CHINA. Chinese consumers still see services provided by Western luxury e-commerce platforms as more satisfying and advanced than their Chinese counterparts. That’s according to a new report by Hong Kong-based consulting firm OC&C Strategy Consultants.
Jing Daily*, a content partner of The Moodie Davitt Report, describes the study’s findings as “surprising”. It notes that the older, better-established sites proved more popular with customers, and more (but not all) of those e-commerce pioneers are based in the USA and Britain.
Jing Daily also questions the ability of rival Chinese platforms to catch up.
The study, based on a June survey online of over 5,000 Chinese luxury shoppers, asked respondents to rate their customer experience on 17 luxury e-commerce platforms operating in China (with five of them being Western) in the past six months. Ten criteria were considered:
- Ability to guarantee product authenticity
- The breadth of products offered (number of SKUs) within each brand
- Availability of in-season products
- Shopping convenience
- The breadth of brands offered
- “Luxurious” experience (subjective)
- Ability to deliver pre-sales services (e.g., style advice)
- Flexibility in payment methods
- After-sales services (e.g., simple and efficient returns)
- Level of newness (renewal rate) in products offered
For the report, the definition of a luxury shopper was someone who had purchased fashion products from two or more brands on the agency-provided list over the last year. The list included 25 brands, from top luxury brands including Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Dior, to more affordable luxury labels such as Paul Smith, Maje and Kate Spade. Respondents did not have to have shopped on the sites they rated.
All five non-Chinese luxury e-tailers performed well, Jing Daily said. The report ranked Amazon’s premium fashion e-commerce platform Shopbop as top in service satisfaction. Net-a-Porter, owned by the Swiss luxury group Richemont, rated third. British luxury e-commerce platform Farfetch was ranked fifth, followed by British department store Selfridges’ e-commerce site (seventh) and the Hong Kong retailer Lane Crawford (eighth).
OC&C Strategy Consultants Partner Pascal Martin said: “Although Chinese platforms are ahead of the game so far in awareness and transactions, customers who have tried the Chinese version of international platforms like Net-a-Porter or Farfetch, rated them among the top five overall, primarily because of their strong scores on authenticity and assortment.”
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*This article was originally published by the much-respected JING DAILY, a Moodie Davitt Report content partner. Jing Daily and Jing Travel Associate Editor Yiling Pan will be a speaker at next week‘s Trinity Forum in Shanghai.
