express, 25 Beautiful Homes, House Beautiful, Huddersfield University, T Hud Mag, Metro Newspaper, Stylist Magazine and Candis Magazine

Choose from a vast array of affordable furniture to buy online, we pride ourselves on providing affordable quality furniture items that provide a charming and attractive look to spruce up your home.

Our popular furniture ranges are perfect for those wanting to add some colour and style to your rooms. The Chelsea, Arcus, Designer Style, and Milly ranges are all beautiful collections that will instantly add that fabulous look to your home.

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Affordable Furniture | Cheap Furniture Online | Zurleys UK

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As it stands, as an online retailer we are currently operating as normal with most deliveries and online orders going ahead as planned (depending on some warehouse closures). We are following government guidelines and all employees are working from home so please allow an additional time to reply to queries.

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Screens are great for pretending to look busy, but if like us you need a little break from time to time then order a copy of our latest brochure today.

Sit back with a cuppa, pop your feet up and browse our fabulous range of gorgeous hand-woven textiles all from the comfort of your own home.

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Weaver Green | Indoor & Outdoor Rugs and Textiles | Free UK Delivery

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Screens are great for pretending to look busy, but if like us you need a little break from time to time then order a copy of our latest brochure today. Sit back with a cuppa, pop your feet up and browse our fabulous range of gorgeous hand-woven textiles all from the comfort of your own home.

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During these difficult times, find inspiration in nature from a simple bunch of spring flowers on a windowsill,

a balcony with a touch of green or if you are lucky enough to have one,
a garden displaying all that spring has to offer.
We are still here sending out our lovely things
and taking furniture orders, always here for a friendly chat too!

FOR AN UPDATE ON COVID19
and how it will affect our company, click on 'about us' below,
if you are viewing on a mobile, 'about us' is in the hamburger menu

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Furniture, Fabrics and Fine Things | Angel and Boho

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During these difficult times, find inspiration in nature from a simple bunch of spring flowers on a windowsill, a balcony with a touch of green or if you are lucky enough to have one, a garden displaying all that spring has to offer.

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Quirky Home Accessories and Furniture | Rose & Grey

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Buy contemporary & vintage furniture and homeware from Rose & Grey. Inspiring homewares and gifts from the UK’s home accessories boutique store.

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Hong Kong is on Track to Embrace Sustainability

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Hong Kong is on Track to Embrace Sustainability

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Governments around the world are putting policies in place to curb carbon emissions. Hong Kong is no different. It continues to make strides to protect its world-class status through its sustainable development.

In early 2017, the Hong Kong government released its Climate Action Plan 2030+ report, which set out Hong Kong's carbon emissions reduction target for 2030. As buildings account for about 90% of electricity consumption in Hong Kong, there is great potential to achieve the government's ambitions through direct measures in the built environment, such as energy efficiency improvements and the use of renewable energy.

As part of the Climate Action Plan, Hong Kong launched its feed-in tariff (FiT) scheme late last year, an incentive program encouraging the use of renewable energy resources. Under the scheme, any non-governmental bodies or individuals who install solar and wind energy systems will not only make a positive impact on the environment, they can also make a profit.

Through the FiT scheme, buildings with grid-connected renewable energy systems can sell Renewable Energy Certificates, similar to carbon credits, to Hong Kong's power companies. HK Electric and China Light and Power (CLP) will then buy renewable energy and sell it to individuals and businesses wanting to lower their carbon emissions. Tenants can benefit from the cost-efficient energy source while demonstrating their commitment to corporate social responsibility.

While it is too early to evaluate the scheme now, there are some initial figures to show the response has been positive. Two months after implementation, CLP announced that it had received 1,400 applications from the launch of the scheme in October to the end of 2018. More is expected as HK Electric just launched the scheme in January this year.

For businesses that report their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) performance, taking part in the scheme is extremely attractive. ESG performances express the environmental and social impact of an organization. Today, most stock exchanges in the world, such as Hong Kong's stock exchange, make ESG reporting a specific requirement for listed companies.

In the real estate sector, ESG performance is assessed by GRESB (previously known as the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmarking). A high GRESB score equates to greater access to institutional capital seeking responsible and sustainable investments and stronger demand from tenants seeking sustainable and greener buildings.

How does Hong Kong compare with the sustainability initiatives of other Asia-Pacific markets? A recent CBRE Research study of office buildings in six major gateway cities in Asia Pacific - Shanghai, Hong Kong, Beijing, Sydney, Singapore and Tokyo - found that 23% have achieved some form of green certification, compared to a ratio of 41% in the U.S.* Shanghai possesses the largest volume of green office space with more than 20 million sq. ft. certified as of 2018.

Singapore and Sydney both have a green certification rate of more than 80% for new office buildings less than five years old, followed by Shanghai and Beijing. Hong Kong, with a rate of around 61%, still has a long way to go.

Hong Kong is a new joiner compared to other markets, but the FiT scheme is a great starting point. It has created an attractive economic incentive on a material topic where the built environment needs to change. In this era of green buildings, Hong Kong is on par with other markets to play a bigger role.

This article is written by Michael Smith, Director, Property Management, CBRE Hong Kong
*Note:The green office building adoption percentage is calculated using CBRE Research data on total office stock. Local green building rating systems are used for Hong Kong, Sydney and Singapore, while LEED is used for Beijing and Shanghai and Tokyo. Sources on the US ratio are theU.S. Green Building Adoption Index 2018 and CBRE. The full report can be found .

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Hong Kong is on Track to Embrace Sustainability

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Governments around the world are putting policies in place to curb carbon emissions. Hong Kong is no different. It continues to make strides to protect its world-class status through its sustainable development. In early 2017, the Hong Kong government released its Climate Action Plan 2030+ report, which set out Hong Kong's carbon emissions reduction target for 2030.

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Online Consumer Shopping Behavior in Hong Kong – Statistics and Trends [Infographic]

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Online Consumer Shopping Behavior in Hong Kong – Statistics and Trends [Infographic]

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Did you know that an An average Hong Kong Consumers Spends more than 24 hours a week on Internet. 88% of consumers in Hong Kong made at least one purchase online in last three months and than four in 10 online consumers in Hong Kong have made purchases via their mobile devices in the last three months. Check out our infographic "Online Consumer Shopping Behavior in Hong Kong " for latest statistics and trends about online shopping in Hong Kong.
Infographic by GO-Globe Web Design Company Hong Kong To Publish this Image on your Blog or Website . Copy this code Top factors that attract Hong Kong consumers to do Online Shopping Top Reasons why Hong Kong Consumers decide not to buy Online
Almost half of Hong Kong consumers now say they plan to make more purchases in the next two years via their mobile phones.
Top Online Shopping Categories For Hong Kong Consumers Top Online Shopping Festivals to Purchase Goods Online Preferred Delivery Methods on Hong Kong Consumers

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Online Consumer Shopping Behavior in Hong Kong - Statistics and Trends [Infographic]

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Did you know that an An average Hong Kong Consumers Spends more than 24 hours a week on Internet. 88% of consumers in Hong Kong made at least one purchase online in last three months and than four in 10 online consumers in Hong Kong have made purchases via their mobile devices in the last three months.

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Hong Kong millennials want to retire earlier on lower savings, but their maths may fail, JPMorgan survey shows

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Hong Kong millennials want to retire earlier on lower savings, but their maths may fail, JPMorgan survey shows

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Hong Kong millennials plan to retire earlier on lower savings: JPMorgan survey

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Hong Kong millennials are planning to retire earlier with lower savings compared with targets set by older folks, according to the results from a survey by JPMorgan Asset Management during the city's worst economic crisis in a decade. But their maths may fail.

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Native & Co designs and curates homeware from Japan and Taiwan. We specialise in traditional crafts and contemporary designed tableware. Working closely with specialist makers and traditional craftsmen, we seek out pieces that are simple and pure, staying true to their native origin.

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Native & Co designs and curates homeware from Japan and Taiwan. We specialise in traditional crafts and contemporary designed tableware. Working closely with specialist makers and traditional craftsmen, we seek out pieces that are simple and pure, staying true to their native origin.

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Recommended studies & reports

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For the Furniture & Homeware market, our analysts create reports with detailed comparisons and important background information. Get an overview of trends and key players and consult comparisons of the focus regions USA, China, and Europe.

All the important data on the Furniture & Homeware market, including market size, forecasts, and regional comparisons

Consumption data, deep dives, and trends

Information about key players and insights about start-ups

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Furniture & Homeware - Asia | Statista Market Forecast

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Asia: Revenue in the Furniture & Homeware segment amounts to US$155,429m in 2020. The eCommerce market segment Furniture & Homeware includes the online sale of furniture, kitchen and household goods such as kitchen and bathroom accessories, textile furnishings, lamps, decoration, candles, pottery and china.

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Market Trends: Chinese Consumer Behavior and Motivation | Daxue Consulting

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Market Trends: Chinese Consumer Behavior and Motivation | Daxue Consulting

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Since China committed to its "reform and opening" policy in 1978, the Chinese economy has boomed, and many international businesses have established a presence in China. However, some foreign businesses are hesitant to enter the Chinese market because they do not fully understand Chinese consumer behavior. Chinese consumer behavior is indeed complex, as consumer trends vary among different groups and regions in China. Appreciating and understanding the preferences and mindsets of different consumer groups in China is key to entering or expanding further into the Chinese market.

Who are Chinese consumers?

As of 2018, China's population is 59.58% urban and 40.42% rural. Guangdong and Shandong provinces have the highest numbers of population in China with over 100 million population each, followed by Henan ( 96 million), Sichuan (83 million), and Jiangsu (80 million) provinces.

Chinese people aged 45-49 and 50-54 take up the highest ratios of total population, followed by that of 30-34 and 25-29. The Gross Domestic Products (GDP) per capita was $9,771 in 2018 and is expected to grow to $10,099 in 2019. The average per capita disposable income and consumption expenditure nationwide was 28,228 yuan and 19,853 yuan respectively. The households in eastern region have a higher per capita disposable income level.

Chinese Consumer behavior by age demographic

Middle age and elderly consumer behavior

Consumers born before 1960 can be divided into two subgroups, frugal retired and wealthy retired. Both of these groups grew up in tough and difficult times. However, the frugal retired did not receive a systematic education and worked at state-owned enterprises. As a result, this group is very price sensitive. The wealthy retired primarily worked in government and government-funded enterprises that in general provided higher wages and retirement benefits. For this reason, they are less price sensitive than the frugal retired and care more about quality than cost.

Consumers that grew up during the cultural revolution (1966 - 1976), can also be divided into two subgroups, frugal forties, and wealthy forties. Both of these groups grew up in the early stage of the reform era, and hence they swing between traditional and new trends. The frugal forties generally work in various companies - state-owned, private, and foreign-invested companies. They usually earn modest incomes. On the other hand, the wealthy forties generally have higher wages and are hence more willing to pay for premium quality products. They will have fewer responsibilities with respect to childcare and hence will have a higher propensity for spending money on entertainment, groceries, travel, and high-quality healthcare products.

Chinese millennial consumer behavior

The next group of Chinese consumers can be termed as the thirties. This group is characterized by having grown up in a more open environment and being well-educated. This group of consumers save less and spend more money on entertainment. This group is likely to spend a significant amount of money, as members of this group will have to provide for their parents, their children, and themselves.

Consumers in the first generation of the one-child policy henceforth referred to as the twenties have the opposite shopping habits of their parents. They are less inclined to save their money and spend a larger proportion of their wages on various products and services. They are particularly fond of trendy products and more often use online shopping to purchase goods. Although they are likely to become more conservative spenders as they establish new families, this group is nonetheless likely to be more willing to spend money than previous generations.

Migrant workers

Migrant workers, who are generally 25-45 years old are rural residents who moved to the city to get work to provide for their rural families. This group has more in common with the older generations, as they are very price sensitive and more inclined to accumulate wealth rather than spending it. However, this group is projected to grow in wealth, and as this group grows in wealth and becomes integrated into the urban economy its members will be more inclined to spend their money.

Wealthy Chinese consumers

The last group of Chinese consumers, "the wealthy", holds assets over $1.5 million RMB. This number is more than $1 million and is rapidly increasing. This group is concentrated in large urban areas, such as Beijing, Guangdong, and Shanghai, which houses about half of the members of this group. As expected, Chinese wealthy are the least price sensitive group and the most willing to spend money on premium quality products. This group of consumers is particularly attracted to imported products.

How COVID-19 changed Chinese consumer behavior

Due to the impact of COVID-19 on Chinese consumers, the household spending is projected to fall by -2.8% y-o-y in 2020, from the pre-COVID-19 forecast of a growth of 7.2% y-o-y. Non-essential expenditure (tourism, restaurants, entertainment outlets, clothing and footwear etc.) are the most impacted, and non-essential businesses continue to record y-o-y contractions. Consequently, total retail sales in April 2020 dropped by 7.5% y-o-y compared to April 2019's. Whilst, essential purchases (food & drinks and health products) and e-commerce demand remain robust. In March 2020, with the lockdown easing and businesses re-opened, purchases of business essentials (office appliances, communication sales) began to display positive growth.

The government has put forward a series of measures attending to tackle China's economic recession incurred by COVID-19, including 4 trillion RMB of spending on businesses and consumers. These measures marked the beginning of a new era of economic reforms in China. It's apparent that consumer behaviors are also susceptible to changes in the post-lockdown world, wherein estimate of China's real GDP expanded in April 2020 being only 0.8% y-o-y.

However, a nascent sign shows that majority of consumer and retail sectors have seen improvement since March, as lockdown eases and consumers start to venture out homes. Household appliances and sporting goods are displaying strong recovery amid strong retail sales of food, drink, and medicine. As for food and beverage consumption, however, it's highlighted that people will turn to local food supply like neighborhood convenience stores and markets more during this period of time. This shift of consumer behavior deepens as the latest news covering that coronavirus detected on chopping board for imported salmon in Beijing's market.

Consumer behavior in China returns to normal after COVID-19

Although consumer behaviors have not recovered to the pre-COVID-19 normal yet, nascent signs of recovery are emerging in China. And as the country enters into a new era of reforms in an unprecedentedly dynamic time, reinforced by technological innovations, the market is going to be a battleground for existing businesses and new entrants. Hence, a comprehensive understanding of the market and its people become more essential for businesses these days.

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Consumption Upgrade in modern China: 2.0 era happening across the country

With the further penetration of advanced technologies and changing consumption structure, the new phenomenon is emerging in the consumer market in China.

Effects of mobile payment in Mainland China

The number of people accesses to the Internet via mobile devices (phones, pads etc.) has reached 788 million by June 2018, accounting for 98.3% of all netizens. Because of this, mobile payment becomes prevalent in almost every part of China. With the wide adoption of mobile payment, purchase behavior in China has dramatically changed in the direction of more convenience and efficiency. It's so common that street vendors, street performers and taxi drivers are all being paid by mobile payment AliPay and WeChat Pay; cash becoming rare in recent three years, mostly because of already sophisticated mobile payments infrastructure in China. New retail model, furthermore, conceived by Alibaba, stems from proliferation of big data collected from numerous of customers and its application Hema Supermarket, for example, is influencing consumer behavior in big cities (Shanghai, Beijing and Hangzhou) by combining online and offline purchase together so that consumers could buy things online without restrictions of brick-and-mortar shops.

Considerable Chinese aging population triggering emerging needs

The inevitable aging population due to one-child policy drives a major shift in China's demography. The growth of elderly consumers will create new business opportunities, particularly in elderly care, health and wellness and home appliances sectors. In addition to that, higher life expectancy, a major motivation for older people, is expected to provide business potential especially for health care and eating industries.

The younger generation (18-35 years old) contributing to a large proportion of consumption in China

People aged 18 to 35 have unique characteristics influenced by the internet revolution, and this group spent $1.5 trillion for consumer goods in 2016, more likely continued sharp increase in purchasing in the condition of omnichannel e-commerce. Their daily lives are being affected by numerous information provided by online platforms and news, educating as well as being educated to appreciate and enjoy a better quality of life and environment. They do not like to save money, do not pay for cost-effective, but pay for services, personalized products to comply with their personalities and expectations of life. This brings about structural opportunities for consumer markets in ongoing consumer motivations.

The increase of disposable income impacts on consumer behavior in rural areas in Mainland China

China has considerably uneven income distributions, but the government has been improving income inequality over years. People from rural places are catching up with consumption upgrade in tier1, tier2, tier3 cities. According to the State Statistical Bureau, the average of disposal income keeps increasing at roughly 7 percent from 2017 Q1 to 2018 Q2, whereas the corresponding consumer expenditure boosts at the growth rate from 6.8 percent to 10.1 percent, from 2017 Q1 to 2018 Q2.

In conclusion, when marketing to Chinese consumers, a firm does well to target a group who's demands and idiosyncrasies are consistent with the firm's offering. In this article, a brief presentation of these groups has been presented. It is also important to heed recent trends in Chinese consumer behavior, which has been impacted by the drop in China's economic growth.

Case Study: Online Retail Sector

Daxue Consulting helps clients maximize their margin and revenue in China at every step of the consumer journey-from acquisition to retention. Daxue Consulting provided one of its clients in the online retail sector an in-depth analysis of the behaviors and needs of their brand's target market in China. The report helped the client to determine and identify the best ways of reaching the customers. The project started with a desk research. Our consultants in China scanned the internet, the market, and the client's direct competitors, in order to find as much relevant information for the industry as possible.

An online survey was sent to the consumer panel in the second part of the project, and the panel members recorded all the details of their purchases on the client's website. The report helped the client to understand the main drivers of its brand performance in China and the best way to achieve its targets with more buyers and better spending per buyer.
Watch our latest Video on Facebook about the Chinese Consumer: Daxue Consulting is a China-focused professional consulting firm offering strategic-driven research
To know more about the Chinese Consumer behavior, do not hesitate to contact us at dx@daxueconsulting.com

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Chinese Consumer Behavior: Analysis by age, region, COVID-19 impact

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Since China committed to its "reform and opening" policy in 1978, the Chinese economy has boomed, and many international businesses have established a presence in China. However, some foreign businesses are hesitant to enter the Chinese market because they do not fully understand Chinese consumer behavior.

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HOW TO KEEP PACE WITH CHINESE CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

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HOW TO KEEP PACE WITH CHINESE CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

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China is moving to an all-digital retail value chain. This has wide-ranging implications for Chinese consumer behaviour. If you want to market your product in China, here are the trends you need to keep up with.
Behind the Great Firewall of China lies a unique ecosystem of e-commerce, social media and retail companies. Innovation is fast-paced. Competition is strong. And change is driven by e-commerce giants like Alibaba and their 'new retail' philosophy - achieving ever-closer synergy between online and offline channels.

It's also a land of great opportunity. Online retail imports in China rose to $16.9 billion in the last quarter of 2018. But you'll need in-depth knowledge of Chinese consumer behaviour, expectations and purchase habits to make the most of it. Here are the trends to be aware of.

RETAIL INNOVATION

Alibaba's supermarket chain Hema is a perfect example of the e-commerce giant's 'new retail' concept.

You can pay for online or offline purchases with Alipay - Alibaba's mobile payments provider. You can choose your food in the supermarket and have it cooked at the in-store restaurant. And delivery takes less than 30 minutes if you live within three kilometres of a store. The stores are so popular house prices around them are rising as customers uproot themselves to live within the delivery radius.

Alibaba hasn't stopped there, either. Ever thought of a vending machine for cars? Through an app, users can find out which car models are available and select a pick-up time for a test drive. Facial recognition confirms your booking. Then your vehicle is brought down to ground level automatically. If you're happy, you can buy it for real.

Convenience stores can also benefit from new retail. An Alibaba app gives small businesses access to sophisticated customer behaviour analytics and a single distributor for stock.

Alibaba is just one example of how offline, online, logistics and data are coalescing in China. Chinese consumer behaviour is changing. And customer experience is even more firmly in the spotlight. What does this mean for you?

Chinese consumers want to order online with no extra cost or delay - including from overseas sellers. Payment security is another big issue. China leads the world in mobile payment solutions. Integrating Alipay, WeChat Pay or similar can build your customers' confidence in your brand.

Mobile-friendly, engaging content and innovative events are the key to Chinese hearts. Top it off with that all-important personal touch.

MILLENNIAL MONEY-SPENDERS

Millennial shoppers ( known as the post-80s or post-90s generations in China) are the driving force in the Chinese consumer market. Especially for luxury brands.

They make up 25% of the general population and two-thirds of China's passport holders. They're also highly educated ( 79% hold a Bachelor's or Master's degree), with many having studied abroad. This gives them a more international, technologically focused outlook than their parents. Plus an existing awareness of overseas brands and standards.

Armed with disposable income, they're ready to spend. This trend should continue too. 90% of millennials expect an income increase in the next five years. But just because they have cash to burn doesn't mean they'll part ways with their money easily. In fact, they're very choosy about what they spend their money on. To win their trust, you'll have to meet their needs.

1) THE FOREIGN FACTOR

Chinese consumers are warming to domestic products. This is supported by government initiatives such as 'China Brand Day', launched in 2017. But younger shoppers still prefer foreign brands, particularly for luxury products. So if your product is made in Britain, say it loud and proud, but don't skimp on the details. Build a distinctive brand image with a focus on social engagement to carve your stake in the market.

2) BOUTIQUE BRANDS

Younger shoppers identify with brands that fit their personalities. 70% say they buy products to 'feel different rather than fit in with society'. And they'll engage with companies who dare to do their own thing.

That's why there's a growing focus on brands' history and values. To connect with shoppers, tell your brand story in a personal, authentic and engaging way. Video, interactive content and even virtual reality can encourage shoppers to invest in your brand vision.

Companies that tap into Chinese millennials' desire to travel do well. A good example is the mobile shopping app Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book). It allows women to discover, share and buy global fashion and beauty products.

Customer service is also extremely important to shoppers. They want personal, direct communication with companies at any time. This is an opportunity to build real relationships with consumers. Platforms like Aliwangwang, Qzone and WeChat can help. This personal step will work wonders for your image.

BUYING INFLUENCE

Because of their focus on personal engagement, shoppers value word of mouth endorsements. 96% of consumers rely on personal recommendations for information about new brands.

Chinese shoppers are also more receptive to online influencers than anywhere else in the world. 78% will purchase items endorsed by celebrities, while 63% are swayed by micro-influencers such as key opinion leaders (KOL) or wang hong. In the UK, it's 32% and 38% respectively. Analyzing the social media profiles of your followers can help you identify which celebrities to recruit for maximum impact.

Japanese beauty brand NARS launched its Tmall store in 2018. To promote the event, they hosted live-streams with their professional make-up artists and kicked off a KOL marketing campaign. These influencers shared their personal experiences with the products. Within a month, the NARS store had 480,000 followers and looked set for success.

Prefer a more personal endorsement? Social media app WeChat allows users to share vouchers with their friends. Qzone does the same thing with blog content. If your customers are engaged, you can turn them into effective marketers.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Success in China requires an in-depth understanding of the relationship between retail, e-commerce and social media. A well-balanced strategy between the three is crucial for capturing Chinese hearts and minds.

Want advice on how your brand should respond to Chinese consumer behaviour? Feel free to get in touch. We'd love to help bring your marketing strategy to life.

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How To Keep Pace With Chinese Consumer Behaviour | Wordbank

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China is moving to an all-digital retail value chain. This has wide-ranging implications for Chinese consumer behaviour. If you want to market your product in China, here are the trends you need to keep up with. Behind the Great Firewall of China lies a unique ecosystem of e-commerce, social media and retail companies.

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The Chinese furniture industry is the biggest of its kind in the world. China is the number one furniture producer, consumer and exporter. The industry maintained an astonishing growth rate of 17% between 2006-2016.The Chinese furniture industry is mainly driven by real estate sales. The real estate industry, an industry that is one of the backbones of the Chinese economy, had a similar remarkable growth. Therefore it is not surprising that the revenues and profits in the furniture industry in China have increased so much.

Production in the Chinese furniture industry

As mentioned before the income of the furniture industry in China has been rising steadily over the last years. The production side of Chinese furniture industry accounts for around 39% of the world's furniture production. Chinese furniture manufacturers produce various types of furniture from house furniture to office supplies. Mainly the Greater Bay Area plays an important role in production. Over 70% of the country's furniture manufacturers are headquartered in the GBA area, because the GBA has a lot of technical and labour resources.

It is no surprise that the GBA's capital of technology, Shenzhen, is where the majority of innovations within the furniture industry are developed. The technological innovation of furniture in China will have a far-reaching impact on the global furniture market.

However, recently a shift is taking place in where the furniture itself is being produced. The Chinese furniture industry is slowly moving from the Eastern and Southern coastal regions to the central region of China. Most of the furniture enterprises in Beijing and the GBA have moved their production to Hebei, Henan, Jiangsu, Shandong, Anhui and other provinces.

This trend of transferring production and manufacturing bases from large cities to small and medium-sized cities or counties and keeping R&D and headquarters in larger cities, is not limited to the Chinese furniture industry only and can be seen in other industries as well.

Domestic Consumption

There are a variety of reasons why China is the number one consumer of furniture in the world. Furniture is a basic need in every household. Within the Chinese market consumers between the age of 25 and 35, people who mostly just started living on their own or are newly married have the highest demand for furniture. Furthermore, the Chinese middle-class has been growing rapidly and has led to an increased demand for higher quality products.

Moreover, urbanization is a major cause for demand. According to the latest data released by the National Bureau of statistics; at the end of 2017 the urbanization rate in China was 58.52%, an increase of 1.17% from the previous year. People moving to cities from rural areas often leave behind a majority of their belongings and buy new things in the city. This means that a lot of new furniture is needed.

Trends

Within the Chinese furniture industry three main demand trends can be seen. First of all, Chinese consumer have an increasing taste for environmental friendly furniture. They prefer furniture made from natural and eco-friendly materials. This demand is not only caused by caring for the environment, but also out of fear for chemicals harming the well being of the customer

Another demand trend that can be identified is the trend of custom made furniture. Of course this trend is mainly seen in the more high end customer segment. However with the rising middle and upper class in China it is definitely a trend worth looking into.

Lastly, intelligent furniture is becoming a trend. According to IDC's quarterly tracking report on the smart home equipment market in China, shipments of smart home devices in China are expected to reach 150 million units in 2019. The intelligent furniture trend is not only popular in the Chinese furniture market. Mobile phone manufacturers, like Huawei and Xiaomi, and Internet Giants, such as Baidu and JD.com, are actively promoting intelligent furniture.

Sales Channels

There are several distribution channels used in the Chinese furniture industry. Firstly, there are the traditional sales channels. Furniture manufacturers sell their good through distributers or they set up their own shops selling directly to the consumers. Examples of these channels are furniture malls, high-end furniture markets, and warehousing type markets like IKEA. More modern sales channels are e-commerce channels. E-commerce is growing trend in China. You can buy anything online, furniture is no exception. Furniture producers either sell their furniture through established web shops, such as Aliexpress or Taobao., or they have their own dedicated online shop. The Chinese e-commerce trend and the trend of custom furniture work really well together. Online furniture shops often have the option to customize the products to a customer's liking.

International brands penetration of the Chinese furniture market

In 2017, the total amount of imported furniture grew with 15.65% to 30.52 billion USD. There are three ways how a foreign furniture company can enter the Chinese furniture industry: by exporting furniture to China in their original packaging, through manufacturing consignment agreements, and by establishment of a local company.

The furniture that is imported from abroad has a relatively low market share in China, because it is often sold for a high price and is seen as a more high class product. In manufacturing consignment agreements foreign furniture brands entrusts Chinese factories with the production of their goods. However, if the furniture brand is not registered as a company in China, it cannot sell the produced furniture in China. Therefore, all produced furniture has to exit the country first, before returning China to be sold. This is the only way for unregistered companies to legally sell their products in China, even though the furniture is produced in China.

Finally, foreign brands and companies can establish a wholly foreign owned enterprise (WFOE) to enter the Chinese furniture industry. After the registration of a WFOE, the Chinese factory is allowed to handle the production and processing of the furniture, and sell directly to the Chinese market. can be sold in home directly. If you want to learn more about the registration of a WFOE and establishing your own company in China, you can request our white paper here.

China International Furniture Expo

The largest furniture exhibition in China is the China International Furniture Expo, held 9-12 September 2019 in Shanghai. The China International Furniture Expo, better known as Furniture China, has been leading in the industry for over two decades. As one of the world's leading B2B trade fairs, over 100,000 participants are involved in the show every year. 300,000 square meter of exhibition area and 3500 high quality suppliers.

If you are interested in doing business in China and you want to know more about the market you operate in, feel free to contact us!

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The Chinese Furniture Industry - 1421 Consulting Group

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The Chinese furniture industry is the biggest of its kind in the world. China is the number one furniture producer, consumer and exporter. The industry maintained an astonishing growth rate of 17% between 2006-2016.The Chinese furniture industry is mainly driven by real estate sales.

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Homeware specialists in China-   Channel value, penetration and growth 2012-2022

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Homeware specialists in China-   Channel value, penetration and growth 2012-2022

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Are you a hotel, restaurant or business manager looking to improve your sustainability and impact? Aerende can help - by taking commissions for beautiful textile items, created to your specification.

Aerende Bespoke began in Spring 2017 when Aerende launched a textile programme working with refugees in Hertfordshire. It has since expanded to incorporate makers living with mental health illnesses and women at risk of unemployment/poverty. Together we are happy to create to unique, limited-edition products for the hospitality sector.

We work with linen, organic cotton or waste materials to sew anything from cushions to napkins (with a minimum order of 20 and a maximum of around 500 depending on the item and deadline) and are happy to discuss orders for a wide range of fabric items that help generate revenue for our partner makers, or to create bulk orders of products currently in our collection.

Clients so far include Massimo Bottura's Refettorio Felix, StudioIlse, Petersham Nurseries, The London Linen Company and Inhabit Hotels.

Please contact hello@aerende.co.uk for more information.

Aerende Bespoke napkins in dusky blue linen, commissioned by StudioIlse for
Refettorio Felix, a Community Kitchen in Earl's Court, London, set up by
Massimo Bottura. Image: Red Photographic

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Aerende Bespoke | Sustainable handmade items for restaurants & hotels

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Are you a hotel, restaurant or business manager looking to improve your sustainability and impact? Aerende can help - by taking commissions for beautiful textile items, created to your specification. Aerende Bespoke began in Spring 2017 when Aerende launched a textile programme working with refugees in Hertfordshire.

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BRABBU Design Forces - Contemporary Home Furniture

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BRABBU is a design brand that reflects an intense way of living, bringing fierceness, strength and power into an urban lifestyle

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Homeware specialists in China - top players

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Homeware specialists in China - top players

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Six Things You May Not Know about Chinese Millennials

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Six Things You May Not Know about Chinese Millennials

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Millennials around the world are disrupting the way we do things from shopping to travelling and even working. Growing up during a period of high-paced economic growth and prosperity, China's millennials tend to be more affluent, tech and digitally savvy, and open to new experiences. Dubbed by Forbes ¹ as the next generation of "super consumers," here are six things you may not know about millennials in China:

1. There are a lot of them.
We do mean a lot - China currently has about 400 million millennials, compared to 80 million in the United States². They are one of the largest emerging consumer groups in China, and a group this size will inevitably have an impact on the economy. Getting to know and understand them is key.

2. They are savvy, digital natives.
More than 90% of millennials in China own a smartphone³. Used for almost every situation imaginable, from sharing their life's moments on WeChat to paying for bills via Alipay or WeChat Pay, their phones also let Chinese millennials share pictures and short videos at any time. In July 2018, popular social media app Douyin (otherwise known as TikTok and similar to YouTube) surpassed 300 million monthly active users (MAU) in China, with 500 million MAU in all markets globally⁴.

3. They are cashless.
Millennials are spearheading the transition to cashless mobile payments in China, fueling the rapid growth of the domestic fintech industry⁵. During the 2017 Alibaba Singles Day shopping festival, approximately 1.48 billion payments were processed through Alipay, with 90% of transactions completed via mobile phones⁶. No more queues at the ATM.

4. They are driving demand for luxury goods and consumer electronics.
Millennials in China love their luxury brands. A report released by Boston Consulting Group and Tencent in September 2018 observed that Chinese customers are expected to account for 40% of global luxury goods sales by 2024, with those aged 18 to 30 accounting for 58% of luxury goods buyers⁷.

And they want more electronics too. Apple reported US$9.5 billion in revenue from Greater China during its third quarter in 2018, a 19% year-over-year increase⁸.

5. They are entrepreneurial.
According to JWT Intelligence, 74% of Chinese millennials would start their own business if they had trouble finding a job and 93% agreed with the statement "Technology has put so many professional and entrepreneurial opportunities in front of me."⁹

6. They are heading abroad for higher education.
Many Chinese millennials are looking to international institutions to further their education. Around 544,500 Chinese students studied abroad in 2016, more than triple the 179,800 that sought out education overseas in 2008¹⁰. Top destinations for Chinese students include the U.S., U.K., and Australia, with the U.K. the top spot for those looking to earn a master's degree in 2015¹¹.

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Six Things You May Not Know about Chinese Millennials

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Millennials around the world are disrupting the way we do things from shopping to travelling and even working. Growing up during a period of high-paced economic growth and prosperity, China's millennials tend to be more affluent, tech and digitally savvy, and open to new experiences.

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Millennials are people born between 1981 and 1996, according to the definition by Pew Research Center. They follow hot on the heels of "generation X" and the "baby boomers" - and the "millennial moment" marks their arrival as the dominant generation of the post-financial crisis era.

Millennials are big news - and with good reason: it is an exclusive club of 1.8bn people, which accounts for about a quarter of the world's population. But who are the millennials, and what does data tell us about their similarities, or otherwise, to previous generations?

Arriving at the millennial moment

While millennials are only now becoming the largest generation in the US, globally they first outnumbered baby boomers 26 years ago, and became the world's most populous generation two years later, overtaking generation X.

Where do millennials live?

Based on sheer numbers alone, the "millennial moment" is more a story of developing countries and global progress than the advertising stereotypes of affluent urban youth prevalent in western media and marketing. Nearly nine in every 10 millennials live in emerging economies. Chinese millennials alone outnumber the entire population of the US.

The proportion of millennials in country populations varies considerably. Iran has the highest proportion at 32.2 per cent. In China, it is 25.2 per cent. In advanced economies, the proportion of millennials is much lower, because of the combined effect of low birth and death rates.

While millennials are on the cusp of outnumbering both boomers and gen X in the US, this is not the case in many other advanced economies. Millennials comprise 17.2 per cent of the population in Japan, and 17.8 per cent in Spain. Italy, with just 16.9 per cent, has the smallest share of millennials of any major economy.

Millennials are city dwellers

Millennials are the most urbanised cohort of young adults ever - although the same is also true of every other current age group. Young people have always had a propensity to live in cities, and given that more people of all ages now live in cities than ever before, millennials are part of a broader trend.

This effect is most noticeable in developing countries, where levels of urbanisation are generally lower - just over half of millennials live in urban areas - but have increased rapidly over the past 30 years.

The UK and China illustrate the divergence in urbanisation between various economies. From 1990 to 2010, more than 250m people moved from the countryside to China's cities. This mass migration had a large effect on the lives of China's millennial generation: by their early 20s Chinese millennials are now nearly three times more likely to live in cities than their counterparts from 30 years ago. Over the same period in the UK, levels of urban living among the young have increased just three percentage points.

Living arrangements

In the US, millennials are more likely to live at home than previous generations. But this is not the case elsewhere and may reflect US-specific factors such as high levels of student indebtedness, which rose from $0.3tn in 2004 to $1.4tn in 2018.

The average age of leaving home in the 28 EU countries has barely changed since 2002 and now stands at 26 years. The figure crept up in the UK slightly from 23.3 to 24.4 during the same period, according to official figures.

Millennials are less interested in marriage or having children

Changing attitudes towards marriage, along with increased economic insecurity, have resulted in a drop in marriage rates among young people in the US. Compared with baby boomers in 1984, marriage rates among millennials have decreased two-thirds for those aged 20 to 24 and halved for 24 to 29-year-olds.

However, in China the drop is far less pronounced. Among those in their 20s, the proportion of the population married at least once fell by just over a third between 1982 and 2010.

Women in the US, China, and the UK may be having children later, but globally the mean age of childbearing has barely changed, and now stands at 27.85 years. In countries where the mean age has increased, it is not just that women are having children later - many are choosing not to have them at all.

As marriage and raising children tend to increase household expenditure, these trends could be pushing down total consumption among millennials compared with previous generations.

Millennials and work

By 2020 millennials are forecast to make up 35 per cent of the global workforce. They reached the same figure in the US two years ago, at the same time becoming the largest generation in the workforce.

While young people are more likely to participate in the precarious work of the gig economy, they also prioritise job security above almost all else. Research by the Resolution Foundation shows that, overall, UK millennials are moving jobs less frequently than generation X at the same age.

The same is true in the US, where the length of job tenures have just slightly increased when compared with generation X.

Why the 'millennial moment' matters

While it is difficult to estimate the total income of millennials compared with other generations, using income and demographic modelling, the World Data Lab forecasts that the global spending power of millennials will soon be greater than any other generation. As the principal consumer generation, they are set to shape the direction of the world's economy in the years ahead.
The FT is looking to hear from young readers: how do you spend your money, and how financially stable do you feel? Contribute to our reporting here. Are you interested in news and analysis about the markets? Click on this link on your phone to sign up to the FT Markets WhatsApp group. Whether you are a subscriber or not, the stories will always be free (outside of the FT's subscription paywall).

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Millennials are people born between 1981 and 1996, according to the definition by Pew Research Center. They follow hot on the heels of "generation X" and the "baby boomers" - and the "millennial moment" marks their arrival as the dominant generation of the post-financial crisis era.

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Most large consumer-facing companies realize that they will need China to power their growth in the next decade. But to keep pace, these companies will also need to understand the economic, societal, and demographic changes shaping the profiles of consumers and the way they spend. This is no easy task not only because of the fast pace of growth and subsequent changes in the Chinese way of life but also because of the vast economic and demographic differences across the country.

These differences are set to become more marked, with significant implications for companies that fail to grasp them. Since 2005, McKinsey has conducted annual consumer surveys in China, interviewing a total of more than 60,000 people in upward of 60 cities. Our surveys have tracked the growth of incomes, shifting patterns of expenditure, rising expectations-sometimes in line with those of the respondents' Western counterparts and sometimes not-and the development of many different consumer segments. Those surveys now provide insights to help us focus on the future. We cannot, of course, predict it with certainty, and external shocks might confound any forecast. But our understanding of consumer trends to date, coupled with an analysis of the economic and demographic factors that will further shape them in the next decade, serve as a useful lens for contemplating the profile of the Chinese consumer in 2020.

Changing demographics

Many of the changes taking place in China are common features of rapid industrialization: rising incomes, urban living, better education, postponed life stages, and greater mobility. Japan saw similar changes in the 1950s and 1960s, as did South Korea and Taiwan in the 1980s.

But some unique factors are also at work, such as the government's one-child policy and the marked economic imbalances among regions. Our analysis reveals important insights into the likely demographic and socio-demographic profiles of Chinese consumers at the end of this decade.

Changes in economic profiles have been and will continue to be the most important trend shaping the consumer landscape. The Chinese are certainly getting richer fast: the per-household disposable income of urban consumers will double between 2010 and 2020, from about $4,000 to about $8,000. That will be close to South Korea's current standard of living but still a long way from its level in some developed countries, such as the United States (about $35,000) and Japan (about $26,000).

The current vast differences in income levels will persist, however, although the numbers at each level will shift dramatically (Exhibit 1). At present, the great majority of the population consists of "value" consumers-those living in households with annual disposable incomes between $6,000 and $16,000 (equivalent to 37,000 to 106,000 renminbi), just enough to cover basic needs. "Mainstream" consumers, relatively well-to-do households with annual disposable income of between $16,000 and $34,000 (equivalent to 106,000 to 229,000 renminbi), form a very small group by comparison. China has fewer than 14 million such households, representing only 6 percent of the urban population. A tiny group of "affluent" consumers, whose household income exceeds $34,000, accounts for only 2 percent of the urban population, or 4.26 million households.

Until now, these divergences have presented multinational companies operating in China with a choice: to target only mainstream and affluent consumers or to stretch the brand to serve the value segment. Those that took the first course could more or less maintain the same business model they applied in other parts of the world, without needing to de-engineer their products. But in taking that approach, they limited themselves to a target market of 18 million households. Companies that chose to serve the value category benefitted from a much bigger market to play in-184 million households-but their products had to be cheaper, they were forced to adapt their business models, and profitability was lower.

This situation is changing. Because the wealth of so many consumers is rising so rapidly, many people in the value category will have joined the mainstream one by 2020. Indeed, mainstream consumers will then account for 51 percent of the urban population. Their absolute level of wealth will remain quite low compared with that of consumers in developed countries. Yet this group, comprising 167 million households (close to 400 million people), will become the standard setters for consumption, capable of affording family cars and small luxury items. Companies will be able to respond by introducing better products to a vast group of new consumers, thus differentiating themselves from competitors and earning higher profits. Nevertheless, value consumers, whose ranks will fall to 36 percent of urban households in 2020, from 82 percent in 2010, will still represent an enormous market for cheaper products: 116 million households, or 307 million consumers.

Affluent consumers will remain an elite minority, making up only 6 percent of the population in 2020. (In the United States in 2010, more than half of the population earned at least $34,000.) But that 6 percent will translate into about 21 million affluent households, with 60 million consumers.

While income is expected to rise across China, some cities and regions are already significantly wealthier than others. Understanding these variations in the rate of development is important because they will affect which categories of goods and services grow most rapidly, and where.

Today, about 85 percent of mainstream consumers live in the 100 wealthiest cities; in the next 300 wealthiest, only 10 percent of consumers are mainstream, but that percentage will rise to nearly 30 percent by 2020. At that point, many families in these cities will be able to afford a range of goods and services (such as flat-screen televisions and overseas travel) that are now largely confined to the wealthiest urban areas. Exhibit 2 explains the distribution of income in four different groups of cities. Some of them (Foshan in Guangdong, for example) are small in terms of absolute GDP or population size. But it's worth noting that the affluence of their populations could make them as attractive to companies as leading tier-one cities, such as Shanghai and Shenzhen.

New spending patterns

An understanding of China's changing economics and its impact on the profiles of consumers helps to identify some key trends in spending patterns in the next decade. We discuss three: high growth in discretionary categories, the tendency to trade up as consumers spend some of their discretionary income on better goods and services, and the emergence of a senior market.

Higher discretionary spending

Bigger incomes and government efforts to increase consumption will benefit all consumer-facing companies, though to varying degrees, depending on their product portfolios. Discretionary categories will show the strongest overall growth-13.4 percent-between 2010 and 2020, as these goods become affordable to growing numbers of consumers. Next come semi-necessities (10.9 percent growth) followed by necessities (7.2 percent). These average figures will of course vary significantly by region and city.

Exhibit 3 shows forecast annual consumption by category for 2020 and the rising importance of discretionary spending. Each broad category includes subcategories, some of which are more discretionary than others and expected to grow faster. For example, a discretionary category within food-dining out-is expected to grow by 10.2 percent a year in the coming decade, against 7.2 percent growth for basic food ingredients.

Of course, the wealthiest people-those in our affluent segment-will be the main consumers of discretionary items. Less obvious is the extent to which they will be able to afford more such items in 2020, compared with people in other income groups, as their numbers and wealth grow. Our consumption model suggests that in 2010, average household spending for value, mainstream, and affluent consumers was about $2,000, $4,000, and $12,000, respectively. These figures will jump to $3,000, $6,000, and $21,000, respectively, by 2020. So although all consumers will increase their spending, the gaps between different income groups will widen significantly. Stark disparities in standards of living are emerging in China.

Aspirational trading up

The second noticeable trend in spending is a propensity to trade up, driven increasingly by consumers aspiring to improve themselves, the way they live, and their perceived social standing. Many Chinese, like their Western counterparts, judge themselves and others by what they buy.

Strong early growth in developing markets comes when large numbers of consumers try products for the first time. As markets mature, growth relies on consumers who buy more goods and services more frequently and trade up to buy pricier versions of items they already have. This pattern explains why some basic-necessity categories have little room for growth: many consumers can already afford such items and probably won't buy a great deal more of them. But that does not mean no growth at all. Take the market for sauces and condiments. Most people can already afford to buy as much as they need of these items. But the increased attention now paid to health and well-being shows that even here, companies have trading-up opportunities.

Such opportunities also exist within semi-necessity categories, such as apparel, health care, and household products: more consumers will be able to afford different outfits for different occasions, for instance, or to buy additional branded products. As a consequence, brands focused on mass-market consumers might need to be repositioned to suit their rising aspirations, while newer, younger brands may be able to leapfrog more established competitors by offering premium products and crafting a premium brand image.

But it is the top end of the market that will benefit most from trading up: growth at the high end of some consumer goods categories already outpaces average growth for those categories as a whole. Sales of premium skin care products, for instance, rose by more than 20 percent a year in the past decade while the industry average was 10 percent.

Annual volume growth rates of more than 20 percent are foreseeable for luxury SUV cars, compared with around 10 percent for basic family models. China had already become a leading luxury market by 2010 and could overtake Japan to become the biggest such market by 2015.

Emerging senior market

The aging of China means that as a share of the total population, it will have five percentage points more people above the age of 65 in 2020 than it has today. That is an extra 126.5 million citizens, clearly an important consumer segment. What is equally important is the way the spending patterns of older people in 2020 will differ from those of older people now. In our 2011 survey, the elderly were more inclined to save and less willing to spend on discretionary items such as travel, leisure, and nice clothes. These tendencies will probably be much less apparent in 2020.

Most people in China over the age of 55 experienced the harsh conditions of the Cultural Revolution, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Not surprisingly, they think it important not to spend frivolously. Among residents of tier-one cities, 55- to 65-year-olds allocate half of their spending to food and little to discretionary categories: only 7 percent goes toward apparel, for example. People who are ten years younger devote only 38 percent of their spending to food but 13 percent to apparel. Indeed, our consumer surveys have revealed that although today's older consumers behave very differently from younger ones, today's 45- to 54-year-olds-the older generation come 2020-have spending patterns similar to those of 34- to 45-year-olds (who allocate 34 percent of their spending to food and 14 percent to apparel). This finding implies that companies will have to rethink their ideas about what older Chinese consumers want.

Read our latest thinking on Chinese consumers

Implications for companies

The biggest challenge is building and sustaining a leading position in China and, for multinationals, using it to drive global growth. In fact, as the country with the world's largest group of mainstream consumers, it could be an excellent test bed for companies that serve this consumer segment. Our analysis indicates that huge variations in the growth rates of companies operating in China come 2020 are likely, depending on the product category, consumer segment, and geography.

A second challenge is that China is so vast and its regions so diverse it should be treated almost as a collection of separate countries. Companies should redefine the roles of their regional divisions and headquarters, delegating more decision-making power to the former. Many companies already operate with three, five, or even more regional bases, but these tend to function only as sales offices, executing instructions from the top. Consumer needs could become so varied across China's regions that local insight and strategic decision-making power will be vital. Regional offices should therefore receive full responsibility for their own profit-and-loss accounts, strategic planning, consumer research, innovations, portfolios, route-to-market models, and marketing. The corporate center should have a redefined role-serving the individual units and safeguarding the company's brands-with less power and at a lower overhead cost.

A third challenge stems from the fact that undifferentiated mass consumption and the rising cost of ads made the scale of a brand or product crucial to its success in the past decade. Companies provided the same value proposition-usually framed around a product's functional benefits-to all types of consumers, while stretching brands across product categories and price tiers to leverage scale and garner market share. Over the next decade, the game will change to take account of the emergence of different categories of consumers and their own sense of their differences and individuality. Companies will need the crispest value propositions to connect with each group and to stand out from competitors. By 2020, they will have to position brands (or sub-brands) to target narrower consumer segments and offer more tailored value propositions. Brands extended across too many consumer segments and price points may struggle to defend their market position. Hard though the transition could be, at some point companies that have focused on maximizing their brands' scale will have to adopt a model based on a portfolio of more targeted brands or sub-brands to connect with different consumer segments.

No doubt China and its consumers' behavior will take some unexpected turns over the next decade. Nonetheless, our research reveals the clear direction of travel. To be sure of taking part in that journey, companies in the market should start making the acquaintance of China's 2020 consumers today.

Read Meet the 2020 Chinese consumer, the full report on which this article is based, on the McKinsey Greater China Web site.

About the author(s)

Yuval Atsmon is a principal in McKinsey's Shanghai office, and Max Magni is a principal in the Hong Kong office.

The authors would like to thank Lihua Li and Wenkan Liao for their contributions to the report underlying this article.

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Most large consumer-facing companies realize that they will need China to power their growth in the next decade. But to keep pace, these companies will also need to understand the economic, societal, and demographic changes shaping the profiles of consumers and the way they spend.

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China LuxuryReport 2019How young Chinese consumersare reshaping global luxury

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China LuxuryReport 2019How young Chinese consumersare reshaping global luxury

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People shop at a mall in Shanghai on Dec 31, 2018. [Photo/VCG]

Imagine a group of people with more members than the whole population of the United States, a group that does not have to worry about loans or mortgages as their parents take care of all that, a group that has only seen prosperity, and a group that is determined to have the best the world can offer.

Meet Chinese millennials, a group that will not only reshape China, but also the world. Chinese millennials, those born between 1981 and 1996, number more than 350 million, or over 25 percent of China's population. They are the main drivers of the country's surge in consumption, with spending by those under the age of 35 accounting for 65 percent of total consumption growth. This spending is projected to increase by 11 percent annually until 2021. But it's not just shopping where millennials are making their presence felt.

Millennials are more educated than previous generations, with 25 percent of them holding a bachelor's degree or higher. Two-thirds of all Chinese passport holders are millennials. Over 90 percent of them have a smartphone, and more than half of all luxury goods purchased by the Chinese are bought by millennials. They are transforming every sector of the economy, from travel to education. Millennials were key catalysts of the total $115 billion spent by Chinese visitors on global travel in 2017, and those born after 1990 increased their spending on international travel by 80 percent in 2018. In education, one in three foreign students in the US is Chinese and many are paying full fees.

Although Chinese millennials share characteristics with their Western counterparts, they are a different force altogether. They were born during the one-child policy so became the center of attention for both parents and grandparents. Their families spared no effort in providing them the best education possible; their financial needs were taken care of, and education became their sole focus. Moreover they were born in a period of exponential growth, a time of endless opportunities and optimism.

Another factor that marks Chinese millennials out is that they are willing to take risks. More than 200,000 students turned entrepreneurs in 2017. With the Chinese economy comfortably coasting along, the younger generation is tapping into opportunities in sectors as varied as high-end fashion and selling vegetables online.

This is not to say that they do not face challenges. While being the only child has obvious advantages, it has its disadvantages too, as parents and grandparents expect the best from the children when considering academic performance, their careers or even finding the perfect spouse. And with competition in the job market turning fiercer, the race for top schools becoming tougher, and property getting more expensive by the day, millennials are entering a highly competitive economy in an already cutthroat market. This is having some unintended consequences. The divorce rate is increasing; couples are delaying having children, and stress and tension levels are rising. According to a recently published report, the majority of Chinese millennials say the pursuit of personal wealth trumps all else.

With aging becoming a major demographic challenge for China, millennials are looking at a future where they could be working well into their old age. With China transitioning away from mass manufacturing, it's the millennial entrepreneurs who shoulder the most responsibility for creating companies that add value to the economy.

Their optimism and belief in China however should help them face these challenges. The younger generation loves to travel abroad, study abroad, but knows its future lies in China. It's not surprising therefore that although thousands of Chinese people travel overseas for studies every year, a huge number of them return as they know there are more opportunities in China than elsewhere. They like to engage with the world, whether it's through travel or education, but they want to bring their experiences back and apply them at home.

While the younger generation faces its own set of challenges, their optimism, patriotism and determination mean that they, just like the generation before them, will continue to cement China's place in history.
The author is a journalist with more than 18 years experience in media.

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Imagine a group of people with more members than the whole population of the United States, a group that does not have to worry about loans or mortgages as their parents take care of all that, a group that has only seen prosperity, and a group that is determined to have the best the world can offer.

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Reaching Chinese millennials - the online generation | Discover DHL

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Chinese millennials make up 400 million people , characterized by heavy phone use and lots of online shopping. Find out how to sell to Chinese customers here.

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Today's shoppers can journey through Love Island contestants' clothing options, find exclusive Burberry items on social media and receive dating advice via Topshop.

The new wave of gamification apps has hit the UK, giving smartphone users the opportunity to digitally engage with brands through games, competitions and virtual experiences. The big brands are jumping on the bandwagon. But does this represent a step change in how fashion will be marketed to new generations of shoppers, or is it a faddish flash in the digital pan?

Gamification in fashion has traditionally been the playground for luxury brands keen to cash in on the growing dominance of online gaming.

At the end of 2017, for example, Burberry launched a Christmas game on Chinese social and payment app WeChat, which allowed users to shake, tilt, or swipe their phone to complete a game with six levels, each linked to a different product. Players could compare their ranking with others.

The rise of gaming

In 2018 a reported 2.2 billion people worldwide played video games, representing a third of the global population.

Digital media and content service provider Limelight Network's 2019 report on the state of online gaming found adults between the ages of 26 and 35 spent the longest amount of time playing video games on their phones, averaging at 2.26 hours per week, compared with 1.31 hours for those over 60.

Chanel rolled out a series of Coco Game Center beauty pop-up arcades last year in cities throughout the world. DKNY, meanwhile, was one of the first fashion brands to partner with online avatar game Stardoll in 2007 which allows users to dress their dolls up in looks from the catwalk.
Multiple exposure
High street retailers are now starting to get in on the action in a bid to engage shoppers and increase conversion. This summer Manchester-based etailer I Saw It First followed in Missguided's footsteps and teamed up with reality TV show Love Island. Customers can take a "Which islander are you?" quiz, and shop from the clothing that contestant has worn on the show.

Date Dash touches on the essence of reality TV through a medium that's second nature to our audience

Jason Griffiths, Topshop Topman

Last week Topshop became the latest retailer to delve into gamification with the launch of Date Dash: a six-episode online series where contestants race against the clock to assemble an outfit in store to impress an eligible date.

Jason Griffiths, brand and communications director for Topshop Topman, says it wanted to recreate the reality TV experience: "We wanted to tap into a world where real people can explore fashion and relationships in an unscripted and raw way.

"We stand for democratising fashion and inclusivity, so it's been exciting launching a marketing campaign that touches on the essence of reality TV through a medium that's second nature to our audience."

The experience economy is growing and is a game changer

Anusha Couttigane, Kantar Retail

Topshop partnered with Virtue, media outlet Vice's creative agency, to develop the campaign, which is aimed at the Topshop's Generation Z and millennial audience. Griffiths says the launch was a way of keeping up with a new generation and their expectations of how a brand would interact with them as consumers.

"For us, this project really encapsulates how our younger customers engage with media and consume. In today's fast-paced, socially networked climate, traditional marketing techniques are not resonating with the younger generation. Date Dash was created to allow everyone to view our clothing in a new, fun digestible format."

Anusha Couttigane, principal analyst, fashion EMEA at Kantar Retail, believes high street retailers are now moving into the space as technology has improved and the use of smartphones is ubiquitous.

"Compared with 2011, when some of these initiatives took off, the tech has come a long way, and phone usership has become more universal. The way the technology has developed and made [games] more user friendly has elevated the adoption of them, and improved the execution."
Pay and play
Yet one of the biggest challenges with gamification for many retailers is showing its return on investment. Founder of fashion technology consultancy Coded Futures Daniel Bobroff says any game costs a minimum of £100,000 to develop, and more advanced ideas come with "film star budgets".

Gamification is an art form and the retail world is at the very start of this path

Daniel Bobroff, Coded Futures

The managing director of one footwear retailer says: "We have looked at it for a couple of years. People have suggested treasure hunts in stores, but we didn't think it would work for us. It only works when people shop frequently with you. When you come in to buy a pair of shoes, it's hard to get people to buy a second pair."

However, he believes it may work in other areas of the business: "Where gamification does resonate is in the back end. We've looked at ways of gaming up our warehouse environment. If we could show a staff member's picking rate compared with another staff member. You are getting a bit of fun; a bit of competitiveness and a bit of productivity pick up."

One luxury brand that has launched a social media gamification app tells Drapers that justifying return on investment had not been a problem: "The fact our items are selling out is always the biggest measure of success, but we've also seen more engagement broadly on social media.

"If a consumer understands that they may have a chance of attaining a product that is only available for a limited time, they monitor our channels more closely."

Bobroff agrees that creating a sense of urgency is often the key to success for gamification concepts:

"One of the big reasons Ebay was successful was its countdown clock: it created a sense of scarcity, which is a gamification technique.

"Gamification is an art form and the retail world is at the very start of this path. However, fashion is about story-telling and leisure as much as it is commerce, having that know-how is going to be good for the winners."

Couttigane predicts that gamification will grow in importance as part of experiential retail: "The experience economy is growing and is a game changer. Fashion tends to be an early adopter of technology, but shopping is a very small part of what people spend their time doing.

"Gamification can grow the share of time people spend with you. Retailers have to think more broadly. Focusing only on sales is a very narrow way of looking at your business."

The Drapers Verdict

Many retailers are already wrestling with falling revenues, so finding resources to even consider new innovations, of which gamification is certainly one, can be difficult.

However, a new engagement-hungry generation of consumers show that, if done right, the concept can be a huge driver of brand recognition and sales. Any strategy that takes gamification on board needs to take into account the risks, and the difficulty in measuring success.

For those such as Topshop who willing to try it, gamification could allow them to stand out in the crowded marketplace.

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Today's shoppers can journey through Love Island contestants' clothing options, find exclusive Burberry items on social media and receive dating advice via Topshop. The new wave of gamification apps has hit the UK, giving smartphone users the opportunity to digitally engage with brands through games, competitions and virtual experiences.

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Gamification is rapidly changing the way we interact with the world.

It began with video game obsessions - games through which we'd create idealistic versions of ourselves and tackle challenging situations; games that intrigued, motivated and inspired us to continue onto the next level or even make a purchase...

The marketing industry has since adopted this concept and created an innovative form of digital marketing to capture the attention of existing and potential new clients.

The use and extent of gamification has snowballed over the past few years and is set to be at an all time high by 2019. For those that are unaware of this new trend, gamification is an online marketing technique that has the typical elements of 'game-play' to entice the user to engage with the brand or company.

Gamification is everywhere, in particular, Instagram - the King of gamification when it comes to social media. Instagram currently has over 800 million users, which is set to continue increasing over the next year after the introduction of Instagram stories and IGTV. Instagram stories have been a huge success with around 300 million users taking advantage of Instagram stories daily. It is reported that 33% of users are more interested in a brand after engaging in their Instagram stories.

Many fashion and beauty brands have capitalised on this and frequently create short, fun gamification posts for users to play through Instagram stories. And it doesn't stop there - brands are also using the marketing technique through competitions and apps to gain new customers, increase their following and build brand awareness.

Retailers can entice the attention of individuals with the offer of prizes, freebies and discounts, with the aim of attracting engagement from existing and potential new customers. Whether it's a simple quiz, poll, contest, giveaway or interactive game, gamification is the way forward, especially for the fashion and beauty industry..

Here are a few of our favourite gamification concepts created by some of the most influential highs street fashion and beauty brands:
Oasis - Catch the Critters
This interactive game is fun, playful and pretty - in-keeping with the brand's iconic and recognisable image. The aim of the game is to swipe and match at least three critters to score points and progress to the next level. The more points earned through the game, the better your chances of winning are. The competition has been a success and gained so much traction that the brand has kept the game on their website after the competition came to an end, allowing customers to get in touch with their inner child whilst doing their online shopping. Why not have a play yourself and see how many points you can score?
Asos - The Sims Mobile
Asos have collaborated with The Sims and created a unique game specifically for the fashion-savvy internet users. This limited-edition mini-game only available to download on mobile devices, allows users to organise their very own fashion show ( who wouldn't want to do that!?) and style their characters in Asos garments. Upon success of your interactive fashion show, you will unlock exclusive Asos clothes only available to users of the game - win, win!
Victoria Secret - Pink Nation
Victoria Secret's younger brand, Pink, has created its very own app called Pink Nation. The app is free to download and gifts the user instantly with a unique offer to be used online via the app. The light-hearted, fun app aimed at the millennials of today, consists of a series of short, interactive games that lead to a range of impressive prizes. Games include creating looks from the Pink collection whereby users can vote for their favourite look, and games where users hunt for products within the app. The Pink Nation app is consistently on brand, understands their audience well and uses gamification to not only increase engagement but also to drive more sales.

Other clever and creative examples that we have seen from fashion brands include:

Enabling users to virtually 'try on' items before buying

Allowing users to create their perfect summer outfit and submit their concept to be in with a chance of winning the outfit - perfect for occasions such as festivals and the races

Placing an image or icon (such as an emoji) in various places all over the website to entice users to take part in a hunt to find them all

We have also seen apps created by a number of beauty brands involving unique games that lead to incentives and prizes with the brand. Beauty brands that have been a success with this include L'Oreal Paris, Emma New York and Jo Malone.

L'Oreal Paris were one of the first beauty brands to allow users to virtually try on makeup. The Genius App uses advanced technologies whereby it captures 64 facial data points and 100 facial expressions, and enables the user to choose from a large range of products, apply the makeup to their face, share with friends and enter their 'look' into the competition.

Gamification is extremely creative and allows fashion and beauty brands to grow a closer connection with their audience and expand business at the same time.

It is reported that 87% of retailers could be using gamification in their marketing strategies within the next 5 years. This year is predicted to be a significant year in marketing where we will see gamification maturing, developing and becoming a strong part of a brand's marketing strategy. As with all marketing strategies, the focus is to increase customer engagement, interaction and to gain loyal, repeat customers.

Although there is significant investment required for the design, creation and execution of a game, your brand can hugely benefit from gamification: Potential traction, social shares and new customers will all benefit your brand.

Gamification presents a new opportunity for the user; people like to play games and if there is an incentive involved it can often boost brand awareness through social shares and email marketing. Here is why you should consider gamification as part of your marketing strategy:

· An interactive game keeps users intrigued and wanting more

· It can keep existing and potential clients interested in the brand

· It can give users an opportunity to learn

· Rewards for participants entices people to play and interact

· Perseverance to solve games, win or get the best score against friends keeps users coming back for more

· It can increase sales and conversions

· It can make a brand memorable and recognised

Any brand or business can invest in gamification. It is a great way of getting your brand message out in the open, reach new potential clients, build a connection with followers and become memorable.

If you are interested in finding out more about gamification for the fashion and beauty industry, and how you could use it within your marketing strategy, then get in touch with our team to hear our ideas.

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Gamification is rapidly changing the way we interact with the world. It began with video game obsessions - games through which we'd create idealistic versions of ourselves and tackle challenging situations; games that intrigued, motivated and inspired us to continue onto the next level or even make a purchase...

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The 10 best eCommerce and shopping examples that use Gamification

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The 10 best eCommerce and shopping examples that use Gamification

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Yu-kai Chou: Gamification & Behavioral Design

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Click here to view our full list of Gamification examples.
Shopping has evolved so much from traditional market exchanges. It completely transformed from acquiring of needed goods into a rich experience that integrates deeply into every single culture of civilizations that can afford to power such an activity. People shop for fun, and for many (ahem, me not included), shopping could still be an epic win after spending 3 hours in a mall without buying a single item. (In the rulebook for my game, if I am shopping for over an hour and I bought nothing, I felt that I have failed. No Win-State for me...)

As shopping went online, a lot of the fun, interactive, and social experiences of shopping disappeared. However, it opened up a whole new world of other fun and exciting activities that could make shopping even more addicting than ever - except this time within the comforts of my home, and I can achieve my win-states much more often.

There is where eCommerce Gamification comes in place. Awesomely, many eCommerce gamification examples out there have actively improved sales and conversions by double or even triple digits towards the right direction, and some helped eCommerce sites become $Billion businesses!

Below I present to you 10 stellar eCommerce Gamification examples that will revolutionize shopping.

eCommerce Gamification #1: eBay's Bidding and Feedback System

When it comes to early good gamification, few can match eBay's ability to bring out our Core Drives.

If you were to just think of creating an ecommerce store, it's not necessarily intuitive to have a competitive bidding system, real-time feedback, and stars for leveling up that eBay introduced.

The power of eBay is that buying items on eBay isn't just a "purchase" like most ecommerce sites (Core Drive: Ownership & Possession in Octalysis), but when you buy something on eBay, you felt that you WON! Even though you might have paid 10% more compared to what you initially wanted to pay, you felt that you beat the other bastards who were bidding against you, sealing your victory. This is enormously a good example of Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment.

Add that to trying to improve your seller's %, getting more stars, improving feedback scores, and constantly checking back to see if you have gotten new bids or competition (Core Drive 6: Scarcity & Impatience as well as Core Drive 7: Unpredictability & Curiosity), finally leading to NOT wanting to lose the deal (Core Drive 8: Loss & Avoidance), no wonder everyone keeps saying, "eBay is so addicting!"

eCommerce Gamification #2: Woot.com Daily Deal System

The online retailer, Woot offers only one initial product per day in
limited quantities at a special sale price. A new product will be
offered only after the supply of the first product has been exhausted,
or by 12:00 AM Central Time. Each day people will wait for the next
product to be introduced, often at the midnight hour.

Since each product is limited and unknown beforehand, there are a
combination of factors which influence the site's shoppers. They know
that the next item up can be desirable and yet limited in quantities.

Often times, when people log onto Woot.com at 4PM, they would see that amazing deal, but unfortunately sold out. After a few days, they feel a stronger desire to finally be able to get the deal. As a result, a bunch of people starts to go on Woot at 11:59PM, constantly refreshing their page, so they can immediately see the new deal, and potentially scoop it up if it's appealing.

When you get users to change their daily habits before going to bed like Woot.com, you are demonstrating an amazing utilization of Core Drive 7: Unpredictability & Curiosity, as well as Core Drive 6: Scarcity & Impatience.

eCommerce Gamification #3: Nike's Winter's Angry Campaign

This obviously wasn't just for fun, since the website also allowed users to buy the new Nike winter clothing worn by each of the athletes. As such, it is a fairly typical competition and a representative example of how a brand can use an online game to drive awareness for a new product line.

This shows a great utilization of Core Drive 1: Epic Meaning & Calling (being an athletic celebrity fighting the winter), Core Drive 3: Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback (controlling the avatar to perform tasks and win challenges), Core Drive 4: Ownership & Possession (feeling ownership over your avatar and tasks, eventually the gear you can buy), as well as many others.

eCommerce Gamification #4: BestBuy's Cityville Presence

Zynga claims to have more than 230 million active users playing its
line of games. Of these, more than 71 million Facebook users play on
its leading title - CityVille. In the game, players build structures
and roads to create unique virtual cities, seeking to collect points they can use to unlock new game features.

On August 31, 2011, Best Buy became the first virtual branded retail
store in CityVille. For one week Zynga allowed its users to place a
Best Buy store in their own city. Prior to this, other businesses
could be placed in the game, but they all had generic names, such as
"bakery" or "hardware store". Players who elected to add a Best Buy
to their virtual city signified that they wanted the brand present in
their lives. This provided another element of realism to their
virtual world.

To add an additional bit of realism, Best Buy Geekmobiles would be
dispatched (to protect and maintain the technology) as items were
collected. In addition to the store, players would receive two
decorative items, a Wifi Robot and a More Surprises statue that would
remain in the game.

As players collect virtual tech products from the Best Buy store,
other players will also want to collect them.

This is a fantastic example of Core Drive 4: Ownership & Possession (actually owning a BestBuy in your virtual city to please your citizens), and Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment (You've EARNED the right to have a BestBuy. It must be super awesome!)

eCommerce Gamification #5: HSN's Gamified Website Experience

This is a simple but effective example of using Core Drive 3: Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback (take control and actively play games on the site while learning about the brand), as well as Core Drive 7: Unpredictability & Curiosity (People check back to the site to see if there are other games available)

eCommerce Gamification #6: Zappos' Gamified Culture and Customer Service

An integral part of this philosophy is the belief that individuals
that have fun on the job tend to be more creative and productive.
Also, that work and play are actually intertwined. Based on these
beliefs, activities that seem unrelated to work actually build
excellent working relationships.

This "culture of play" at Zappos has proven to work in getting people
to unite and stay together in pursuit of a common goal, especially
when they are encouraged to laugh and go beyond superficial tasks.

Because employees feel empowered and believe in the Zappos culture,
they want their community to succeed. As a result, customers feel like they want to be part of this "game" too.

Zappos customers feel the fun in the culture of the company, and buying items or dealing with customer service become a joyful ride instead of a senseless grind. It's no wonder Zappos, like Woot.com, was able to sell to Amazon for over $1 Billion - nothing I would mind in my pocket.

Zappos is a brilliant display of Core Drive 1: Epic Meaning & Calling (being part of the higher meaning that is the Zappos Culture...which was set upon when you decided to NOT take the $2000 for you to leave), and Core Drive 3: Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback (employees feel empowered to bring out their best and see immediate feedback - satisfaction of customers and laughter among each other).

eCommerce Gamification #7: Bonobos's Scavenger Hunt System

Visitors could search the site to locate and click on the images. The
first 50 people that found the images each day would received a $25
Bonobos credit plus free shipping. As an added bonus, visitors that
were able to find a guy in paisley pants received a special code for
$100 off their purchase.

This is a fine example of Core Drive 7: Unpredictability & Curiosity (looking for the pants), Core Drive 3: Empowerment of Creativity & Feedback (do whatever you can to find those pants, and see immediate feedback), Scarcity & Impatience (wanting to find the goal but not being able to), and finally Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment (when you found the item and got the reward - a bit of Core Drive 4). There's a reason why scavenger hunts are still popular till this day!

eCommerce Gamification #8: Aldo's Instagram MoodBoard

ALDO created its A is for Aldo microsite to introduced fragrances for
both women and men. Each fragrance was associated with a color that
represented a particular personality - "Colors Are Like
Personalities." For women, three distinctive fragrances were created:
Red for "sensual and passionate", Yellow for "chic, playful and
alluring", and Blue for "sexy, glamorous and seductive". For men, two
fragrances were created: Red for "modern classic" and Yellow for
"sport casual".

Each mood is matched with a specific fragrance and a link to purchase
the fragrance at the A is for Aldo site. The end result is for ALDO
to create a branded visual experience for its customers.

This is an interesting display of Core Drive 1: Epic Meaning & Calling (feeling that you are called to become a color based on your "given" personality), Core Drive 4: Ownership & Possession (This is me. This is my color), and Core Drive 7: Unpredictability & Curiosity (I wonder what color I will get!)

eCommerce Gamification #9: Gilt Groupe's Gilt Noir Loyalty Program

Gilt Groupe Built VIP Program On Social Rewards

Though they cannot purchase items sooner that other Gilt members,
their early access privilege allows them to survey the sale products
15 minutes ahead of time. This enables them to be aware of the more
desirable products and strategize to beat the "competition" to the
marquee items.

This is a great example of Core Drive 1: Epic Meaning & Calling (Elitism), Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment (I made it into the club!), Core Drive 5: Social Pressure & Envy (Now my friends are jealous of me), Core Drive 4: Ownership & Possession (I get to buy the best stuff!) and Scarcity & Impatience (I'm part of this 1% ultra exclusive club!)

eCommerce Gamification #10: Teleflora's Gamified Engagement Platform

As users continued to accumulated points, they would be rewarded with
higher level badges and titles, such as "influencer". Top performers
were listed on the Teleflora's leaderboard.

The commercial results were quite impressive with a 105% increase in
Facebook referrals and a 10-fold increase in the number of pictures
and videos uploads. More impressively, Teleflora's conversion rate
improved by 92%. In total, this is a good example of a successful
gamification effort in ecommerce.

This is a classic example of Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment (earning points and badges), and Core Drive 5: Social Pressure & Envy (Incentivized mentorship/Q&A activities on site and leaderboards/badges).
Thanks to Jerry Fuqua for contributing to this post.

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Top 10 eCommerce Gamification Examples that will Revolutionize Shopping

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Click here to view our full list of Gamification examples. Shopping has evolved so much from traditional market exchanges. It completely transformed from acquiring of needed goods into a rich experience that integrates deeply into every single culture of civilizations that can afford to power such an activity.

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DIGITAL LESSONS FROM CHINA: GAMIFICATION AS A UX GAME-CHANGER

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DIGITAL LESSONS FROM CHINA: GAMIFICATION AS A UX GAME-CHANGER

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The following article is part of our 'Digital Lessons from China' series, where we outline best practices and takeaways from China's advanced digital ecosystem.

Contrast the average user experience on Chinese and western platforms and one thing will become clear: the Chinese Internet is fun. It is full of playful language, bright colors, animal mascots and whimsical interactions like shaking your phone to connect with people around you.

Western UX is typically assumed to be the golden standard, with Chinese UX often derided as cheap and distinctly user-unfriendly. We at MADJOR believe that while there is much to learn from the West in terms of UX design, there is just as much to learn from China - especially in the realm of UX gamification, where China can truly be called an innovator.

And just to be clear: we refer to gamification as a user experience tactic that uses online-based micro games to simplify complicated processes, attach positive emotion to the user experience to create stickiness as well as habit formation, and build brand differentiation. Let's take a peek into how certain Chinese brands use gamification online, so that you can be inspired to find more innovative ways to engage with your consumer base.

What it is: 6 months after the launch of its WeChat Pay mobile payment platform and right before the Chinese New Year, WeChat launched the red envelope application as an attempt to create stickiness for WeChat Pay. The red envelope application is a digitization of the Chinese New Year tradition of - you guessed it - giving money to individuals in red envelopes, called 红包 [hongbao]. But WeChat didn't just create a digital hongbao and leave it at that. WeChat Pay features another type of red envelope where you first set a lump sum amount, with WeChat then distributing random amounts to people inside a selected group chat. A tradition that has usually been one dimensional now features an element of novelty, and the growth of red envelope usage has been exponential - during CNY 2015, 1 billion red envelopes were sent which then grew to an astonishing 8 billion red envelopes sent during CNY 2016.

Why this works: The randomized red envelope feature appeals to the cultural affinity the Chinese have for games of chance. A user experiences elation when getting a large amount, thus associating the usage of WeChat red envelope with a positive emotion; when a user doesn't receive quite what he/she expected, the "game" is easy enough - and the amounts sent are insignificant enough - for the user to want to try again, and again.

What it is: Tmall - Alibaba's B2C marketplace brand that has a characteristically playful Chinese name meaning "sky cat" - launched its recent "领钱了" (or "get money") promotion with a series of app-based gambling games. The user first plays either a roulette or digitized coin pusher game to win some credit, which they can then use to play digitized versions of bingo, poker, slots, wheel roulette, and soccer wagering. Winning in these games allows the user to win a second form of credit - in the form of "gold coins" - which they can then use within a specific section of the Tmall marketplace. With these games, Tmall appeals directly to the cultural affinity the Chinese have for games of chance. Tmall is also able to reduce the risk associated with such games by keeping the flow of "money" within the game ecosystem - the only way to get credits and gold coins is by playing games.

Why this works: Users are first drawn in by the app-based gambling games, with the closed nature of the game and points ecosystem encouraging stickiness as there is no alternative to gain the credit needed to play games with and no likelihood of a tangible financial loss. In terms of reward, there is also an excellent selection of products that users can spend their gold coins on.

Ant Financial/Alipay/Alibaba

What it is: In late 2015, Ant Financial - an Alibaba-run company that also runs Alipay, Alibaba's payment platform that boasts over 350 million users - created Sesame Credit, a credit rating system that evaluates a user's Alipay purchasing and spending habits, rate of on-time bill and credit card payments among other parameters to judge a user's creditworthiness. Sesame Credit functions as a subtle, gamified loyalty program for Alipay - keeping in mind that scores tend to be higher with increased usage of Alipay, users at a certain score threshold are entitled to privileges like renting a car without putting a deposit, discounts when booking hotel rooms, and hard-to-get visas. Surprisingly, the gamification of something sensitive like a credit score did not arouse user suspicion. When Sesame Credit first came out, there was a rush of people proudly sharing their scores on WeChat and Weibo.

Why this works: The ability for users to actually build up their credit scores through consistent engagement with Alipay is much like how one builds or levels up a character in a role playing game. Sesame Credit's genius is that it appeals to both users who want just simply want to show off their score and those motivated by tangible reward, as the rewards are not insignificant.

What it is: Didi's victory over global rival Uber is often attributed to factors like its local connections and larger cash stash. We firmly believe, however, that Didi's significantly gamified user experience played a big role in winning consumer loyalty. Uber's promotional strategy was and is not quite as attuned to the expectations of Chinese consumers: promotions are difficult to access and redeem, and are generic - promotions are not contextualized around factors like user behavior, location, and the time of day. Meanwhile, Didi's promotional strategy features lotteries, randomized cash prizes, a flexible points system that can be redeemed for cash or various goods within the Didi app, flash sales, cash prizes that can be sent to friends via social media, and the overlaying of promotions over editorial content. Didi's promotional strategy may be just one of several critical factors in its victory against Uber, but one thing is certain: gamified promotions and discounts have become something Chinese consumers expect to see online.

Why this works: Didi brings a level of uncertainty to how users receive promotions - again, appealing to the cultural affinity the Chinese have for games of chance. Moreover, there is the opportunity for users to build themselves up and gain Didi points through continuous usage. Substantive, tangible reward can be gained through using the accumulated Didi points in the in-app marketplace.

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Digital Lessons from China: Gamification as a UX Game-Changer

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The following article is part of our 'Digital Lessons from China' series, where we outline best practices and takeaways from China's advanced digital ecosystem. Contrast the average user experience on Chinese and western platforms and one thing will become clear: the Chinese Internet is fun.

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What China’s Arcade-Game Obsession Says About the Future of Retail Gamification

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What China’s Arcade-Game Obsession Says About the Future of Retail Gamification

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A stroll in China's urban streets and shopping malls today won't be complete without seeing any form of arcade games. Once a popular phenomenon in Japan and Taiwan, arcade game installations in China today take a slightly different form by combining gaming with shopping - claw machines that contain luxury makeup as rewards, lipstick machines that sell the thrill of "$4.3 (30RMB) for nothing or a Dior lipstick," and branded lucky box machines that give out random product samples have been ubiquitous across the country's most crowded shopping hubs since the recent two years. Highly digitalized and constantly stimulated, Chinese millennials are living in an increasingly gamified retail environment both online and offline.

There are plenty of media headlines that address China's advanced digital landscape and the importance of gamification in online marketing to Chinese millennials. But this recent phenomenon of arcade game luxury retail has proved that gamification is not only crucial online, but also offline. According to media site , China's arcade-game retail industry experienced a boom in the year 2017. In 2017, the number of claw machines in China reached 2 million, making up a 60 billion RMB (around 8.7 billion USD) market.

Chinese millennials have largely normalized gamification in everyday lives in a way that their western peers cannot imagine. This is a generation that buys Cartier jewelry from a WeChat mini-program game, $500 luxe facial creams from a pop-up discount while scrolling video feeds on Little Red Book, and Dior makeup from the brand's "see now, buy now" live streaming. Gaming and the metrics of gamification are no longer a novelty, but the norm of their interactions with all kinds of interfaces. So far, forward-thinking international brands are already leveraging this generation's love for both gaming and luxury shopping to enhance the overall brand experience. Here are three prominent examples:
1. Lancôme's CNY gift machines & Pop-Up
During the Chinese New Year period in 2018 and 2019, Lancôme put CNY-themed lucky gift machines in shopping centers across China's top-tier cities. The machines had attracted long lines of trendy-looking youths to line up for the free gift and WeChat-ready photo crops. One would need to scan the QR Code on the machine, follow Lancôme's official WeChat, and then receive a code via text in order to get a CNY-themed gift box containing various product samples.
2. Little Red Book's Red Home
In May 2019, Lancôme's L'Absolu Mademoiselle pop-up in Beijing has again adopted the popular metric of arcade games. One of the pop-up's main experiences is a virtual "claw machine" screen game, in which visitors use a remote control to pick up the red cherries icons on the screen to exchange for gift rewards.
3. Chanel Game Center
In June 2018, the lifestyle platform Little Red Book (A.k.a. "Xiaohongshu") opened its first offline retail store in Shanghai. The platform's offline store is a reflection of everything trending on its online version: WeChat-friendly photo booths, AI-powered makeup mirror, and a variety of machines and claw machines. Visitors would need to first complete a series of tasks (such as uploading a long content feed to the platform) to win the gaming coins. The rewards range from Tom Ford lipsticks, Lego toys, to fluffy dolls, objects are most trending among the platform's young, mostly female audience.

In 2018, Chanel's arcade pop-up "Coco Game Center," traveled through Asia's fashion capitals from Tokyo to Singapore to Hong Kong and Chengdu, marked one of the most shared pop-up experiences in Chinese social media. With a range of arcade activities like racing games, bubble games, and crane games, the pop-up allowed visitors dress in the brand's classic Tweed to enjoy the thrill of picking up the latest makeup products from a claw machine. The event was a publicity success, too. On Little Red Book alone, over 2,920 user-generated notes were shared to broadcast the experience.

The psychological thrill that resembles gambling, and the amplifying effect of social media, emerged as the two most common reasons behind the arcade game's massive popularity. To many Chinese arcade-game lovers, these arcade-shopping installations resemble a less risky form of gambling. Xuanxuan Liu, a 25-year-old graphic designer in Shenzhen, tells Jing Daily that these arcade games are a way of relief to her work life. "I often stop by the lipstick claw machine after working late night in the office. It is like gambling, but you end up winning makeup instead of money," she said.

Besides the psychic thrill, social media amplifies the Chinese millennials' fixation on arcade games. Camilla Qiu, a 22-year-old fashion design student in London, said, "I first got fascinated by these arcade shopping games by looking at Douyin (China's viral video-sharing app) because it was a huge trend. Then I got very enticed to share the video of me playing it, too." These arcade game's "millennial pink," fun outlook make them the perfect photo backdrop for China's social-obsessed female audience, who find anything that strikes their "girly heart (少女心)" hard to resist.

For any brand that tries to resonate with millennial Chinese consumers, this arcade game trend has a broader implication: shopping is getting ever more performance-oriented, interactive, and technological in young China. Gamification isn't a plus, but a 24/7 reality that they increasingly expect from brands. How international brands could adapt to this next-level gamified reality, still remains a question.

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Gamification: the Future of Luxury Retail in China | Jing Daily

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A stroll in China's urban streets and shopping malls today won't be complete without seeing any form of arcade games.

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INCREASING YOUR AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT THROUGH WECHAT GAMIFICATION

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INCREASING YOUR AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT THROUGH WECHAT GAMIFICATION

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Wechat Gamification Marketing: The art to Audience Engagement

It's incredible, how a simple interactive game, with an incentive element such as a discount or coupon, can help to increase participation and developing brand awareness. The only way to succeed is to set up a unique and engagement-worthy game with your brand messaging and overall campaign objective. It's a fun and engaging way to appeal to digitally savvy, competitive Chinese consumers that tie in well with the brand's campaign. A popular game could be used to promote a new product or service while offering some amazing rewards that have proven to be used, valued and shared more so in comparison to generic handouts other traditional means of advertising often tag onto the end of their campaigns.

Target and know your audience: Usually, the campaign is created with a clear goal: to raise awareness among Customers. The campaign is constantly striving to digitally engage customers in China in unique ways.

Make it fun and keep your audience engaged and loyal

Lucky Winner takes all, collect valuable data

Let's talk about the Interactive game on Wechat

Interactive games is a marketing campaign, which allows people to participate in some activities through various forms of rewards. Gamification has always been built on a solid foundation of social engagement and accessibility.

Recently, Wechat figures have shown user growth is closer to 800 million monthly users and over one billion registered users, WeChat is China's largest social media network and one of the most popular social apps in the world. In 2017, WeChat integrated personalized branded mini-games into their system with the ability to social share.

Data showed that the millennial generation (born between 1983 and 1997) will rise up 65% of China's consumption growth by 2020. A recent study shows that Chinese millennials purchase luxury items more frequently and spend more than the previous generations had at their age. As the highest potential consumer symbols for luxury brands, it was only a matter of time before marketers introduce gaming to attract the millennial shopper.

How do participants get rewards?

Lucky Draw

Participate and get an award

High Ranking win

There are some errors from both business and branded gamification initiatives that you had to know in order to avoid some mistakes.

The reward is a positive way that helps identify accomplishment. Unfortunately, too much gift could become bad. In fact, if users are being rewarded too much for every little action the value of rewards is lost on them, making the reward system null.

The main goal of the Gamification is encouraging users to carry out specific actions, rewards are an indicator of growth and progression.

Stop thinking that Gamification Campaign will solve a brand's problems

Gamification is often viewed by companies or brands as a solution tool for marketing, internal operations. When companies/brand find that their products or services are not getting the results that they hoped for, they decide to try something "new" to see if results change.

Misunderstanding and no clear campaign goals

Without a clear plan, you will not be able to manage the gamification campaign, and keep the game alive, or make improvements. The reason for such high failure rates was and still are due to poor design, which is an outcome of having no clear campaign goals. Brands used to adopt gamification with a broad stroke overview of how a campaign will work, assuming that putting your branding on a game and hoping that people will play. In order to have an effective gamification design, you must start by defining and having a clear understanding of your target.

Gamification is not just a passive form of marketing, it requires users to be continually motivated in order to participate and carry out the desired action. This is a higher risk form of marketing compared to most traditional tools.

Your campaign needs to overcome, simply to initiate customer engagement. Motivation is the way, it is what will make someone care, and what will encourage a user to continue.

Winning always makes user feel good, and more engaged with a brand. Brands are willing to use games in a different form such as quizzes, contests, and challenges to get audiences involved. We all know that the use of mobile devices is a great opportunity for brands because Chinese people are always connected.

With over 80% of Chinese 's playing video games approximately four times a week. With the Wechat gamification marketing, companies or brands can easily reach this market and increase their sales and revenue by meeting their customer's where their interest and attention is already being invested. There are multiple ways your brand can take advantage of Wechat gamification marketing, but you can't move forward without a strategy.

What Gentlemen Marketing Agency can do for you?

We can add the brand elements of our customers and link with our promotion strategy.

WORK AS A WECHAT CAMPAIGN

As you launch your Wechat gamification campaign, you should be mindful of where your target audience will be and what kind of content they will respond to. We can publish interactive games as a single event and post the game by pushing articles or images.

COOPERATE WITH OFFICIAL WECHAT STORE

We can offer various offers in WeChat stores through interactive games. Such as coupons, discount, etc.

CONNECT WITH OFFLINE STORE

Location-based marketing promotes your brand to customers while they are in your building and actively engaging with your brand. When it comes to building atmosphere, some stores just want to have people present. That is why certain chains and independent cafes/restaurants have adopted in-store competition as a means of keeping butts in seats. Gamification is a fun way to get customers to engage with your business, pass the time, and form deeper brand loyalty. It comes with the added bonus of allowing you to collect valuable customer data that helps you learn about and connect with shoppers and clients.

Transform offline customers into online WeChat followers.

For more information Contact us!

Read also:

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Increasing your Audience Engagement Through Wechat Gamification - Marketing China

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It's incredible, how a simple interactive game, with an incentive element such as a discount or coupon, can help to increase participation and developing brand awareness. The only way to succeed is to set up a unique and engagement-worthy game with your brand messaging and overall campaign objective.

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China has made obedience to the State a game

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China has made obedience to the State a game

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With a concept straight out of a cyberpunk dystopia, China has gamified obedience to the State.

China has created a social tool named Sesame Credit which gives people a score for how good a citizen they are.

The system measures how obediently citizens follow the party line, pulling data from social networks and online purchase histories.

Download the new Independent Premium app

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

As Extra Credits explains on YouTube: "If you post pictures of Tiananmen Square or share a link about the recent stock market collapse, your Sesame Credit goes down.

"Share a link from the state-sponsored news agency about how good the economy is doing and your score goes up."

Similarly, Sesame Credit can analyse data from online purchases.

"If you're making purchases the state deems valuable, like work shoes or local agricultural products, your score goes up.

"If you import anime from Japan though, down the score goes."

Most insidious of all, the app will have real world consequences. According to Extra Credits, high scores will grant users benefits: "Like making it easier to get the paperwork you need to travel or making it easier to get a loan."

Although the ratings are currently optional, the social tool will become mandatory by 2020.

There have even been rumours about implementing penalties for low scores: "Like slower internet speeds, or restricting jobs a low scoring person is allowed to hold."

The system could also become a powerful tool for social conditioning, as users could lose points for having friends with low obedience scores.

There has already been some evidence of Chinese citizens competing with one another to get high scores, posting their Sesame Credit scores on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, Quartz reports.

No hype, just the advice and analysis you need

Earlier this year, the BBC reported the Chinese governmennt was building a "social credit" system to rate each citizen's trustworthiness.

A planning document from China's State Council explained the credit will "forge a public opinion environment that trust-keeping is glorious" and warned the "new system will reward those who report acts of breach of trust".

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China has gamified obedience to the State

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With a concept straight out of a cyberpunk dystopia, China has gamified obedience to the State. China has created a social tool named Sesame Credit which gives people a score for how good a citizen they are. The system measures how obediently citizens follow the party line, pulling data from social networks and online purchase histories.

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One Question, Three Answers: Are Chinese Millennials Willing to Pay More for Sustainable Goods?

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One Question, Three Answers: Are Chinese Millennials Willing to Pay More for Sustainable Goods?

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In our latest column, One Question, Three Answers, we pose a current, hot button question to industry executives, researchers, and consumers to demystify, or at least, to take a deeper look into one aspect of the business of luxury in China.
Question: A vast number of reports state that Chinese millennials are ethical shoppers-that they would be okay with paying a bit more for a sustainable product. How true is this in today's China, where the notion of sustainability is in its infancy?
"I believe Chinese millennials will pay more for sustainable goods. Unlike their processors, which purchase goods out of necessity or status, millennials purchase goods in reference to its quality, style, and meanings. 'Sustainable' goods tend to have better quality, especially in terms of "safety" and "toxic-free"; sustainable goods also reflect positive values: caring for the community, the planets, the animals, etc. If the stories are communicated well and the values are recognized, it can create the halo that appeals to consumers. However, a consumer won't simply pay more because something is "sustainable"; you need to break down to its various merits and attributes in order to attract specific consumers more accurately."

"Chinese millennials, especially in urban areas, are increasingly sophisticated and making intelligent purchases. They are highly conscious of brands, quality, and value. They expect, like all young people around the world, to buy something that embodies their lifestyle choice. However, like every global consumer, they may not know how something is made or the multi-layered definition of sustainable. But they have a very strong social presence, ask questions, voice strong opinions and also expect the brands that they buy from to have an ethical stance both socially and environmentally."
Yufei Li, Guangzhou-resident, Chinese millennial sustainable fashion shopper:
"First of all, I don't think there are that many brands that are truly sustainable beyond Patagonia and Reformation. There are, however, some small, environmentally-friendly brands in China, which have insisted on using natural materials, such as cotton and linen, or using blue dyeing technology to reduce the damage to the environment.
Unfortunately, these small brands are unlikely to scale up with such strict manufacturing and design issues. For much larger brands, I think the leading trend is for them to use their capital and influence to educate the consumer about the cost of fashion to our environment."

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Are Chinese Millennials Willing to Pay More for Sustainable Goods?

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In our latest column, One Question, Three Answers, we pose a current, hot button question to industry executives, researchers, and consumers to demystify, or at least, to take a deeper look into one aspect of the business of luxury in China.

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Can Kering Lead the Way for Eco-Friendly Shopping Among Chinese Luxury Consumers?

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Can Kering Lead the Way for Eco-Friendly Shopping Among Chinese Luxury Consumers?

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Kering is taking a gatekeeper's role in forming and cultivating a culture of sustainable and eco-friendly consumption among Chinese luxury shoppers, as shown by the recent launch of its WeChat mini program which introduces consumers to its renowned impact measurement tool, the Environmental Profit & Loss (EP&L) account.

Kering is the parent company to a slew of high-end labels including Gucci, Saint Laurent, Stella McCartney, and Balenciaga, whose products are strongly favored by Chinese luxury shoppers in recent years. As a result, it is crucial for the company to take actions to educate about the necessity of sustainability among the country's consumers, a group which is expected to buy up more than 40 percent of the global luxury market by 2025.

Fresh Push by Kering on China's Consumer-Facing Platform-WeChat

On October 14, the official WeChat account of Kering Group announced the launch of a mini program named "My EP&L", that teaches users how to use its signature environmental impact measurement tool to calculate the environmental impact of the luxury goods they have purchased.

By indicating the category, materials, sourcing of materials, and manufacturing region of a product (see image below), a user receives a score indicating the cost of environmental changes associated with the production of the goods, from raw material extraction to the sale.

Breaking down the calculation process into four simple steps also allows consumers to see the reality behind supply chains in the luxury and fashion industry so as to facilitate them to make lower impact decisions, according to the press statement released by the company.

Launching on WeChat, the country's most powerful social media platform that currently sees more than 900 million monthly active users, the mini program not only can reach designers, students, and apparel manufacturers as Kering originally planned, but has high potential to reach a broader audience. However, the question remains if Kering's efforts to push sustainability as a modern consumer trend, as showcased by this informative and engaging mini program, can truly resonate with Chinese consumers.

Conceptual Gaps That Prevent Chinese Consumers From Being Sustainably-Minded

It is no doubt that the level of awareness and understanding of sustainability has increased greatly in China over the past decade as the economy grows and the population as a whole becomes more educated. Meanwhile, the visible deterioration of the environment, particularly air pollution and toxic chemicals emission, experienced by the populace has made eco-friendly more of a priority than ever.

However, it is premature to assume that the concern over the environmental degradation expressed by Chinese people can naturally and consciously drive them to appreciate the importance of sustainable fashion.

"There is a slightly different drive. When you eat something you selfishly want to protect your health, but when you put something on your body, you are actually protecting other people's health by not supporting bad toxic chemicals," said Christina Dean, founder of Redress, a Hong Kong-based environmental NGO working to reduce waste in the fashion industry.

To equip Chinese luxury shoppers with a sustainable mindset, brands also need to deal with some misconceptions towards sustainable luxury that is common among this group.

The latest move by Gucci to go fur-free beginning next year is a prime example of how consumers in China can misinterpret certain decisions made by brands. Gucci's decision has been praised by some people, however, the decision also aroused a heated debate regarding Gucci's real motive. A significant number of users on Weibo and WeChat believe the whole thing is a marketing ploy.

"Gucci has never been known for its fur products, and I don't think its targeted consumers can afford fur," said a WeChat user named "Maggie." "That's something they cannot do but they make it sound like they are willing to not to do it. The brand is just making a gesture."

Pricing serves as another debated point. A Weibo user named "Joey Zhenyi" wrote, "stopping the usage of fur can help Gucci decrease their costs and increase their profits. And there is no benefit for consumers as they will not lower the price."

Another user named "AvracadarvraKC" echoed the previous comment, saying "it is the same thing with Stella McCartney. They make it look sustainable without using fur but the price is still so high. I don't think the design is worth it if the material is not rare."

Ways for Luxury Brands to Bridge the Gaps

One tactic that luxury brands can employ in order to enhance Chinese luxury consumers' understanding of sustainability is to address their concern over the environment they live in and the health safety issues they face daily.

"If somebody in China is very concerned about the health safety (and) pollution, buying a sustainable luxury product would give them much more assurance that they are not covering themselves with toxic chemicals," said Redress's Dean.

Secondly, brands should take note of the changing perception of luxury in China, particularly among the millennials and younger generations. It is believed that what these people desire from luxury items has shifted from an emphasis on the materialistic level to a more spiritual and experiential aspect. As explained by Deloitte in a July report, "status has now become less about 'what I have' and more about 'who I am'; more ethical, tasteful and discerning."

In addition, Dean also calls for luxury brands to speak more about their work on the frontier of sustainability and engage Chinese consumers in this process. In that way, people will not only be more aware of it but also know what actions they can take.

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Will Chinese Luxury Consumers Embrace Sustainability? | Jing Daily

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Kering is taking a gatekeeper's role in forming and cultivating a culture of sustainable and eco-friendly consumption among Chinese luxury shoppers, as shown by the recent launch of its WeChat mini program which introduces consumers to its renowned impact measurement tool, the Environmental Profit & Loss (EP&L) account.

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China's Millennials and ESG by Frank Pan A country's demographics has a strong influence on long-term social trends, including the development of ESG issues. With millennials becoming the dominant cohort among the workforce and consumers, we are witnessing the social transformations that come with a new generation.

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Entitled. Sophisticated. Ethical. Digitally-savvy. There is seemingly no end to the superlatives used to describe the infamous millennial consumer. There is one thing that most observers would agree on: brands who successfully tap into the psyche of this enigmatic consumer enjoy surging revenues from a group that is both willing and financially able to spend: only 1/4 of Chinese millennials save money versus the national average of ½ (source: OMD China and World Bank).
There is no one-size fits all when it comes to profiling mainland millennials, but there are a few commonalities that characterize this sought-after consumer group
1. Chinese millennials enjoy novelty products and innovative partnerships...

Whether it's an unusual yoghurt flavour or a cool brand-KOL partnership, Chinese millennials are attracted by novelty products, limited edition items or new and alternative lifestyle choices. Millennials crave products or brands that set them apart from their peers and that can become a talking point in their social circles.

Online, this translates into rising expectations for brands to provide innovative experiences: often merging experiential in-store activities with personalised online journeys. Brands who can stay one step ahead of the digital campaign can quickly become talking points and become 'hot topics' on popular social portals.

...but are aware and respectful of their cultural heritage

As Dolce & Gabanna are still licking their wounds from a disastrous Chinese New Year campaign, it is more apparent than ever that a deep cultural awareness and sense of authenticity is imperative for global brands seeking the respect - and revenue - from Chinese millennials.

There is a fine line to tread when crafting campaigns that appeal to a culture that is as innovative as it is traditional. A challenge common to all brands is understanding how to represent shifting gender ideals in advertising. Understanding gender roles and integrating them into a compelling brand narrative is key for brands navigating the consumer landscape in China.

2. Chinese millennials are increasingly concerned by sustainability...

While still an emerging trend, millennials are increasingly concerned with sustainability, ethical sourcing and the environment. Brands should also consider current events and national issues affecting society as a way to reach out to millennials and empower them to make a difference - simply by making a purchase. Brands who can offer value beyond the transaction, for example through recycling efforts or supporting children's education, are in a good position to connect with a generation who wish to make a difference in the world.

...yet are still inclined to chase brand experiences that make themselves feel good

At the same time, millennials worldwide are willing to spend money on luxury items in order to treat themselves and make themselves feel good (source: Deloitte). In China, this is compounded by the need for brands to establish emotional connections with consumers: a key competitive differentiator in a noisy marketplace.

Given that 60% of millennials consult social media before making a purchase, it is lucky that brands are spoiled for choice when it comes to the various channels available to translate brand values into powerful marketing messages. If brands can get this right, they are more likely to benefit from Chinese consumers' tendency to share their buying experience: almost two-thirds of consumers stated that they would share product feedback on social media after making a purchase.

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How can brands win over Chinese millennials? | IMS

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Entitled. Sophisticated. Ethical. Digitally-savvy. There is seemingly no end to the superlatives used to describe the infamous millennial consumer. There is one thing that most observers would agree on: brands who successfully tap into the psyche of this enigmatic consumer enjoy surging revenues from a group that is both willing and financially able to spend: only 1/4 of Chinese millennials save money versus the national average of ½ (source: OMD China and World Bank).

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3 Trends Fueling China’s Luxury Design Boom

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3 Trends Fueling China’s Luxury Design Boom

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A shift in how millennials and Gen-X consumers live is fueling a high-end design boom in China.

In 2018, the Chinese home decoration and furniture market was estimated at $740 billion (RMB 5 trillion), according to a study by Yicai 2018, and that market keeps rising and evolving - both offline and online. Now, numerous furniture and lifestyle concept shops are opening up across China, and some Chinese fashion and lifestyle brands are developing their own lines of home articles, including JNBY Home and The Beast Home.

This trend has largely been encouraged by the local digital habits of younger, over-connected Chinese generations. In the past, the Chinese tended to keep their interiors as intimate spheres reserved only for family members, but now, pictures of interiors are shared on Chinese social networks like WeChat or Xiaohongshu as a new way to express aesthetic style & personality. These networks are also used to promote or discover new creative ideas or trends. In a big shift - and opportunity - for luxury brands, KOLs (Key Opinion leaders) who used to focus on fashion now pose in creative interiors and with objects that further reflect their style and design culture.

One example is the famous fashion and lifestyle blogger Savislook, who has shared "how-to" videos of her home decoration on Weibo and YouTube. Her "New Apartment Vlog," which was only posted a week ago, already has over 200,000 views on Weibo. She explains her furniture choices, which mix international brands with more vintage looks, in a casual and friendly tone, while posting pictures of those pieces, like the TOGO sofa by the famous contemporary brand Ligne Roset, costing around $2,280 (RMB 15,400).

Magazines such as Elle Deco China, Domus, and Ideat China are also influencing this new generation, especially through their editors who are becoming specialized KOLs and experts on modern and contemporary design. The lifestyle editor of Elle Deco China, Sugar Lee (@DemonSugar), for instance, now has 20,000 followers on Weibo.

Interiors are a new playground for aesthetic expression in China, and there are three major trends helping to form what Chinese consumers want in their home décor consumption. Here's a look:
1. Scarcity and Art Pieces
Young, urban Chinese have a strong desire for culture, sophistication, and knowledge - but they also want their home interiors to look sharp. Therefore, having exclusive or unique products that tell a story are a must for their home interior standards. "First of all, I have a fascination with art, and I bought a modern art piece to match my home decoration style," said Yifan Huang, a 24-year-old recent college graduate from the U.K. "It's true that every time I pass by my art decoration, I feel happy and satisfied."

In fact, looking for the latest art pieces or discovering new, upcoming artists to display in their home and share with friends is something many trendy Chinese are interested in. Purchasing and investing in art has become a real lifestyle (even a habit) for the wealthy Chinese that's spreading more and more into the growing Chinese middle-class, particularly the younger generations. Art Basel Hong Kong and Art021 in Shanghai symbolize this growing passion: the Shanghai fair has evolved over the years to become a major international art fair. The past edition featured 103 of the world's leading galleries both from China and overseas, and generated significant sales.
2. Neo Chinese Style
Another major trend right now in China is the revival of Chinese culture and aesthetic elements, which is affecting the world of contemporary and luxury home décor. This trend is called the "New Chinese" or "Huaren Design" (inside Chinese-speaking communities), and it's usually produced by Chinese artists and designers who merge Chinese and Western elements to create sophisticated, contemporary furniture. These talented local designers are inspired by the historical craftsmanship of the old Song and Ming dynasties and Chinese philosophies like Taoism to create China-inspired design pieces that fit today's needs.

The style can be defined broadly as Chinese contemporary minimalist, a look that defines the Chinese furniture brand Pusu. The brand's designer, Chen Hanfei, uses practices from ancient China to create harmonious objects that reflect a saying by philosopher Chuang-tzu's that goes "nothing in the world is more beautiful than simplicity." Pusu's furniture often use rare and precious materials, like the Burma Padauk, a red sandalwood growing slowly in Southeast Asian countries. Chairs start at around $890 (RMB 6,000), and sofas average around $8,900 (RMB 60,000).

International brands like MiuMiu are also playing with traditional Chinese styles and materials, using the symbols of old Shanghai to create glamorous and modern pieces for its fashion show in Shanghai this past November. The interior design and artistic direction were created by the Chinese artist Tu Nan, whose work offers a subtle yet elegant way to incorporate Chinese elements into more minimal and contemporary luxury lifestyle décor.
3. Contemporary Designer Style
The big, classic international luxury brands were successful in China over the past decade, but now, an international contemporary designer style is booming with newer generations. A big reason for this popularity is, oddly enough, a familiar low-priced home décor player: IKEA. The furniture giant was the first to introduce Chinese consumers to minimalist aesthetics as an alternative to the country's dominant "bling-bling" look, and because of this, multiple high-end furniture shops are now offering sharp and curated selections by international designers and brands in major cities all across China.

Design Republic by Neri & Hu in Shanghai is a good example of this kind of store, and they help young Chinese consumers to understand and purchase contemporary Scandinavian pieces by designers like Arne Jacobsen and top modernist brands such as Fritz Hansen and HAY. The latter brand just opened up its second shop, a Shanghai flagship store in the Jing'an neighborhood: a creative and lifestyle shopping district that targets middle-class consumers looking for more sophistication. Their prices are elevated but also sometimes accessible.

Continuing with Scandinavian style, the brand Normann Copenhagen is also seducing Chinese consumers with their latest Danish designs by creating immersive spaces within the curated store Harbook: a composite bookstore/coffee shop/furniture showroom. Harbook also recently opened a space in Hangzhou that carries the Danish brand and other lifestyle products.

Lastly, Zaozuo.com, an online Chinese furniture seller, has attracted Chinese consumers with its accessible and fashionable contemporary designs, but they're also selling more by collaborating with renowned designers from all over the world (including China) to develop exclusive lines of furniture. The prices for sofas range from $440 to $74,000 (RMB 3,000 to RMB 500,000), depending on size, material, and designer. Zaozuo started on the internet, but they've since opened several showrooms across China due to the booming popularity of contemporary designed furniture with young Chinese consumers.

The home décor market in China has been evolving quite fast as of late, representing a major opportunity for both international and local brands. This evolution reflects a new global sophistication with Chinese consumers who now want unique interiors and are demanding a wider variety of styles and aesthetic influences, the ability to mix and match brands/object/references, and a strong sense of modernity and good taste that they can share online.

Brands who are willing to develop in China or towards Chinese consumers globally need to clearly identify their target audience and their lifestyle interests, adapt their product to push on the market, work on a smart online and offline development strategy that includes both physical and digital retail, and find the right communities and KOLs to work with in order to best communicate their brand to the right consumers.
The Chinese Pulse is a creative consulting agency based in Paris dedicated to deciphering trends in the Chinese contemporary markets for fashion, beauty, luxury and lifestyle brands.

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3 Trends Fueling China's Luxury Design Boom | Jing Daily

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A shift in how millennials and Gen-X consumers live is fueling a high-end design boom in China. In 2018, the Chinese home decoration and furniture market was estimated at $740 billion (RMB 5 trillion), according to a study by Yicai 2018, and that market keeps rising and evolving - both offline and online.

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YouTube Community Guidelines & Policies - How YouTube Works

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Overview

Our Community Guidelines are designed to ensure our community stays protected. They set out what's allowed and not allowed on YouTube, and apply to all types of content on our platform, including videos, comments, links, and thumbnails.

You'll find a full list of our Community Guidelines below:

How do we develop new policies and update existing ones?

Each of our policies is carefully thought through so they are consistent, well-informed, and can be applied to content from around the world. They're developed in partnership with a wide range of external industry and policy experts, as well as YouTube Creators. New policies go through multiple rounds of testing before they go live to ensure our global team of content reviewers can apply them accurately and consistently.

This work is never finished, and we are always evaluating our policies to understand how we can better strike a balance between keeping the YouTube community protected and giving everyone a voice.

How does YouTube identify content that violates Community Guidelines?

With hundreds of hours of new content uploaded to YouTube every minute, we use a combination of people and machine learning to detect problematic content at scale. Machine learning is well-suited to detect patterns, which helps us to find content similar to other content we've already removed, even before it's viewed.

We also recognize that the best way to quickly remove content is to anticipate problems before they emerge. Our Intelligence Desk monitors the news, social media, and user reports to detect new trends surrounding inappropriate content, and works to make sure our teams are prepared to address them before they can become a larger issue.

Is there a way for the broader community to flag harmful content?

Though we are determined to continue reducing exposure to videos that violate our policies and have tasked over 10,000 people with detecting, reviewing, and removing content that violates our guidelines, the YouTube community also plays an important role in flagging content they think is inappropriate.

If you see content that you think violates Community Guidelines, you can use our flagging feature to submit content for review.

We developed the YouTube Trusted Flagger program to provide robust content reporting processes to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with expertise in a policy area, government agencies, and individuals with high flagging accuracy rates. Participants receive training on YouTube policies and have a direct path of communication with our Trust & Safety specialists. Videos flagged by Trusted Flaggers are not automatically removed. They are subject to the same human review as videos flagged by any other user, but we may expedite review by our teams. NGOs also receive occasional online training on YouTube policies.

What action does YouTube take for content that violates Community Guidelines?

Machine learning systems help us identify and remove spam automatically, as well as remove re-uploads of content we've already reviewed and determined violates our policies. YouTube takes action on other flagged videos after review by trained human reviewers. They assess whether the content does indeed violate our policies, and protect content that has an educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic purpose. Our reviewer teams remove content that violates our policies and age-restrict content that may not be appropriate for all audiences.

Community Guidelines Strikes

If our reviewers decide that content violates our Community Guidelines, we remove the content and send a notice to the Creator. The first time a Creator violates our Community Guidelines, they receive a warning with no penalty to the channel. After one warning, we'll issue a Community Guidelines strike to the channel and the account will have temporary restrictions including not being allowed to upload videos, live streams, or stories for a 1-week period. Channels that receive three strikes within a 90-day period will be terminated. Channels that are dedicated to violating our policies or that have a single case of severe abuse of the platform, will bypass our strikes system and be terminated. All strikes and terminations can be appealed if the Creator believes there was an error, and our teams will re-review the decision.

Age-Restricting Content

Sometimes content doesn't violate our Community Guidelines, but may not be appropriate for viewers under 18 years of age. In these cases, our review team will place an age restriction on the video so it will not be visible to viewers under 18 years of age, logged-out users, or to those who have Restricted Mode enabled. Creators can also choose to age restrict their own content at upload if they think it's not suitable for younger audiences.

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YouTube Community Guidelines & Policies - How YouTube Works

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Our Community Guidelines are designed to ensure our community stays protected. They set out what's allowed and not allowed on YouTube, and apply to all types of content on our platform, including videos, comments, links, and thumbnails.

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Company Status Welcome to our website. If you continue to browse and use this website you are agreeing to comply with and be bound by the following terms and conditions of use, which together with our privacy policy govern Weaver Greens' relationship with you in relation to this website.

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WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF CHINESE INTERIOR DESIGN?

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WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF CHINESE INTERIOR DESIGN?

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Of all of the various decorating trends and style stalwarts, Chinese interior design is one of most unassuming of all. Though it's talked about less frequently than Mid-Century, Scandi or Baroque, its constant momentum, its never-fading appearance and its perfectly poised pedigree has gained oriental design a reputation for being one of the most powerful and memorable design dynasties in existence.

What is Chinese interior design?

Whilst it's almost impossible to pinpoint the precise style of a nation with as rich and as long a history as China, there are a number of visions that instinctively come to mind when closing your eyes and picturing a typically Chinese interior. Sleek surfaces of dark, lacquered woods, dimly lit, decorative lanterns, meticulously hewn latticework furniture and screens, and colour palettes that blend often warm neutrals with punchy, saturated tones of red (considered the most lucky colour in Chinese culture), blacks and golds. All true of a classic depiction of an oriental interior - a design direction drawn from thousands of years of Chinese culture and decorating evolution, traced back as far as 1000 BC.

Asian design is intrinsically linked to a zen-like atmosphere, and Chinese-style interior design will often build this sense of harmony by blending complementary influences from across the continent. For instance, Japanese and Chinese interior design elements commonly merge; the delicate nature of traditional Japanese design offsetting the archetypal boldness of the Chinese aesthetic narrative.

The principal factor is that Chinese interior spaces are filled with a sense of harmony, fine decoration and craft, and management of colour and space.

What are the characteristics of Chinese interior design?

Rice paper lanterns or a cherry red and gloss black palette, whichever reference your mind conjures first is just one of the plentiful characteristics of Chinese interior design.

The lacquer craft

Lacquer techniques are synonymous with Chinese interiors and were made ever more popular during the Ming Dynasty. It's a skill that's over 1400 years old and takes a huge amount of time and discipline. On elaborately decorated luxury furniture, the makers would build up layers of different lacquers to carve into and create impeccably artistic scenes. One of the most famous examples were the Chinese Coromandel screens that used a vast combination of lacquering techniques. The most basic is called kuan cai (meaning incised colours), but one piece of furniture can use up to 30 different techniques, each with up to 100 stages. More recently, lacquering has been applied to wall finishes too.

Separating screens

Whether used for decorative or room-dividing purposes - or both - screens are commonplace in Asian interior design. Shoji - a door, window or screen used in Japanese architecture made from translucent washi paper and a lattice of bamboo - are the most mimicked. Chinese interior design uses similar screens as well as folding screens adorned with incredibly detailed murals, often mythological or historical in theme. One of the most famous examples were the Chinese Coromandel screens that used a vast combination of lacquering techniques. The folding screen originated in ancient China and was later interpreted by other nations such as France and Sweden.

Ming Dynasty tables

Ruling China from 1386 to 1644 A.D., the Ming Dynasty is renowned for many things, such as the population doubling, trade expansion, drama, literature and for creating world-renowned porcelain. Amongst these, furniture characterised by the period became one of the most revered examples of Chinese interior design, particularly the Ming Dynasty tables. Made from precious wood and showing superb displays of craftsmanship and joinery, these tables would often be simple in terms of structure with minimal decoration. This would allow for the natural beauty of the wood to shine and for what decoration there was to be appreciated fully. It's often referred to as the golden era in the development of Ancient Chinese furniture so to unearth a Ming Dynasty antique table is one of the richest ways to celebrate Chinese interior design in your home.

The tradition of the garden stool

Stools are a staple in oriental room sets and one of the most iconic designs is the barrel-shaped Chinese garden stool. Originally, it was used in China purely in outdoor spaces. Many Chinese homes place emphasis on the landscape and the courtyard or garden, but where this isn't possible, elements of the outdoors were gradually brought inside. Or, even if the garden were visible, the garden stool moving into the home was a way to build a bridge between the indoors and outside world. By the Song Dynasty, these stools were habitually being used inside and out, for seating and as a side table. Now, they're available in carved wooden designs, as the traditional garden stool was made, and glazed stone or porcelain which were deemed more suitable for our interiors. Lattice work is not uncommon on stool designs either.

Chinese interior design trends

The Marie Kondo effect, though Japanese in origin, is associated with pan-Asian design. Therefore, order and only having items in your home with purpose, which is in fact a Chinese custom, has led to a peak in the decluttering trend. A Chinese-style interior rarely accumulates unnecessary objects, which are believed to drain the room and those within it of energy.

Other Chinese interior design ideas include a commitment to natural materials - a trend that's far-reaching and a huge part of the global interior design commentary. The Chinese perspective is about preserving nature, honouring nature and appreciating the positive effect using natural resources can have on a person's wellbeing. By bringing nature into our homes, it helps us to let go of the from the bustle of everyday life, whether this is wooden furniture, rugs woven from natural fibres or using stones as objects of beauty and spiritual grounding.

Another trend that's arisen from Chinese interior design is the use of screens to divide a room. Because over the last decade or two, there has been a seismic shift towards open-plan living, we've gradually begun to drift back towards the appeal of broken-plan. Separated rooms mean we divide the space between cosy pockets and zones of activity. The Chinese tradition of using decorative screens in the room to section your space is something that's being applied to large space in our homes as an interpretation of modern Chinese interior design.

How to incorporate Chinese Interior design in your home

Chinese interior decorating, like with any design influence, can be achieved in a maximalist or minimalist way. But there are perhaps three key stepping stones that will steer your scheme in a (far) easterly direction. The decision then is how much pressure to apply to the pedal and how much to turn up the volume. Ultimately, how overt or subtle do you wish oriental interior design to dominate your room? And remember, even if you use all three of the following in combination, your scheme can still err on the quieter side of Chinese design.

Order and flow

Establishing immediately evident calmness in your room, a clear path to navigate yourself around the room with space, and everything having a palpable sense of belonging all attribute to the zen ideology. The philosophy of Feng Shui is often the first connection people make with Chinese interior design - where energy forces are channelled to create a feeling of harmony in a space. It's commonly referred to as the art of placement where the positioning and organising of items in a room optimise the 'chi' (energy). Balance and order are deeply rooted in Chinese culture, so allow these aspects to be one of your room's defining notions.

Colouration

Richness in colour is another tenant of traditional Chinese interior design. When an abundance of ruby red walls, ebony or mahogany fine furniture, and gold relief work, gilt decorative accents and brass metallics unite, the most rousing symphony of oriental design will be played from your space. And if something so strong doesn't suit your taste, choose at least one of the signature Chinese colours and use it in several places so it receives attention, such as a chorus of dining chairs, a decorative screen, or the colours used on your walls.

Think decoratively

Chinese design isn't so much a rejection of bold lines and sharp form (indeed a lot of Chinese furniture adheres to these shapes). But, it does embrace and champion decorative form in a very big way. To truly develop a Chinese-inspired scheme, you'll need to make room for ornate carvings on furniture or lamps, you'll seek out intricate patterns on fabrics, and you'll welcome the more-is-more mindset in terms of attention to detail on key pieces in the room (all the while keeping everything else very much about less-is-more).

Header Image - Greg Natale, Photography by Anson Smart

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Of all of the various decorating trends and style stalwarts, Chinese interior design is one of most unassuming of all. Though it's talked about less frequently than Mid-Century, Scandi or Baroque, its constant momentum, its never-fading appearance and its perfectly poised pedigree has gained oriental design a reputation for being one of the most powerful and memorable design dynasties in existence.

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What’s Powering China’s Market for Luxury Goods?

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What’s Powering China’s Market for Luxury Goods?

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China's luxury goods market is humming along nicely, with a second straight year of 20% growth in 2018 (see Figure 1). Think of it as a powerful machine running on four engines operating in perfect alignment.

Engine 1: Repatriation

The Chinese government's reduction in import duties and stricter controls over gray markets-combined with brands' efforts to narrow the price gap with overseas markets-have led more Chinese consumers to make their luxury purchases in China, instead of traveling to previous bargain locales such as Hong Kong, Seoul, Tokyo and cities in Europe. Chinese consumers made 27% of their luxury purchases in China in 2018, up from 23% in 2015, and we anticipate that this share will increase to 50% by 2025 (see Figure 2). But this doesn't mean that Chinese consumers are buying less abroad. Luxury spending by Chinese shoppers now represents 33% of the global market (see Figure 3).

Engine 2: Millennials

Consumers aged 23 to 38 are willing to spend on luxury brands, and financially able to do so. Fully 70% of China's millennials own their own homes-twice the rate of US millennials, according to HSBC's Beyond the Bricks study (see Figure 4). And they can get funding from their parents if they want to buy luxury goods. Moreover, these young consumers are well informed about luxury and eager to embrace innovative trends, such as the convergence of high fashion and sportswear. Millennials are the big market for luxury sportswear products like Balenciaga's Triple S sneaker, which was introduced in 2017 and maintained its popularity throughout 2018, and accessories cocreated by Louis Vuitton and Supreme, a fashion brand with roots in skateboarding.

Unlike older generations, millennials are more heavily influenced by what they consider to be cool than by brand names or product pricing. They value newness more than discounts. They rely on social media and freely share their opinions online. Like their counterparts in all age groups, millennial women buy more luxury goods than men do. Cosmetics, a traditionally female category, grew by more than 25% in 2018, for example, while watches, a predominantly male category, grew by less than 10%.

Engine 3: Digitalization

The third engine powering luxury sales in China, digitalization covers both e-commerce and consumer engagement through digital platforms. There has been much progress in terms of engaging customers, but little progress on the e-commerce front (despite plenty of activity). Online luxury sales increased by 27% in 2018 to reach 10% of total luxury sales (see Figure 5), but this growth is still driven by cosmetics, while online penetration in other categories remains very low.

Four types of online channels have been active in the domestic luxury market (see Figure 6). Brand-owned channels like Hermes.com.cn-we refer to them as "brand.com"-give companies ultimate control and the ability to charge full price. Cooperator channels like Tmall flagship stores and WeChat commerce give brands some control while allowing them to benefit from the platform's steady flow of traffic. Aggregators such as JD.com's Toplife and Tmall's Luxury Pavilion enable brands to outsource the responsibility of building and operating high-traffic channels. Finally, luxury vertical sites such as Secoo and Mei.com make it possible to move goods at a discount.

In 2018, more brands looked for ways to expand their online presence through collaborations with leading e-commerce platforms, while others maintained a focus on their brand.com.

It was also a year of heavy deal activity, including the following highlights:

JD.com and L Catterton's $175 million investment in Secoo

Richemont's acquisition of Yoox Net-a-Porter (YNAP)

YNAP's strategic partnership with Alibaba Group

The merger of JD.com's Toplife with Farfetch

As a result of this intense dealmaking, we see three types of ecosystems emerging: those centered around a brand.com and those built in collaboration with either Alibaba Group or JD.com (see Figure 7).

It is, after all, an omnichannel world. As each year passes, luxury brands learn more about how to integrate online and offline sales, how to use digital engagement campaigns to get customers into their stores and how to improve the in-store experience. Winning brands are taking these omnichannel lessons to heart. For instance, they are thoughtfully adjusting their physical footprint, with increasing emphasis on larger stores and like-for-like growth. The "Silk Mix" event by Hermès in Beijing was a great example of a true omnichannel initiative: an innovative combination of a pop-up store with a WeChat mini-program that increased traffic to the Hermès official account and attracted thousands of guests to the event.

Engine 4: A rapidly expanding middle class

Middle-class consumers will represent an estimated 65% of all Chinese households by 2027, according to research conducted by Bain & Company for the World Economic Forum. All signs point to a continuing rise in average per-capita income among China's urban population. This expanding middle class continues to produce first-time buyers of luxury goods.

Why some luxury brands aren't celebrating

While luxury sales are robust in China, not every brand executive feels euphoric. As their incomes rise, and as they spend more on luxury goods, Chinese consumers are becoming increasingly discerning. Some brands are more successful than others at serving these needs, resulting in a distinct polarization in luxury brands' performance, similar to what we saw in 2017.

The reality is that some brands have done better for the second year in a row, and some have done worse for a second year. How dramatic is this division? Consider the top 20 luxury fashion and lifestyle brands by revenue. For every brand that grew by more than 25% in 2018, there were two brands that grew by less than 10% (see Figure 8).

We looked deeper into the performance results to determine why some companies make such good progress while others lag. Among our findings: Winners strive to enhance their access to consumers through digital and influencer marketing, often attracting millennials with younger and more casual collections. Since 2015, the top 40 luxury brands in China have nearly doubled the portion of their marketing budget devoted to digital, spending between 40% and 70% of that on WeChat (see Figure 9). These leading brands use WeChat to identify and target consumers for online and offline sales (see Figure 10). For example, Estée Lauder consumers can use WeChat to book facial treatments, and Coach allows consumers to access coupons and manage their membership cards on the ubiquitous social media platform.

A second theme we identified among the winners was a focus on accelerating product launches and visual merchandising changes, moves that address millennials' need for newness.

And there was a final differentiator: Many larger, more established brands benefited from their scale advantage. With everything from rents to salaries to marketing events and engaging key opinion leaders getting more expensive, the cost of doing business is rising in China. The trend tended to favor bigger brands in 2018.

Looking ahead

Turbocharged engines inevitably lose steam. China's economic growth is slowing, albeit in a controlled manner. Real estate prices are likely to flatten, reducing the positive wealth effect on Chinese households.

Still, luxury brands can expect a promising year ahead in China. Luxury sales will remain healthy, though they are unlikely to keep pace with 20% growth. Growth in the low-to-mid teens seems more probable in 2019.

That expansion will result from the same positive forces that made 2017 and 2018 so strong. The Chinese government is expected to maintain its adjustment of import duties to encourage domestic consumption, as well as to reduce the VAT rate. It is also likely to continue imposing strict control over passengers and parcels at customs, and to more carefully supervise the army of "daigou agents" who purchase overseas for local consumers. And brands will continue to narrow the price gap with overseas markets.

China's millennials will not lose their taste for luxury goods, nor their willingness to buy. A recent UBS survey found that 71% of millennials have a positive financial outlook, and 81% expect their income to increase. Meanwhile, China's middle class will continue to expand.

The engines thrusting luxury goods sales in China may not be unstoppable. But they show no signs of stalling out.
This report was authored by Bruno Lannes, a Bain & Company partner based in Shanghai and a member of the firm's Retail and Consumer Products practices.

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What's Powering China's Market for Luxury Goods?

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China's luxury goods market is humming along nicely, with a second straight year of 20% growth in 2018 (see Figure 1). Think of it as a powerful machine running on four engines operating in perfect alignment.

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UNDERSTANDING CHINA'S NEW CONSUMING CLASS- THE MILLENNIALS 

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UNDERSTANDING CHINA'S NEW CONSUMING CLASS- THE MILLENNIALS 

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UNDERSTANDING CHINESE MILLENNIALS: WHO ARE THEY AND WHAT DO THEY WANT?

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UNDERSTANDING CHINESE MILLENNIALS: WHO ARE THEY AND WHAT DO THEY WANT?

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Chinese millennials, born in the 80s and 90s, are now hitting prime consumption age. Described as educated, open-minded and tech-savvy, millennials make up 31% of China's total population, representing 415 million consumers.

According to a report about Chinese millennials from Goldman Sachs, their aggregate income will grow by US$ 3 trillion during the next decade with their average annual incomes rising steeply over the same period. They will experience increasing purchasing power and will gradually become the main consumers of products and services.

So who are they and what do they want? Read on to find out.

In order to understand the consumption behavior of Chinese millennials, we have to start with the way they grew up. Due to implementation of the one-child policy in 1979, most are the only child in their family and had parents and grandparents eager to give them the best of everything. They were the center of the universe.

The 'little prince/princess/emperor' factor is strong in this generation. They also prioritize their desires instead of their needs. As a result, when it comes to consumption, they are more demanding and more willing to spend.

According to the same report from Goldman Sachs, among Chinese millennials, there has been outsized spending on smartphones, key fashion accessories, travel, fun experiences and small splurges where brand and quality matter. They want good products and services and they want them fast. Daxue Consulting, a market research and management consulting firm focusing on the Chinese market, indicate that young Chinese consumers have shown themselves to be confident, discerning spenders; frugal and yet less price sensitive with luxury and high-quality goods.

They're happy to spend top dollar for entertaining, personalized retail experiences both online and at brick-and-mortar venues.

In response to such demand, Adidas, for example, has recently introduced the Z.N.E. PULSE Hoodie series. Customers can either choose from one of the six patterns proposed by Adidas or create their own pattern. It has soon become popular in China, especially among young people and adolescents who like unique items. If brands would like to win the hearts of Chinese millennials, personalized and tailor-made products would be a wise choice.

↑ Customers are able to choose a special pattern or create their own ones on the official e-commerce platform of Adidas.

Moreover, Chinese millennials grew up during China's economic reforms that brought increasing global connectivity. They are eager to portrait themselves as a global citizen as they have witnessed the transformation of the country from a closed and backward nation to now the world's second largest economy. They love to show friends and families their close connection to the rest of the world by buying standout and niche foreign brands that can demonstrate their one-of-a-kind tastes, which also distinguish them from others.

They are far more educated and globally aware than their parents. They're active on the Internet and social media, mainly because most of them do not have siblings to play with and hence turn to the virtual world as a means of socializing and entertainment. Therefore, it's no surprise that they're savvy online and mobile shoppers.

Currently many brands have already merged their e-commerce with social media so as to increase brand exposure and facilitate the mobile shopping experience. Early in April, Longchamp launched a WeChat mini program dedicated to bag customization and purchase. Recently, since the end of August, the luxury brand has been promoting the Le Pliage Cuir Backpack on their mini program.

Customers were able to choose the colour of the bag and print alphabets on them. After personalizing the product, customers can make the order and pay right away via WeChat Pay, which is already really popular among Chinese youngsters. This integration of socializing and mobile shopping perfectly caters to the preference of Chinese millennials.

↑ Longchamp's WeChat mini program for bag customization and purchase.

Social recommendations and word of mouth play an increasingly important role in the consumption process of Millennials. Since they spend plenty of time on social media, they are highly influenced by their peers, as well as the Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs). Therefore, brands have been increasingly adopting the KOL approach to promote their products and drive sales.

OPPO, a Chinese electronics giant specializing in camera phones for young people, launched a KOL campaign to promote the newly released double-camera phone OPPO R11. Followers were invited to participate in an online voting competition between two top Chinese idols, namely Li Yifeng and William Chan, who are extremely popular among the young generation.

Other KOLs with millions of followers were also paid to post its promotion video. This campaign successfully drew public attention to the new model R11 and created positive word of mouth for the brand.

Such a larger-scale KOL campaign may not usually be considered due to its huge budget, yet a small-scale one is also effective as long as the right KOLs are picked. Recently, Estée Lauder worked with several beauty bloggers on Weibo, including @无敌美milky胸口碎大石, @小辣椒Irene and @啊曼大, to promote the new Envy Oil-infused Lipsticks. They tried the sample and wrote product reviews, resulting in over 3,100 interactions among young beauty enthusiasts who were very likely to purchase the products.

Therefore, figuring out whether the followers of KOLs are exactly your target audience and keeping an eye on the fast-changing trends on social media are very helpful in marketing to Chinese millennials.

↑ A promotional Weibo post produced by the fashion KOL Milky.

According to BrandZTM's report, Top 100 Most Valuable Chinese Brands 2017, even though every consumer wants products or services that offer quality, are trustworthy, and help make their lives better, Chinese millennials in particular are more likely to favor brands that are famous or trendy. They like brands with positive and sincere persona, as they are able to distinguish whether the brand truly understands their needs, concerns and favorites, or if it is simply pretending.

They will only be loyal to brands with attributes they affiliate to, and they like to see their lives being portrayed in media. For instance, post-90s are in their early adulthood and have just started exploring and achieving goals. If a brand can address on some of the obstacles they may face and recognize their effort, they will easily resonate with it and feel more connected. Hence, inspiring and empathetic brands are highly appreciated, especially when they communicate on the right medium.

Chinese millennials are the main target audience whom marketers should not miss out. They highly cherish individuality and uniqueness, and never hesitate to spend more money in exchange for products and services they want. As they grew up with the Internet, they have already adapted to "living" in a virtual world. Exploring, purchasing and interacting online are their daily routines, which meanwhile enable marketers to approach them via different online channels, including the most popular social media platforms in China. To gain a better understanding of Chinese millennials, Chinese social media may be a good entry point.

Are Chinese millennials your target audience? Would you like to get to understand and reach them through Chinese social media? Leave a comment below. We're happy to answer your questions.

To get deeper insights into Chinese social media marketing and utilizing it to serve your business, join ChoZan, a training and resources platform for Chinese social media marketers.

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Understanding Chinese Millennials: Who Are They and What Do They Want? - ChoZan

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Chinese millennials, born in the 80s and 90s, are now hitting prime consumption age. Described as educated, open-minded and tech-savvy, millennials make up 31% of China's total population, representing 415 million consumers.

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8 Characteristics of Chinese Millennials

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8 Characteristics of Chinese Millennials

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1. More than their parents, Chinese millennials are individualistic. They are less conforming than those who came before them.

2. They tend to be more open to the west than prior generations. They came of age in the time after China's opening to the world; they expect the world to be open to them.

3. Like kids in the west, technology is just part of their lives, it is not the new thing, it is.

4. They are smart, diligent and well educated. Like their counterparts in the west, school and extra-curricular activities are central to their lives.

5. They are filled with national pride, concerned about China's sovereignty and its position in the world, which syncs well with the governments goals.

6. In order to make the huge Chinese masses seem less foreboding, Chinese millennials are quick to use technology to gather communities around their personal passions.

7. In a radical departure from past generations, Chinese millennials tend to live for the moment, spend more freely and use credit - a much more western profile.

8. Segmentation of the newest consumer generation can be broken into post-80s, post 90s and post-millennials. As the generations get younger the behaviors above become more pronounced.

Source Jing Daily

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8 Characteristics of Chinese Millennials - mPoint

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More than their parents, Chinese millennials are individualistic. They are less conforming than those who came before them. They tend to be more open to the west than prior generations. They came of age in the time after China's opening to the world; they expect the world to be open to them.

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The Real Reason Chinese Millennials Are Super Consumers

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The Real Reason Chinese Millennials Are Super Consumers

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Early in March, more than 4,000 people gathered at the "Millennial 20/20 Summit" in New York to discuss the power of the millennial generation and how they will affect the future of retail.

Chinese millennials, numbering more than 400 million, are a force to be reckoned with. While many have recognized them as ultra-connected consumers, few have realized that this has been caused by their place in history as the only-child generation. This alone sets them apart from other millennials in a most fundamental way.
The one-child generation
Starting from 1979, China implemented the "One-Child Policy" in an effort to control its population growth. The policy lasted for almost 40 years and was only ended recently. During this period, each family in urban China was allowed to have only one child.

Chinese millennials, aged 19 to 35, were all born during the "One-Child Policy" period. These "little emperors" and "little empresses," as they are often being called, were at the center of their universe when they grew up. They are privileged, entitled and enjoy a good life.
A privileged generation
Chinese millennials grew up during China's economic reforms and opening. They have only experienced good times. They have never known the hardships of older generations. To them, life has been good and will only get better.

They are a privileged generation who benefited significantly from the economic reforms. They also have advantages that their western counterparts don't have. As I wrote here, they don't have student loan debt because their parents pay for their educations. Many don't have housing expenses because their parents or grandparents have bought homes for them.

It's no surprise that they are free spenders. Without student loan debt and housing expenses, Chinese millennials are free to spend all of their incomes.
An entitled generation
Because Chinese millennials are only children in their families, they are often at the center of attention. Their parents want to give them the best and are eager to satisfy their every wishes.

In addition, their grandparents also want to spoil them. Many grandparents give their "only grandchilden" large sums of money on occasions such as birthdays, weddings and Chinese New Year.

This kind of upbringing makes them feel entitled. Some have an inflated sense of self. As consumers, they are extremely demanding. They want good products and services, and they want them fast.
A fun-loving generation
Chinese millennials grew up with the internet and social media. But because they were only children and didn't have siblings to play with, they turned to the internet as a medium for socializing and entertainment.

That's why they are extremely active on social media such as Weibo and WeChat, much more so than their western counterparts. A search on Baidu for "post-90s" (those who were born after 1990) returns images of selfies, punk rock hairstyles, pre-ripped jeans and even random acts like lighting a cigarette with a burning 100 yuan note (about $13).

They want to enjoy life and have fun. Few want to work hard. Because they grew up socializing and having fun online, shopping to them is not just shopping. It's socializing and entertainment all merged together.

Chinese millennials have many facets. They can be narcissistic and socially conscious at the same time. They are both nationalistic and westernized. They are more individualistic than older generations, but they also yearn for recognition and yield to conformity.

As a consumer group, they are very promising. They will affect the future of retail in a most profound way.

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The Real Reason Chinese Millennials Are Super Consumers

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Early in March, more than 4,000 people gathered at the "Millennial 20/20 Summit" in New York to discuss the power of the millennial generation and how they will affect the future of retail. Chinese millennials, numbering more than 400 million, are a force to be reckoned with.

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8 Characteristics Of Millennials That Support Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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8 Characteristics Of Millennials That Support Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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Do you know which generation is the largest today? Millennials, or people born between 1981 and 1996, make up the largest portion of the world population and have different traits than other generational cohorts. Millennials are committed to implementing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including equality, climate change, peace, justice, poverty, and prosperity. They have unique consumption trends that make SDGs goals more attainable. Their tastes and preferences support creating sustainability and equality for all.

Sustainable and ethical business practices are forcing most organizations to conform to environmental, social, and governance tenets such as diversity & inclusion and transparency. Millennials are investing in and working for companies that have embraced visible sustainable practices.
8 Characteristics of the Millennial Generation That Promote Sustainability
1.Socially Conscious.- Millennial social awareness is part of their work life because they have grown up with the internet and social media. 79% of millennial employees are loyal to companies that care about their effect on society. They believe that corporate social responsibility is key to alleviating poverty and improving life outcomes. They have encouraged their employees to donate their time, and several companies to donate 1% of their profits, to charity.

They express their sociability online through social media apps such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, among others, and this enables them to share and receive information, making millennials the most connected generation.

2.Technology-based.- Three years ago, millennials overtook Gen Xers and became the largest cohort in the workplace in the United States. The generation has unique attributes such as being web-savvy, curious, independent, and tolerant. The millennials grew up in an electronic and online environment that created their eagerness to acquire new skills. They are adept at using their smartphones, laptops, and other technological gadgets to help to better perform their jobs. This generation has placed such a priority on the internet and cell phone that they can't imagine a world without these devices.

3. Ethnically Diverse and Optimistic.- Millennials comprises the most ethnically diverse generation. This cohort is open-minded since they were raised in a networked world. They are connected through the use of mobile apps and social media websites. They are optimistic about a sustainable future because they are a digital generation that believes in technology. They develop friendships with people across all races, ethnicities, and genders. They are not shy about supporting diversity and inclusion at all levels of life.

4.Embrace Experiences and Ethical Spending.- Millennials value experiences. Their digital personalities and traits showcase their experiences, such as traveling, working as digital nomads, participating in university exchange programs, and working in foreign countries, among other ventures. They spend their money on ethical and sustainable experiences such as eco-lodges. Ecotourism options appeal to them because they believe in reducing their carbon footprint.

5.Educated and Knowledgeable.- Millennials have been described as the most educated and knowledgeable generation in history. They have access to higher education, and they are motivated to learn. Student loans have played a role in increasing the level of education in this cohort.

According to the Pew Research Center, 63% of millennials value a college education and are preparing to acquire one. A total of 19% are already college graduates, and the remaining 44% are still in college working toward graduation

The emergence of social media has allowed millennials to increase their knowledge by sharing information. Since they were exposed to computing devices at an early age, they know how to use them to increase their knowledge. Some take online courses and learn skills that help them participate in the gig economy.

6.Health Conscious.- Millennials prefer healthy food to fast food. A total of 8 out of every 10 millennials believe that eating healthily is key to longevity and wellness. Millennials use technologies developed to diminish the risks of disease and other health problems related to aging. The use of artificial intelligence programs is transforming health care across the world into quantifiable services. Millennials have been referred to as the most health-conscious generation ever because of their access to online health information. Health information empowers them with ideas about good foods such as chia seeds, avocado, and cayenne pepper, among others. They are enrolling in apps such as Peloton that enable them to work out in the natural environment. Online information has helped them understand negative health effects such as night walking and sleep anxiety, among others.

Millennials are dedicated to having a work-life balance. They are investing in their health while making lifestyle choices that prioritize mental and physical health.

7.Financially Conscious. Millennials earn 20% less income than their parents. Their rate of property ownership is lower than that of baby boomers, and their low income forces them to rent property instead of owning it. They prefer the "sharing economy" services such as hiring cars instead of buying them. To compensate for their low income, a good number of millennials focus on building their savings. According to a recent Bank of America survey, 16% of millennials aged between 23 and 37 have already saved $100,000 in their accounts for retirement. They are keen on saving for the future.

Millennials are also putting their monies into socially responsible investments (SRIs), or "impact investing." Impact investing, also known as "green investing," involves putting money into organizations that have a positive impact on the world. Adam Connaker, an associate at The Rockefeller, discovered that millennials are investing in systems that have an impact on the world. They want to have a positive effect on their communities' future, and they want to improve people's happiness and longevity.

Millennial interest in SRIs is having a notable effect. In 2017, 234 mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETF) that invested in SRIs were tracked for social, environmental, and governance factors by Morningstar, a fund tracker. The assets in these funds had risen by 142% since 2012 because of an increase in the demand for socially responsible investing.

8.Spiritually Conscious.- The spirit of equality and reconnecting with goals aimed at saving the planet stem from the spiritual consciousness of millennials. Matthew Hedstrom, an associate religious studies professor at the University of Virginia, points out that millennials are more spiritually conscious than previous generations.

They are less attached to organized religion but identify more with spirituality. In 2015, Pew Research Center findings showed that 34% of millennials don't identify with a religion. Millennials believe in human rights more than religion. In connecting with spirituality, they believe in the concept that all human beings are equal. They feel a deep sense of connection in helping each other regardless of gender, race, religion, or political affiliation.

They are moving away from mass consumer capitalism toward religious-product consumerism. They want to connect spiritually through yoga, meditation, prayer, going to concerts, a belief in heaven, and karmic forces.

Millennials often travel around the world experiencing many religions. In a bid to let every individual uphold their own beliefs, they have opted for spirituality. Instead of worshipping at different altars, they have reawakened spirituality. Religious products and anything that connects them with nature appeal to them. They want to defend their future and the planet, which is leading them to choose firms that embrace sustainability.

The millennial generation is conscious at all levels. They want to save their money and invest in a socially responsible manner because they believe in changing communities. They are more racially and ethnically diverse, which has helped them support and fight for equality and human rights. Social and spiritual consciousness encourage them to conserve the environment for future generations. Millennials will certainly use technology in all aspects of their lives to support diversity and inclusion. They are trying to make the world a better place by pushing for the implementation of SDGs.

... Read More

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8 Characteristics Of Millennials That Support Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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Do you know which generation is the largest today? Millennials, or people born between 1981 and 1996, make up the largest portion of the world population and have different traits than other generational cohorts. Millennials are committed to implementing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including equality, climate change, peace, justice, poverty, and prosperity.

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A look at the e-shopping habits of U.S. and Chinese Millennials

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A look at the e-shopping habits of U.S. and Chinese Millennials

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Editor's note: Richard J. LaRosa is associate professor at California University of Pennsylvania, California, Pa. Brian F. Blake is professor emeritus, consumer-industrial research program at Cleveland State University. Yang Luming is professor, e-commerce department, Yunnan University, China. Kimberly A. Neuendorf is professor, school of communication, Cleveland State University. Karen Hudzinski is analyst, consumer insights and strategy at Macy's Inc.

The marketer's world is exploding! Not just in the U.S. but globally as well. Seemingly overnight, consumers are now shopping with new electronic devices like credit-card readers or price-comparison mobile apps. They use new vehicles like digital media stores. They seek information from new sources like vlog review sites. They buy new types of products like e-gift cards. Marketers are scrambling to capitalize on the new opportunities presented, while investigators try to grasp the dynamics of the new shopping landscape. It is an exciting, though daunting, time for marketing researchers.

More and more, clients with e-tail operations want marketing researchers to provide a broad picture of the e-marketplace and the client's position in it. Among other issues, clients are asking: Through which e-channels do shoppers find out about my products/services? What tools do consumers use to shop online? What new e-vehicles can I potentially use to effectively distribute my products? Answering these questions is far from a slam dunk.

First, for us to systematically research our clients' questions, we need a clear delineation of the alternative vehicles now available to consumers to do their shopping. The classification must be comprehensive but reasonably brief.

Second, to devise such a classification, though, we must first start with a clear idea of what is and what is not e-shopping in the current global market. Consider Mary. She is thinking of buying a new kitchen blender, so she asks her Facebook friends what they think of the brands she is considering. Tony is choosing a restaurant for an impromptu dinner with his girlfriend and uses his smartphone to choose a nearby place offering a good coupon. Aren't these just two examples of newer forms of shopping that should be included, along with distributors' sites and other more "traditional" forms of online shopping? To work for a researcher, the definition must be up to date. It must cover the various shopper behaviors and the different sites or sources of the information/products that exist in the new market reality.

Third, we need hard data to determine which tools are viable communication vehicles for our client in a given target market.

To provide the needed framework, our research team has launched a multifaceted investigation of those consumers in the vanguard of these revolutionary changes. These are the young, educated Millennials in the world's two largest e-shopping markets: the U.S. and China.

Virtual or tangible

So, how do we define e-shopping? As proposed elsewhere (Blake, LaRosa, Yang, Skalski, Neuendorf and Wu, 2012), e-shopping can be a consumer's primary goal or can occur when a consumer is focusing principally upon other goals (e.g., socializing). So, it occurs not only on sites dedicated to sales/marketing but also on sites focused upon other objectives. Further, it can involve acquiring information intentionally or unintentionally and consumption in virtual or tangible form.

Six different forms of e-shopping behavior, then, are possible:

1. Intentional information acquisition, e.g., browsing for product information via search engines

2. Incidental information acquisition, e.g., learning options available on a BMW when playing Gran Turismo

3. Selecting products for offline consumption, e.g., choosing an auto tire

4. Selecting products for virtual consumption, e.g., choosing music files

5. Virtually consuming products, e.g., listening to music

6. Using a digital purchase device, e.g., apps for purchasing pizza

These behaviors are supported through the e-shopping tools presented in Figure 1.

The advent of e-tools has significantly broadened the context of product and service shopping. By far, most instances of e-shopping involve five site sources:

sales/marketing organizations, e.g., manufacturers, distributors, political parties involving "traditional" B2C commerce;

other consumers overtly engaging in C2C selling, e.g., selling an item on eBay;

third-party information sources, e.g., bloggers, price aggregators;

other persons not overtly selling, e.g., friends complaining about a product on a social media site;

intruders into sites of other sources, e.g., pop-up ads on a news site.

To be useful to researchers, a vehicle classification must accommodate all six forms of shopping behavior and all five site sources.
The data
In the last two years, an online survey in the U.S. recruited 323 Millennials (18-34), students at two large and one smaller university in the east and midwest. The 776 young Millennials in China were students at one large and three small southwestern schools. Respondents were young; 98 percent of the U.S. and 99 percent of the China samples were 18-25. Though these samples are not strictly representative of their respective nations, they certainly can provide the useful point of departure we need.

The questionnaire described 28 different shopping vehicles. For 22 vehicles, respondents indicated whether they "never heard," "heard but unfamiliar," "familiar but never used" or "used at least once or twice." These measures, however, were not relevant for the six tools in the passive and targeted advertising category.
Classification and results
The 22 vehicles are described below. For each we present the percentage of the samples indicating they were familiar (but not used) and use (at least once or twice).

In the bar graphs China is red and the U.S. is blue.

Below each bar graph is a buy-in score. This is a rough gauge of how much a vehicle is described by the old observation "To know 'em is to love 'em." It is the percent of those respondents familiar with a vehicle that has chosen to try it at least once or twice. Naturally, before a firm devises an integrated marketing program, it should know more than the current usage of shopping vehicles in the target market. It would also be valuable if the firm would have some insight into how those current rates might shift. We suggest that the buy-in score helps raise a few flags in this regard.

Specifically, if a vehicle has achieved little familiarity as yet in a market but has strong buy-in, we anticipate that usage may well become more widespread as familiarity with the new vehicles spreads. We might label this as a "potential breakout vehicle." Conversely, if a vehicle's familiarity is widespread but usage is low, we might call it a "potential flopper." Illustrated by a firm's sending unsolicited print ads to home or office fax machines, it may be a vehicle out of step with current technology or target shopper lifestyles.

Again, the buy-in percent for China is red and for the U.S. is blue.

Search engines (Figure 2) now have high usage, especially in the U.S. Buy-in is high in both nations. Price-comparison mobile apps are not popular as yet; they but may be headed toward a breakout in China, though not so in the U.S.

Manufacturer Web sites are shaky in the Chinese sample, with modest current usage and modest buy-in (Figure 3). Distributor sites are fairly similar in this regard. For online marketplaces, on the other hand, usage is substantial, particularly in the U.S., with strong buy-in in both markets.

Social media site goods differ dramatically from digital media stores (Figure 4). In the U.S., social media site goods, with considerably higher familiarity than usage, show indications of flopping. In contrast, in the U.S. social media stores are strong now and have good buy-in. Further, in the U.S. digital media stores may be ready for a breakout. The value of virtual site goods, though, is more tenuous. In China, social media site goods, digital media stores, and virtual goods sites are moderately healthy.

Pay-for-content vehicles display good current usage and even better potential in the U.S. This is true to a lesser degree in China. On the other hand, in the U.S., sample e-mail gift cards and text message gift cards look weak now and perhaps may weaken further among U.S. Millennials.

Generally, the U.S. and Chinese patterns are distinctive.

Credit card readers for mobile devices (Figure 5) enjoy only modest current usage in the U.S. and China. Buy-in scores, though, suggest that usage by Millennials may grow as awareness improves in China. This growth may not be as likely in the U.S. Mobile apps for making a purchase enjoy moderate health in both national samples.

In China, blog and microblog sites are strong now and offer evidence of becoming stronger (Figure 6). Such strength is not as evident in the U.S. In both Millennial groups, review site and forums/message boards are used often and have positive buy-in.

Requested e-mail and requested text-message marketing offer marketers potential in both Millennial samples (Figure 7).

Recommendations

First, we researchers should consider the vehicle classification offered here. It is quite inclusive, current and incorporates all six shopping behaviors and five site sources. It usefully flags for marketers some of the less obvious means by which consumers learn about and obtain their products. The classification can, then, serve as a heuristic, suggesting currently unused vehicles marketers can employ in a well-integrated marketing campaign.

Second, as researchers we should not base our analyses and recommendations on the assumption that Millennials are invariably in the forefront of technological innovation. While this may or may not be true when we compare Millennials to other market sectors, the Millennials sampled here have not overwhelmingly turned to the newer vehicles as yet.

Third, be alert to the, at times, great differences between the world's two largest e-commerce markets in their reactions to e-shopping vehicles. Figure 4 is particularly clear on this point.

Finally, best practices and rules of thumb cannot necessarily be generalized from one national market to the other, no matter how successful those ideas are in either market considered alone. It is our responsibility as researchers to identify what can and what cannot be generalized to other national markets.

REFERENCES

Blake, B.F., LaRosa, R., Yang, L., Skalski, P., Neuendorf, K. A., and Wu, M. (2013) "What constitutes consumer 'e-shopping'? Behaviors and vehicles in the U.S. and China. National Social Science Technology Journal, 3 (1), 1-13.

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A look at the e-shopping habits of U.S. and Chinese Millennials | Articles | Quirks.com

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Editor's note: Richard J. LaRosa is associate professor at California University of Pennsylvania, California, Pa. Brian F. Blake is professor emeritus, consumer-industrial research program at Cleveland State University. Yang Luming is professor, e-commerce department, Yunnan University, China. Kimberly A. Neuendorf is professor, school of communication, Cleveland State University.

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Homewares and Luxury wallpapers, designed in London by Muck N Brass

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Uncommon homewares, both luxecycled and new including soft furnishings, lighting, resin tables, luxury wallpapers, featuring Zoe Pocock's cult Chimiracle wallpaper design, art prints, stationary, in-house workshops, online resin table course and free online tutorials. Free delivery available.

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Meet ‘Crazy Green Asian’ fitness guru Liv Lo – wife of Crazy Rich Asians star Henry Golding

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Meet ‘Crazy Green Asian’ fitness guru Liv Lo – wife of Crazy Rich Asians star Henry Golding

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Meet 'Crazy Green Asian' fitness guru Liv Lo

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Yoga teacher, who last year launched online workshops mixing yoga with high-intensity, interval training, is passionate about saving the planet, writes Stephanie Dickson

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At 17, this S’porean girl has probably done more than you have for the earth

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At 17, this S’porean girl has probably done more than you have for the earth

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Going straw-less is the newest green trend to hit Singapore, and it's catching on for a pretty simple reason -- it's one of the easiest environmentally-friendly habits to adopt.

It's one that I, someone hardly considered to be environmentally conscious, have adopted. But I use the term "adopted" loosely. I've been able to refuse straws to limited success. That's if I remember not to use them. But maybe, an action so small doesn't even matter.

That's the struggle with going green. It's not easy to do away with the convenience we're used to, and most people convince themselves that the actions of one person don't matter. That was the main issue that dominated discussions at a recent Zero Waste Conversation I (of all people) attended.

To a first-timer like me, it felt as if we had reached an impasse. Everything seemed too "troublesome" for Singaporeans to adopt. They wouldn't do it unless we give them rewards or incentives. Even making them pay for plastic bags don't work.

Halfway through the session, Ang Zyn Yee, "headliner" of the day's event -- having been recently featured in the news for her Straw Free Singapore campaign -- stepped forward to give a talk.

A young girl of 17, she approached the crowd of 30-odd with a shy, quiet confidence, launching into her presentation without a script.

I'd have never been able to do that when I was 17, I thought to myself.

Zyn Yee's story is amazingly simple. Deeply inspired by a 2016 TED talk by a pair of young sisters who convinced their governor to commit to a plastic bag-free Bali, and appalled to discover that 2.2 million plastic straws are used in Singapore daily, she started searching for something she could do within her own means.

The first thing Zyn Yee did is to start a petition.

The reason behind her cause was simple enough -- straws because they can be easily removed from our lives, and Changi Airport because of the sheer number of people who go through it every day.

She then started mailing letters to F&B outlets, handwritten, to offer them the suggestion of going straw-free. Handwritten, because she read that such letters have a higher chance of being noticed.

The next thing she did was to create stickers. By then, she had started emailing companies instead, because no one replied to her letters save 4Fingers, who wrote to reject her. In emails to over 80 F&B outlets, she attached her stickers, requesting companies to put them up in store to offer customers the option of going straw-free.

"For every 10 emails sent, I'd get just one reply," Zyn Yee said with a grin.

It was a simple confidence that amplified her presence in the room.

Complicated ideas of massive scale aren't needed to start a movement, I thought. That was what Zyn Yee embodied, with her small ideas taking her, a young student, ahead one step at a time.

Soon enough, friends started asking for her stickers. Her campaign spread throughout her school and to others as well, with Instagram accounts promoting the campaign popping up.

In June this year, her efforts finally paid off -- when 4Fingers worked with her to create customised stickers for their outlets, encouraging customers to go without straws.

Since then, Zyn Yee has started Zero Waste advocacy in primary schools -- she will bring the campaign to 8 schools this year -- and was invited to meet with representatives from Changi Airport.

"The meeting was quite a milestone because I was finally able to meet representatives of the subject of my petition, and physically share with them my ideas for a straw-free Changi."

At the session, Zyn Yee was also introduced to City Developments Limited (CDL) Chief Sustainability Officer Esther An, who promised to explore bringing her straw-free campaign to CDL malls.

"Starting your campaign is not very difficult," she shared, "but I worked very hard. I would spend hours after school sending out emails." Zyn Yee's parents also helped bear the cost of printing stickers.

The simplicity of Zyn Yee's campaign is inspiring. It made me realise, in the span of that 30-minute presentation, that being conscious about the environment doesn't always have to be troublesome or "a burden" -- and that any action, no matter how minute, does matter.

A heated discussion during the Q&A session after proved how impactful her presentation was. Even as two participants debated tensely over how a straw-free society would alienate the handicapped, Zyn Yee remained modest and open-minded, admitting that her campaign is still a fledgling one and that the movement has to be inclusive.

In all honesty, I half expected her to struggle with the discussion, given its controversial nature and her young age. But she handled it with that same simple confidence -- and I was inspired.

When I left the seminar that day, I was given a set of reusable cutlery. I brought it to the office the next day and remind myself to use it every day.

Simple steps, small steps. That's how I can make a difference too.

Zyn Yee was a participant in an earlier Youth Conversation in April on environmental sustainability and returned to share her story with other youths passionate about the issue in this installation.

If you have a project you would like to initiate, or if you would like to participate in the National Youth Council's Youth Conversations, find out more here.
This sponsored post by National Youth Council thrust the writer into a whole new world.

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At 17, this S'porean girl has probably done more than you have for the earth

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Going straw-less is the newest green trend to hit Singapore, and it's catching on for a pretty simple reason -- it's one of the easiest environmentally-friendly habits to adopt. It's one that I, someone hardly considered to be environmentally conscious, have adopted. But I use the term "adopted" loosely.

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This is IKEA International Group SWOT analysis in 2013. For more information on how to do a SWOT analysis please refer to our article.

Company Background

Name

IKEA International Group

Founded

1943

Logo

Industries served

Retail

Geographic areas served

Worldwide

Headquarters

Netherlands

Current CEO

Mikael Ohlsson

Revenue

€ 27.628 billion (2012)

Profit

€ 3.202 billion (2012)

Employees

139,000 (2012)

Main Competitors

Argos, Ashley Furniture Home Stores, B&Q, Bob's Discount, John Lewis, Pier 1 Import, Rooms To Go and many others.

You can find more information about the business in its official website or Wikipedia's article.

SWOT

Strengths

Weaknesses

1. Customer knowledge

2. Constantly using innovations to drive costs down

3. Supply chain integration

4. Brand reputation and market presence

5. Diversified product portfolio

Weaknesses

1. Negative publicity

2. Decreasing quality

3. Standard products

Opportunities

Threats

1. Further expansion into developing economies

2. Growing online sales

3. Expansion to growing grocery market

Threats

1. Intensifying competition

2. Growth of average consumer income

Strengths

1. Customer knowledge. One of the key competitive advantages IKEA has is its extensive knowledge about the customers. The company understands the purchasing factors that influence customers to buy and implements the best practices to induce that decision. IKEA offers low prices and a huge range of products. Designers constantly introduce new design products that look stylish in the eyes of customers. All the products are designed so it would be easy to transport and assemble. Moreover, the company offers the widest product range and positive shopping experience. All of these factors are aligned with what customers want and need and which results in higher sales. Without such extensive customer knowledge and best practices to benefit from that knowledge, IKEA would be unable to outcompete its current competitors.

2. Constantly using innovations to drive costs down. Low prices are the cornerstone of IKEA business idea and the the company always try to do things as efficient and cost-effective as possible. To drive costs down all the time, the company must find new and innovative ways to do that and to incorporate them in its businesses model. The business' innovations include new materials that contribute more to sustainable environment and are less costly or using newest ways of packaging, handling and transporting materials.

3. Supply chain integration. IKEA is committed to long lasting relationships with its suppliers. In this way, the company can order large volumes and benefit from lower prices and greater quality while suppliers are assured of guaranteed orders. IKEA sources its materials close to suppliers to reduce transporting costs. The company also uses IWAY approach to closely integrate suppliers with its supply chain. All the efforts of closely integrating supply chain results in lower costs and a competitive advantage.

4. Brand reputation and market presence. According to Interbrand, IKEA is the most valuable furniture retailer brand in the world, valued at nearly $US 12.8 billion in 2012. The business operates 332 stores in 38 countries and is present in the major world markets. More than 600 million customers visit IKEA stores every year. Worldwide market presence and strong brand reputation ensures that customers will often choose IKEA over its competitors.

5. Diversified product portfolio. Unlike IKEA's largest competitors, the company has fairly diversified businesses. In addition to its furniture products, the company operates restaurants, houses and flats. Although, firm's main business is designing, manufacturing and selling furniture it is not so affected by the changing forces in this market as other furniture retailers.

Weaknesses

1. Negative publicity. The company has been criticized many times for issues like poor treatment of employees, questionable advertising practices or lobbying government authorities. Negative publicity decreases brand reputation and customer loyalty.

2. Low quality of products and services. IKEA is unable to find compromise between continuous cost reductions while maintaining the same quality of products. According to UK Customer Insights report on IKEA by Verdict, IKEA's customers are less satisfied with its product and services quality than the average customer in UK buying at other stores. Firm's cost reductions lead to decreasing product quality, which was followed by higher number of products returned and damaged brand.

3. Standard products. IKEA's main competitive advantage derives from low costs, which in part are achieved due to standardized products. Standardized products attract fewer customer segments. Therefore, the business inability to offer better quality more customized products allows its competitors to fill that niche and fortify their position in it.

Opportunities

1. Further expansion into developing economies. Retail markets grew by at least 5% on average in emerging markets in the last year, opening huge opportunities for IKEA's revenue growth. The company currently operates in most of the developed economies but hasn't firmly stepped into developing economies, except China. There are great opportunities for IKEA to expand into Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia and Malaysia to increase its presence in these markets to sustain future growth.

2. Growing online sales. Online retail sales account for 17% and 4% of total retail sales in UK and US respectively. Online sales grow constantly and with 870 million visitors to its website IKEA could exploit this opportunity and benefit from increased sales and lower costs.

3. Expansion to growing grocery market. The current trend of eating healthier food has resulted in higher demand for grocery products in many developed economies. IKEA has an opportunity to expand its grocery business by introducing more grocery stores in its current retail places. The company is already successfully managing its food outlets, so this expansion opportunity would be well aligned with the current operations.

Threats

1. Intensifying competition. Many low cost retailers such as Walmart, ASDA or Tesco are entering homeware specialists market where IKEA operates. These large retailers have similar specifics as IKEA, including low costs, well managed supply chain and huge market presence and can easily gain some market share from IKEA.

2. Growth of average consumer income. Growth of average consumer income means that people buy less low price and low quality products, which is exactly what IKEA offers in its stores. With the rising income people will be less attracted to IKEA and will turn to retailers that offer higher quality homeware products.

Sources

1. IKEA (2013). About IKEA. Available at: http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_GB/about_ikea/index.html

2. The Times 100 (2012). Business Case Studies. Ikea case study. Available at: http://businesscasestudies.co.uk/ikea/swot-analysis-and-sustainable-business-planning/strengths.html#axzz2VB9TPpjz

3. Interbrand (2012). Best Global Brands in 2012. Available at: http://www.interbrand.com/en/best-global-brands/2012/Best-Global-Brands-2012.aspx

4. Wikipedia (2013). IKEA. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA

Related Articles

About Ovidijus Jurevicius

Ovidijus is the founder of SM Insight and the lead writer since 2013. His interest and studies in strategic management turned into SM Insight project, the No.1 source on the subject online.

He's been using his knowledge on strategic management and swot analysis to analyze the businesses for the last 5 years. His work is published in many publications, including three books.

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This is IKEA International Group SWOT analysis in 2013. For more information on how to do a SWOT analysis please refer to our article.

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Strength

1. Robust growth Strategy Robust growth Strategy: John Lewis has been a consistent performer in terms of revenue with operating income in 10 billion Pounds in FY 2017. The reported growth over 2016 is 2.8%. The sales growth was noted without including partnership bonus and other exceptional items. There was an increase in market share for both Waitrose and John Lewis segments. In addition, in spite incremental costs of omni-channel retailing in John Lewis and investments in pay, operating profit performance was observed to be decent enough. The company's profit grew to 370 million pounds which compared to last year was up by 21.2%. The profit growth was driven primarily by a decrease in pension accounting charges. However, if charges for pensions and long leave are excluded the profit before Partnership Bonus, tax and exceptional items grew by 1.9%. Product innovation, great Partner service and competitive pricing have been some of the key factors of John Lewis' strategy which has grown their customer base, increasing the market share. Apart from this the company has a strong focus on fostering partner growth and achieving financial sustainability.destinations between UK and the US, accounting for 35% share of the total UK-US capacity.

2. Strong Online presence: John Lewis overall global presence and reputation across various countries has led to its brand development over the years. John Lewis is also a major player when it comes to finance and home care. The company is well recognized in the United Kingdom as a result of its continuous endeavour of establishing customer relationship and fostering partnership growth. The main brand values for the company lie along the lines of performance, growth and innovation. The company further invests to strengthen its brand portfolio through innovative new products. The company brands are diversified across different segments based on applications; for example, the retail offerings like home furnishings to services like beauticians. The overall net promoter score for both John Lewis Store as well as Waitrose stores have remained constant over the year however there has been an increase in best customers.

3. High brand strength: John Lewis overall global presence and reputation across various countries has led to its brand development over the years. John Lewis is also a major player when it comes to finance and home care. The company is well recognized in the United Kingdom as a result of its continuous endeavour of establishing customer relationship and fostering partnership growth. The main brand values for the company lie along the lines of performance, growth and innovation. The company further invests to strengthen its brand portfolio through innovative new products. The company brands are diversified across different segments based on applications; for example, the retail offerings like home furnishings to services like beauticians. The overall net promoter score for both John Lewis Store as well as Waitrose stores have remained constant over the year however there has been an increase in best customers.

4. Focus on Innovation and creativity: John Lewis has always kept themselves at par with the market needs and developed their product and services offerings over the years across different segments. The company has always focused on product innovation as its key strategy. The strong focus on innovation has improved the product portfolio and customer engagement for the company. Further the company has laid its focus on innovation in its strategy, like focus on digitisation and omni-channel marketing and sales. The company aims to digitize its customer shopping experience by offering an integrated platform. As a part of improving the customer service, the Company introduced new features to propel the Partnership Card usage become more convenient. Another such instance is the QuickCheck App which allows myWaitrose customers to scan barcodes on their smartphones as they place products in their basket

Weakness

This section is available only in the 'Complete Report' on purchase.

Opportunity

This section is available only in the 'Complete Report' on purchase.

Threat

This section is available only in the 'Complete Report' on purchase.

In-text: (SWOT & PESTLE.com, 2020)

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John Lewis SWOT & PESTLE Analysis | SWOT & PESTLE

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1. Robust growth Strategy Robust growth Strategy: John Lewis has been a consistent performer in terms of revenue with operating income in 10 billion Pounds in FY 2017. The reported growth over 2016 is 2.8%. The sales growth was noted without including partnership bonus and other exceptional items. There was an increase in market share for both Waitrose and John Lewis segments.

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Shang Xia is a Chinese luxury fashion brand backed by Hermès offering high-quality products with a contemporary twist on traditional Chinese aesthetics and crafts.

Based on the Chinese characters "Shang" and "Xia", the Shang Xia brand name literally means "Up-Down", which at the first instance, may sound confusing. But a closer look into the Chinese characters "Shang" and "Xia" reveal a deep philosophy of life: the circulation between two energies of Yin and Yang, past and future, tradition and innovation, and craftsmanship and contemporary design.

The Shang Xia brand's concept reflects a flow of energy from the past to the future, and a link between the old and the new. It aims to create emotion, inspiration and surprise. Shang Xia has earned the moniker "Chinese Hermès" from its Chinese customers for successfully blending the Hermès philosophy of innovation with traditional Chinese craftsmanship and contemporary design. Although Shang Xia currently runs as a separate entity from the actual Hermès brand, the maison remains the key shareholder, with a 90% stake in the Hermès-Shang Xia venture.

As a Chinese luxury label backed by the international luxury brand Hermès, Shang Xia's products include fashion, accessories, furniture, home décor, jewelry and gifts, and are designed to fill the nostalgic gap left by the Cultural Revolution when many traditional Chinese artifacts were lost. Each piece is delicately crafted with all raw materials sourced from within China.

With a mission to resurrect and nurture the sense of craftsmanship which was lost as China became a mass-production economy, Shang Xia's brand offerings are built on centuries of Chinese heritage with top-notch quality adding a contemporary twist on traditional Chinese aesthetics and crafts.

The emergence of Shang Xia in the China-European luxury market

Like all luxury brands, Shang Xia aims to appeal to high income earners and the top echelons of society through its own interpretation of design and fashion. Yet, unlike many European fashion houses who have been marketing their creations to a primarily Western customer base for generations, Shang Xia distinguishes itself by catering to a mixed demographic. Given that the brand's targeted customer base is expected to be about 60% Chinese and 40% European, Shang Xia had to take greater caution in ensuring that the aesthetic of their collections appeal to both Chinese and European tastes.

Shang Xia first entered the European luxury market in 2009 when it opened its pilot store in the St. Germain neighborhood in Paris. It later emerged in the Chinese luxury market around September 2010 with a flagship store in Hong Kong Plaza, one of Shanghai's leading luxury malls. A second store opened in the equally up-market China World Trade Center in Beijing in late October 2012. Being located in key luxury hubs in both France and China has allowed the brand to maximize its outreach to the targeted customer base.

A closer look into Shang Xia's unique Chinese customer base

The rapidly growing 21st century economy of China has undeniably led to rising income levels in the country. This trend, coupled with shifting attitudes toward the display of wealth, has been continuously strengthening the demand for luxury goods. According to management consultancy Bain & Co, Chinese consumers accounted for the largest portion of global luxury purchases (31%), with the overall market exceeding USD 1.1 trillion in 2015. Although there has been a renewed focus towards luxury spending within China, this has only led to a drop of only 1% point in China's contribution towards global luxury spending in 2016 (standing at 30%), according to latest reports by Bain & Co.

The number of global Chinese travelers have also skyrocketed in recent years. The number of Chinese consumers who travelled overseas rose from 46 million in 2008 to 120 million in 2015. Of these travelers, 72 percent said that they bought high-end products such as handbags, cosmetics and watches. This data proves that Chinese consumers have been increasingly exposed to luxury goods via the Internet, overseas travel and first-hand experience. As a result, they have become more discerning and savvier about the relationship between quality and price and the value proposition of luxury goods.

Increasingly, Chinese luxury consumers have started to display preferences for more inconspicuous luxury goods than logo-flashing brands. In addition, with the effects of globalization starting to sink in, more and more young people in China crave their own Chinese identity that is sophisticated, contemporary and modern.

These trends are critical factors that will influence Shang Xia's brand building process in international luxury markets. Shang Xia's CEO and Creative Director Jiang Qiong Er describes the brand's customers as people who demand "true quality and art of life, and who are opinion leaders on what they want and why".

The conception of Shang Xia's creative direction

Shang Xia refuses to rely on the reputation of its iconic backer Hermès to market its products. Rather, the brand merely treats the Hermès brand philosophy - which is "look back to the past to search for the future" - as a creative cue, while it independently cultivates its own brand personality and identity. The brand concept is built on four guiding pillars:

Timeless aesthetics

Sophisticated lifestyle

Traditional craftsmanship

Contemporary design

With flair and exacting attention to detail, Shang Xia aims to preserve the historical beauty and craftsmanship born from Chinese ingenuity, while providing a simple and elegant 21st century aesthetic.

Currently, the brand is helmed by CEO Jiang, who first conceived the idea of Shang Xia after a meeting with the then Hermès CEO Patrick Thomas and General Artistic Director Pierre-Alexis Dumas in 2007. Their shared passion for quality craftsmanship, Chinese culture, as well as the mutual desire for a creative synthesis between heritage, innovation and emotion led them to build the unique creative vision that defines Shang Xia's collections.

Jiang started out by pulling together a group of museum connoisseurs and university professors, and getting their opinions. She then scoured the country for top ateliers who possessed the know-how to make Chinese goods, and improve on the traditional processes by introducing innovation. This was Jiang's idea of reconnecting the past with the young generation by transforming traditional culture to a contemporary one.

This contemporizing of traditional crafts is indeed demonstrated in its products. Its Da Tian Di chair, a traditional Ming dynasty-style chair reinterpreted in hi-tech carbon fibre, won an award at the EDIDA (Elle Deco International Design Awards) in 2016.

CEO Jiang refers to the Shang Xia brand as a hybrid of Chinese and French cultures. Additionally, given that Shang Xia is primarily inspired by Chinese culture and design, CEO Jiang holds a position of extraordinary advantage. Her passion for artistic excellence was nurtured from an early age. Her grandfather Jiang Xuanyi was a famous Chinese painter and her architect father Xing Tonghe's artistic work includes the famous Shanghai Museum. Additionally, having studied design at the Tong Ji University in Shanghai and subsequently at the School of Decorative Arts in Paris, her artistic immersions at both prestigious design schools have sufficiently equipped her to deliver exactly on the Shang Xia brand promise - which is to provide a link to the past through a combination of simple functional elements and traditional Chinese aesthetics and by creating Oriental-inspired aesthetics governed by the Hermès design ethos.

In March 2016, CEO Jiang was presented the prestigious Chevalier de L'Ordre National du Mérite by the French government to recognize her contribution, setting her in the ranks of pianist Lang Lang and actresses Zhou Xun and Zhang Ziyi. CEO Jiang is one of the very few Chinese businesswomen to receive the award, attesting to her passion of bringing the best of Chinese aesthetics and craftsmanship to the global stage.

The blending of East and West

Shang Xia has time and emotion at its core, and a huge focus on the experiential part of the brand. One aspect of the brand experience includes serving high quality teas at its stores, allowing customers to enjoy a sense of calm and peace, and experience the traditional way of life.

This mentality of "slowing down and savoring life" is deeply rooted in French culture too. Shang Xia has transformed a historical building in the French concession area of Shanghai into a place for an intimate customer experience. In all its products, there is equal emphasis on both Chinese inspirations as well as French craftsmanship. For example, the zitan imperial chair uses both squared and rounded corners, reflecting artistic elements from East and West spectrums. Its first bag, called Lan Yue, reinterpreted a classic bamboo basket using textured leather, but in the style of a modern Western top handle bag. Shang Xia's home-ware products also balance delicate ceramics with fine bamboo weaving, creating a subtle yet pronounced differentiation.

The East-meets-West amalgamation is also found in the store concepts. The Shang Xia Paris boutique is designed as a cloud-like space made out of 6000 thin ceramic panels. Historically, ceramic has been a crucial element of Chinese culture. Chinese ceramic has long been an object of admiration in Europe. On the other hand, the glossy white face of the ceramic panels creates a lighting state that is commonly found in the pointillism paintings of the Western impressionistic art era.

Its Beijing boutique is a reflection on the historic city with its serried city walls. It was designed with a combination of rhythms and aesthetics using geometric patterns of bricks of masonry, aluminium, tea and wood.

Shang Xia product strategy

Shang Xia's product strategy is vastly different from what luxury brands have typically followed in China. Its products lack the flashiness and glitzy status that most brands jangle in front of Chinese consumers to attract attention. With an understated appeal, and at price points ranging from USD 27 to USD 75,000, the brand is both accessible and exclusive.

At this point in time, Shang Xia has only three boutiques, one each in Shanghai, Paris and Beijing. CEO Jiang does not believe in building a brand empire, as the brand's focus is not on increasing output and thereby compromising on quality. Rather, its priority is on working with traditional craftsmen who have refined their skills over a lifetime, in producing hand-crafted products of the best quality. Its products are released in several batches annually and come in limited quantities. This in turn does not allow the brand to scale up production easily, which helps in retaining exclusivity (and its perception).

Shang Xia places a huge emphasis on the stories behind each of its product categories and the manufacturing process of the products themselves. It dedicates a space on its website to showcase the significance and process adopted for bamboo weaving, cashmere felt sculpting, furniture building and porcelain, which are used in creating its products. Its in-store sales consultants are also well-equipped with the knowledge behind each product's creation to inform customers of the stories behind them. These stories are crucial to Shang Xia's product strategy as it allows customers to not only understand more about the product but also about the brand philosophy.

Furthermore, the brand also accepts requests for customization in orders for its products, but only for an additional premium cost. All these individual elements represent the overarching product strategy of Shang Xia, which is built on a deep commitment to quality and exclusivity.

Brand and marketing communications for Shang Xia

One huge obstacle that stood in the way of success of Shang Xia's initial brand communications was "How does one make the concept of "Made in China" ultra-chic?". In a 2014 article in The Economist, it was reported that local Asian brands were perceived to be inferior in both value and quality to foreign brands. The negative association of Made-in-China products as being poor in quality was an issue that Shang Xia had to tackle head-on.

To do this, they created a digital campaign surrounding a mysterious masked man travelling from China to bring "culture seeds" to Paris. The intrigue of the story and the campaign's high-end aesthetics were able to generate organic conversations on Sina Weibo, one of China's most popular social media websites. The campaign garnered over six million views on social media platforms and provided Shang Xia with a great deal of exposure in the initial launch days.

Since its launch, Shang Xia has relied on minimal advertising. Instead, it uses exclusive art and fashion events to promote its brand. With regard to its online presence, Shang Xia has always maintained a low profile by only having a corporate website that provides basic information about the company. However, it is difficult for the brand to ignore the massively growing e-commerce market in China in its effort to remain exclusive. In March 2017, the brand has seen a change in communications strategy, to start build its online presence through launching an online store on Alibaba's e-commerce platform, Tmall. As a luxury brand, Shang Xia also relies on positive word-of-mouth from its current customers and industry experts to promote the brand.

Unlike other brands, Shang Xia did not start by introducing new products. Instead, it sought to build a contextual foundation. At the time of the brand's launch, the idea of Chinese history fitting into a modern luxury framework had not been adopted or evaluated by any brand. Hence, Shang Xia took the necessary steps to create a platform for it to move forward, through its inaugural annual non-profit exhibition, named "Pass it On". The exhibition strongly demonstrated the brand's sense of heritage and emotion through the creation of an annual cultural object. In 2011, the object at the center of visitors' attention was a box containing personal artefacts and a book of stories from China's past. The items were displayed outside the store and also featured a collection of old family photographs and personal souvenirs that were not previously associated with having luxury value. The key was in the original presentation of these mundane items - it allowed Chinese consumers to feel a common sense of history with the brand and encouraged audiences to reconsider their memories as meaningful and worthy of rediscovery.

These concerted efforts in brand building have helped the brand's target Chinese consumer to embrace their own indigenous traditions and craftsmanship, and enabled them to draw out contemporary meanings for Chinese traditions. Shang Xia's goal is to give Chinese heritage a sense of prestige, place, and purpose among upwardly mobile consumers.

Shang Xia insists on not adopting a rapid growth path for its future plans. Rather, it aims to stay true to the brand's philosophy to create something valuable that can be passed on to the next generation. CEO Jiang has mentioned that it is one of her dreams to prepare the younger generation for the future. The brand may be fulfilling this ambition by developing a new "School of Craftsmanship" in the next few years to come.

Shang Xia's future challenges

Brand sustainability: The Hermès-Shang Xia venture represents a unique China strategy for global fashion conglomerates, which is to build a brand from scratch using both Western and Eastern design values. Hermès didn't expect the brand to make any profits till 2016. However, given its positive reception from Chinese and European consumers, Shang Xia is bound to become a sizable player in the Sino-European luxury sphere. Due to its very unique focus on balancing tradition with modernity and craftsmanship with style, Shang Xia needs to be careful about overexposing its brand, which may dilute the brand equity and lead to commoditization. CEO Jiang's vision around careful nurturing the brand and not aiming to build a global retail empire will avoid this overexposure and maintain the exclusive nature of the brand, but it is important not to succumb to growth and revenue pressures.

Immaturity in the luxury market: Given that Shang Xia is a relatively new brand in the luxury market, it will be an uphill task to build confidence in and convince customers that the brand's products are worth the prices it is charging. Hence, it needs to build a brand story and craft its brand experiences around the story. Shang Xia needs to demonstrate unwavering focus and priority on its long-term objective to build its brand, compared to making short-term profits.

One of the true marks of a successful luxury brand is to have consumers buy into the entire brand experience and not just the product itself. Shang Xia may also want to consider leveraging on other positive brand associations of its parent brand, Hermès' established international brand image through its future brand communications. This would help build consumer confidence especially with the luxury brand's lack of a longstanding history that is vital for the success of a luxury brand. But care needs to be taken that the overarching brand story is still driven by Shang Xia's vision (and not that of Hermès).

Intense competition: Although transferring a European design philosophy to a Chinese brand may seem unique right now, it is only a matter of time before other big names jump onto this risky yet potentially lucrative bandwagon. Shang Xia's competitors are likely to manifest in two forms - one being new Chinese brands put out by other European fashion houses, and/or revived Chinese labels acquired by European luxury groups. This list of future rivals could possibly include Swiss luxury group Richemont, who bought over Shanghai Tang in 1998, and L'Oréal, who already owns Chinese cosmetics brand Yue Sai. Both companies are keeping an eye on Shang Xia's progress in China, and will most likely be launching comparable joint ventures in the months to come. Even though Shanghai Tang is currently struggling to stay afloat in the West, its sizable clout in the Chinese luxury sphere, as well as continued popularity among the Chinese elite could pose a threat to the growth of Shang Xia.

Slowdown in luxury sales: According to Bain & Co, the growth in luxury sales globally is seeing a slowing trend over the past 5 years, from 11% between 2010 and 2011, to less than 2% between 2014 and 2015. It predicted that global luxury sales will continue to be in single digit figures in 2016, with a measured growth of 2-3% through to 2020. Although Shang Xia operates in a specific segment of luxury goods and is aiming to carve out a unique niche, this slowdown in growth could be a real threat if the impact across different luxury goods segments is asymmetrical. But both CEO Jiang and the Hermès management board are focused on long-term brand building rather than short-term revenue growth. Shang Xia needs to continuously think of targeted strategies that will make consumers aware of the brand's unique proposition. As awareness gradually builds up, the next step would be to expose the brand's design principles and sensibilities through curated events, exhibitions and product launches. Another strategy that Shang Xia can look at fortifying is to bring forth real stories of craftsmanship that go into the manufacturing of its products.

Many strong Western brands have attempted to fortify their brand equity by expanding into newer product categories, which ultimately causes the brand to lose its aura of exclusivity. With a price range of USD 26,200 for a porcelain bowl set to USD 37,500 for a Ming dynasty-inspired chair, CEO Jiang is aware about the need to balance between accessibility and exclusivity. She has expressed that the brand is working to broaden the range of more accessible products in order to target younger consumers, who also appreciate the tradition, culture and heritage that Shang Xia embody. Nonetheless, with its January 2017 sales reflecting a 25% increase from the previous year and the brand seeing a similar double-digit growth every month in 2017, market conditions do not seem to be a huge threat to Shang Xia currently.

Conclusion: Carving out a bold future for Shang Xia

There is no one doubting the potential of Shang Xia's bold creative vision and the products that are the outputs of the vision. Shang Xia's future success potential will depend on its ability to react to competitive pressures. There is a possibility of competition entering the space Shang Xia wants to occupy sooner rather than later as luxury manufacturers are continuously looking for areas of growth.

The future direction of the brand will also depend on how Hermès continues to treat the brand in the future - will it allow the brand to grow using its unique creative vision or would there be an attempt to force the brand to follow its ethos.

Regardless of how both these factors influence the Shang Xia brand, it will be a fascinating journey to follow as Shang Xia establishes itself in both European and Chinese luxury markets.
Read about Hermès: Hermès - The Strategy Insights Behind The Iconic Luxury Brand

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Shang Xia - Chinese Luxury Fashion Brand With A French Soul - Martin Roll

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Shang Xia is a Chinese luxury fashion brand backed by Hermès offering high-quality products with a contemporary twist on traditional Chinese aesthetics and crafts. Based on the Chinese characters "Shang" and "Xia", the Shang Xia brand name literally means "Up-Down", which at the first instance, may sound confusing.