Despite evidence of slowing retail sales growth in China, high-end designers are still clamoring to enter the emerging market with the launch of a new luxury e-commerce website.
About 80 brands have partnered with Shangpin , which launched on Thursday as the country’s first full-price designer luxury retail site. The company seeks to overcome one major obstacle that designers have in reaching aspiring Chinese fashionistas — a lack of consumer awareness of lesser-known brands.
While many are familiar with Burberry’s iconic plaid or Chanel’s interlocking letter C's, smaller brands do not carry quite the same cache among Chinese consumers … yet.
The company's foray into full-price designer items comes two years after it first launched as a discount luxury flash sale site, which has been renamed aolai.com . Shangpin’s $60-million dollar retail bet (raised by Walt Disney’s Steamboat Ventures and two other international investors) centers on providing its more than 2.4 million customers with background information on designer brands.
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