Online Buying Boom: China's E-Luxury Marketplace

In a country hailed as the saviour of luxury goods, where e-commerce giants such as TaoBao are as much a part of people's shopping experience as any brick and mortar operation, it was only a matter of time before luxury malls exploded online.

It is an oft-quoted fact that China is the fastest growing luxury market in the world. A recent report from international management consulting firm McKinsey & Company predicts this segment of the country's retail market will be worth a staggering USD 27 billion by 2015.

Almost every week, high-profile flagship openings from international brands dominate Shanghai's fashion news, but less widely reported are the increasing number of online stores. These Internet domains not only stock a number of the world's most prestigious brands, they also deliver them to your door.

This plethora of online options wasn't around in 2007 when Aline Conus took her background in luxury goods, fashion and e-commerce and combined these expertise to launch My Mingpai, a site she describes as “the Net-A-Porter of China”.

“It was a no brainer for me that it would be successful and people would buy luxury online because of the same reasons people buy online all over the world – time and geography,” Conus says.

Before too long, she was proven right, China's 384 million Internet users (a number that is expected to jump to 840 million within three years) embraced e-commerce, quadrupling the market between 2006 and 2009. My Mingpai saw their own growth soar 600 per cent from 2009 to 2010 and are expecting another 200 to 300 per cent bump this year.

“The market is maturing very fast and there are new players literally by the day at the moment,” Conus says. She is quick to emphasize that she is happy with the increased competition, because it means China is becoming accustomed to online shopping.

Rather than questions about payment, delivery and authenticity, “now we get very detailed questions about the quality of products, the origin of products and how products are made,” she says.

People buy with such confidence in China because many of these online malls include peer reviews and discussion forums. According to Conus, prospective customers are also comforted by the company's seven day return policy and the focus on customer service.

“All of our clients come back, all of them,” Conus says with more than a hint of pride. “This is rare in e-commerce today because there are so many players and people jump from one merchant to another. Our customers are very loyal and they keep coming back to us.”