Hongkong Has Become The Pain Of Many Luxury Brands.

Looking around for a weekend in Harbour City, Hongkong, it seems a bit of a teacup to talk about recession in crowded shopping malls.

But this is actually much quieter than 2014, when tourists from mainland China grew up to enter here.

The sales volume brought by the franchised store made this store almost 1/10 of the total retail sales in Hong Kong.

In fact, the recent news of Hongkong's retail industry has been disappointing.

With mainland tourists seeking new experiences in cities such as Seoul, Tokyo and Paris, Hongkong's retail sales in February dropped by 21% compared with the same period last year.

This is the biggest drop in retail sales in Hongkong since September 1998 after excluding price changes.

Zhou Dafu, China's largest jewellery chain, said this month that profits are expected to decline by 40% to 50% due to the "weakening of consumers in the Greater China region".

The Hongkong census and Statistics Department released the latest retail sales figures in May 31st. The value of total retail sales in April 2016 was estimated at HK $35 billion 200 million at the end of April 2016, down 7.5% from 2015 and 14 months in March 2016. The revised estimate of total retail sales value in March 2016 decreased by 9.8% compared with the same month last year.

Compared with the same period in 2015, the total retail sales value of the total retail sales in the first four months of 2016 dropped by 11.4%.

Hongkong, once a strong luxury market, was affected by China's fight against corruption and domestic economic slowdown, coupled with the continuing turbulence in Hongkong's society, resulting in the reduction of mainland consumers' consumption to the city, thus affecting their sales. Hongkong's market has almost become the hardest hit area of luxury goods groups.

At the end of last year, Prada, Burberry, Chanel and other luxuries.

The rare sale of goods at the lowest half off in Hongkong shops is the largest discount since the opening of the mainland tourists' free visa in 2003.

It is worth mentioning that in 2014, Harbour City proudly claimed that its sales per square foot were the highest in the world.

The pformation of Hongkong's retail industry is unlikely to be completely reproduced elsewhere. It also gives the observers of the luxury industry a lesson: how quickly Chinese interest in high-end goods and experiences has shifted.

Analysts attributed the changes in Chinese consumption habits to several factors, including exchange rate movements, but more importantly, changes in habits and tastes.

Luxury experience does not include only

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In Hongkong, luxury brands are everywhere, and there are also some fast fashion brands, but the mid end products are not very rich, and the number of museums or cultural activities is limited. "Aaron Fischer, director of consumer goods and gambling industry in CLSA, said," but if you go to Tokyo, Seoul, Paris or Milan, you have a lot more choices. "Alan Fischer said.

Japan and South Korea have been particularly popular with the help of favorable exchange rates.

According to CLSA's luxury price survey, goods sold in Tokyo 12 months ago are 20% cheaper than in Hongkong - far from Tokyo's 20% place in Hongkong.

But recently, the yen has appreciated against the US dollar, while the Hong Kong dollar is pegged to the US dollar, which means that the price of Japanese goods is becoming more expensive again, which is about 10% higher than that of Hongkong.

Insiders have attributed the recent surge in China's outbound travel and the growth of favored brand sales to China's depressed demand.

Over the years, the increasing personal wealth of Chinese has been constrained by travel restrictions.

"No other place has ever had such a situation where so many demands have been suppressed.

For the Chinese, the opening up of the world is much faster after 2012, and countries are beginning to compete for Chinese tourists' dollars and relax visa restrictions, "the people said.

In addition, changes in the habits of Western shoppers are also reappearing in Chinese consumers, especially in fashion.

Younger consumers are increasingly interested in the niche brands they find online - they may not even need any offline entities such as flagship stores to boost sales.

In the past year, the popularity of global luxury brands among Chinese consumers has fallen.

China's outbound travel annual report shows that the popularity of Chanel (Chanel) has increased, and the proportion of respondents buying the brand has risen from 20% to 26%.

Other winners include Coach, Herm s and Gucci (Gucci), while Dior (Dior) and Armani (Armani) market share declined.

One of the most striking features of the challenges in pricing and retaining Chinese shoppers is that changes are fast enough to keep pace.

Companies that are committed to catering to Chinese luxury goods are catching up.

Despite the recent lack of queuing in Harbour City, Hongkong, the strategy of this shopping mall turned more emphasis on the overall experience last year, which helped to achieve higher total revenue and higher profits than during the boom period.