The Typical Revival Of Luxury In China

Luxury goods must be expensive, but expensive is not necessarily luxury.

Price is only a measure factor, and there is a need for aristocratic cultural genes.

The Chinese market has once again become a land of smoke.

More and more luxury brands are here.

The Global Wealth Report 2010, released jointly by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini, shows that demand for luxury collections in emerging markets, especially in the mainland of China, is on the rise. In 2009, the proportion of wealthy people to such investments rose from 29% in 2008 to 29%, while the mainland contributed 40% to the overall luxury market.

"There is no doubt that the Chinese market is the fastest growing business of luxury goods, but China's local luxury brands are absent. Compared with brands such as LV and Gucci, they are still immature. At the early stage of development, they are trying and looking for new opportunities."

Li Fei, Professor of marketing department, School of economics and management, Tsinghua University.

Li Fei is optimistic about the prediction of China's local luxury brands, but others say there is no luxury brand in China.

But no matter whether China has luxury brands or not, for China's rapidly developing luxury market, China already has the soil of producing luxury brands: consumers have evolved from most conspicuous consumption to consumption of brands, and the entry of international luxury brands.

"1/3 of Chinese luxury goods are gifts, and more second generation wealth owners become the main force of consumption, and their consumption is more brand loyalty."

Li Fei believes that all this shows that China's luxury market is well prepared and only owes to local brands.

Expensive is not necessarily luxury.

"Give me this one and try it."

In the Beijing East Xintiandi NE TIGER store, a fashionable consumer spent less than 20 minutes to brush over ten million yuan.

When the journalist asked if she knew the brand, she did not know it, but felt that its quality and style were all right. "The clothes of this brand are not inferior to those luxury goods."

In fact, some brands in China are also moving. If there are alternatives, I will support domestic brands. "

The consumer said.

The reporter once saw an unknown brand in a shopping mall in a three line city. The price of a man's dress was 180 thousand yuan, and there was no discount.

When a reporter asks what brand, the answer is: you do not understand, we are luxury goods.

"Luxury goods are generally expensive, but expensive ones are not necessarily luxury goods."

Li Fei said luxury has several elements: cultural heritage; manual or exquisite craft; brand identity market; design and management marketing talents.

A few large elements can produce a luxury brand, not just a price aristocrat, spiritual poverty.

"You see that some of the top brands in the world have their own stories, such as Louis Weedon, who first tied luggage to the royal family, and later considered that it would wet their luggage when it rained, and then made a suitcase, which lasted until today.

In Li Fei's view, a sense of historical continuity is important to luxury goods, and many Chinese brands have Chinese elements and a sense of history, but they lack some packaging awareness.

Spanish elegant porcelain makes pure handmade products a luxury.

"We are story marketing. Every porcelain will tell a warm story behind it."

Regrettable, China's name is derived from the word "CHINA" of porcelain, but there is no development of this intangible value.

Luxury brands often have a sense of history. The spirit contained in them and the rich stories in the process of product creation have injected strong cultural factors into luxury goods, and cultural deposits are essential elements of luxury goods.

From a consumer's perspective, a brand can create dreams and tell stories, so that customers can have good dreams associated with them.

For example, lovers want to have Cartire (Cartier) diamond ring, and successful men want to wear Rolex (Rolex) watches.

Luxury is not just price, but spirit.

People who have the ability to consume tend to pay more attention to spiritual resonance.

Big international covetous eyes

Western luxury brands captured the hearts of Chinese consumers with their unique cultural charm, and they extended their tentacles to new bases in the Chinese market.

In the past September, the Louis Weedon store opened in Hohhot.

At present, Louis Weedon operates 33 stores in 26 cities in China.

Louis Weedon is not the only one in the Horse Park. Armani expanded 20% of its business in mainland China in the first half of this year. Gucci plans to open 13 to 17 stores this year, with a 100% increase in store growth.

Li Xuerong, a researcher of circulation industry in CIC, once said that the development potential of luxury market in China's two or three tier cities was gradually revealed. The fastest growing luxury goods in China are no longer Beijing or Shanghai, but Chengdu, Harbin, Dalian, Chongqing, Wuxi, Ningbo and other two or three line cities.

According to Bain's latest research, more than 60% of Chinese luxury consumer growth in 2008 and 2009 came from cities like Zhuhai, Shaoxing and Wuxi.

Consumers in these second tier cities have no less purchasing power than shoppers in China's metropolis.

Gucci as of now, four stores are in two or three line cities: Zhengzhou, Ji'nan, Guiyang and Taiyuan.

And Louis Weedon's storefront in Hohhot is to let Louis Weedon, President of China, Ande to make a special contribution.

The number of flagship stores in China has reached 70% of the total flagship stores in the world, with the exception of Beijing, Shanghai and Hongkong, all of which are distributed in Wenzhou, Anshan and Kunming cities.

"Before, a luxury brand began to come into contact with us formally, and it took at least 3 years, and now this process has been greatly shortened."

The Minister of international brand management of a shopping mall in Shandong said that in order to occupy the best position in the two or three tier cities, luxury brands are no longer as picky as they used to be. The number of households in the two or three line cities and the number of households in the rich class have increased dramatically, which surprises luxury brands.

In his book "luxury marketing", Li Fei divides the target customers of luxury consumption into four categories: leading trend, appreciating collection, experiencing enjoyment and status symbol.

Most of the customers who locate luxury goods in status symbols come from the second tier cities.

"A group of new rich people living in the two or three tier cities strongly desire social recognition, so sometimes they do not care about the value of products while they only care about identity symbols."

Some industry insiders said.

It is easy to find that luxury stores in China have opened more than half of the stores in the past 3 years.

The luxury brand enclosure movement has just begun.

Compared with the enclosure movement of luxury goods, setting up different products according to different classes is another way for luxury brands to cultivate customers, and "new luxury" arises at the historic moment.

As a means to increase market share, Li Fei emphasized that such a brand would make consumers' psychological satisfaction higher and price more intimate, but quality is a big card control.

Coach's discount and price make it very popular. Thousands of dollars bag can let consumers who have no strong consumption power enjoy the pleasure of brand and quality.

In mid September, Herms, the luxury brand of France, opened its first Shang Xia brand store in Huaihailu Road, Shanghai.

It can be said that it is a genuine Chinese brand, designed by Chinese designers and made by Chinese people, and is currently only being sold in China.

Hermes chose to regard Chinese culture as a breakthrough and named it "up and down" which is rich in Chinese traditional philosophy. It is known as "paying tribute to the craft already existing in China".

Patrick Thomas, President of Hermes International Group, explains that "the top and bottom brands will inherit the Hermes tradition while designing materials and technologies with Chinese characteristics."

The main selling point of "up and down" is Chinese culture, but the price is closer to the definition of "new luxury".

The lowest price of a Kelly package for Hermes is more than 60 thousand yuan. The goal of "up and down" is to use the relatively low price products to cater for the explosive growth of China's luxury goods market.

In the industry view, "up and down" will become the Herms to make up for the shortage of Chinese market tools.

We must know that Hermes has never had any price loosening in order to maintain its high end in the financial crisis.

"Luxury goods include entry level luxury goods. Those who are just in touch with luxury goods can accept the price of a key chain or purse, and when they have consumption power, they may become loyal consumers of this brand."

Li Fei said.

The foggy Chinese wind prevails

China's luxury products are facing the siege of the big international "tiger teacher". How can we rush out of the tight encirclement and occupy the market place?

The Chinese wind is the best wand to remove fog.

From the perspective of the genes of luxury goods, China has a long history of 5000 years of civilization. In fact, the Royal Imperial Palace used to be the object of today's so-called luxury concept.

"We have luxuries, but we lack them.

For example, scarce jade, antique calligraphy and paintings, and Chinese elements, we can make use of the scarcity and historical inheritance of their materials.

And these things are also very expensive in the market. If they are conferred, they will make the brand more mature.

Li Fei said.

The world's top luxury brands often have strong regional cultural attributes.

For example, the representative of France is avant-garde and romantic. The representative of Switzerland is precise and high quality. The representative of Italy is enthusiastic and bold.

The cultural implications of these producers will be injected into the luxury brands and products produced by their country, which will give the latter a clear cultural mark.

The mystery and long history of Chinese culture has been attracting worldwide attention. Now, China has begun to learn to use this advantage to make its own luxury articles.

For those Chinese enterprises that have already consciously created luxury brands, they begin to innovate and repackage brand positioning and planning.

It is gratifying to note that more and more Chinese brands have realized that the accumulation of history and culture is the real soul of luxury goods. "Shuijingfang" is currently recognized by consumers as China's high-end liquor, and its success stems from the re positioning of the brand.

In 1998, the "Shuijingfang" cellar was identified by archaeological institutions as "living relics without interruption in the late Yuan and early Ming Dynasty".

This allowed the enterprises that were not profitable at the time to reposition their position, and put the "master" and "cellar ancient" as the demand point, combining the mysterious Chinese ancient culture with the wine culture, and stabilizing the "Shuijingfang" brand in the camp of the high-end market in one fell swoop.

Products with Chinese aristocratic children are more in line with luxury positioning, such as antiques, tailored tailors, high-end liquor and so on.

In the process of slow growth of these brands, enterprises have begun to use Chinese elements and Chinese culture to play the "Chinese concept" brand.

The "Shanghai", which was bought by Li Feng Group, was pformed in this way.

"In the world, as long as China is a mysterious ancient civilization, the integration of old and fashionable will have its own temperament."

Li Fei said.

The biggest attraction of the tiger is that it integrates Chinese elements into the design, is good at drawing inspiration from Chinese traditional culture, and has a group of fans belonging to its own in a short time.

"Northeast tiger is very skilled in the application of Chinese traditional dress elements such as embroidery, binding and buckle, and this is also one of the main reasons why it is popular."

An insider commented.

In the view of Zhang Zhifeng, chairman of the northeast tiger, Chinese clothing enterprises do not lack good fabrics, good craft and equipment. What is most lacking is "brand soul", that is, the cultural orientation of the brand.

It takes time for Chinese luxury goods to grow up. In Li Fei's opinion, a brand with luxury consciousness must be able to endure loneliness and be operated by experienced people.

For example, Shanghai was famous after its acquisition.

"A domestic company that made cashmere bought a company with a history of more than 170 years in Scotland. At that time, the queen of Scotland used the fabric of the company to make clothes.

Such enterprises themselves have aristocratic genes and luxury elements.

In the view of Zhou Xueping, business director of CREE international consumer goods industry, it is possible to make up for the shortcomings of this luxury dating by buying foreign brands with historical accumulation.