China’s luxury goods fatigue: What should retailers know?
Chinese customers are increasingly choosing more discreet luxury goods as a decrease in local demand has dampened middle-class confidence, leading to a “luxury shame” behaviour, as reported by the latest Luxury Goods Worldwide Market Study by Bain & Company and Altagamma.
The report also suggests that the resurgence of outbound tourism has put pressure on the Chinese market.
The shift in luxury preference
Federica Levato, senior partner and EMEA leader of fashion and luxury at Bain & Company told Reuters Chinese shoppers are making private appointments and opting for more understated and discreet fashion, rather than “very visibleand flashy items” at stores.
“Whilst celebrity endorsements, KOL promotions, and influencer marketing partnerships are still among the top strategies for driving longer-term consumption (above paid/search marketing), we’ve identified a notable shift in UHNW seeking highly personalised high touch contact from multi-brand platforms like ours,” said Alex Anton, co-founder and chief marketing officer at 2-Times, an invite-only luxury online retailer and event-based private shopping service, told Inside Retail.
“In the past year, Chinese shopping preferences have shifted from buying globally renowned designer collections (down 25 per cent) to becoming more curious about independent and even local designers and artists profiled by 2-Times (up 20 per cent YoY).”
The co-founder said Chinese consumers are notoriously more discount/ price-centric than their Western counterparts.
“This trend is very evident for 2-Times this year in the volume of lower-priced sales, particularly during sales periods, however, contrastingly, their spending frequency is also 40 per cent higher on average at 2-Times than clients from western markets,” said Anton.
He added that UHNW is increasingly demonstrating demand and preference for early access to exclusive brands and/orsold-out hero pieces – and is certainly willing to pay premiums to secure their slice of this top-level of community inclusion.
“China’s sentiment for personalised selling is moving towards an “anti-discounting mentality” which has been amplified even more so for multi-brand luxury platforms like 2-Times, following the simultaneous collapses of Farfetch and Matches, who have almost completely diluted their brand’s salience by running daily discounted promotional campaigns on full price merchandise since the first quarter,” he said.
Richemont’s online multi-brand luxury retailer Yoox Net-A-Porter was reportedly withdrawing from China earlier this month.
“Building out the sophistication of our technology and marketing stacks, and improving all consumer-facing messaging has become a critical priority for an ultra-curated luxury platform like 2-Times.”
He said brands are using a balanced mix of live-streaming, personalization, and time-restricted pricing strategies to attract modern Chinese shoppers, whose product knowledge and advanced digital nativeness surpass their Western counterparts.
“Brands pacing the luxury vanguard in 2024 are hyper-segmenting their core audiences in order to create unique experiences across store networks, at private events, and online. These tangible interactions between retailers/brands and clients are incredibly important and consistently result in meaningful engagement and lasting emotional connections being built,” he added.
Recent crackdown on ostentatious displays of wealth
In an effort to curb the public display of personal wealth and luxurious lifestyles, China’s cyberspace administration imposed a ban on several social media accounts owned by Chinese users who were ostentatiously showcasing their affluence, including Wang Hongquanxing, who is commonly referred to as ‘China’s Kim Kardashian’. This is not the first time the country has cracked down on wealth-flaunting influencers.
The move may also be one of the drivers of the growing cultural shift among Chinese consumers towards more discreet displays of wealth, as opposed to overt flaunting of opulence.
“While we count many high-profile individuals, some of whom have had their social accounts banned, as private members at 2-Times, the majority of our UHNW clients are artists, designers, architects, and creatives, whose preferences favour quality of craft over extravagant luxury,” Anton said.
“2-Times is one of the very few luxury companies that doesn’t use social media as a tool for influence, and is deliberately not on any Chinese social media as an official account — only WeChat groups are utilised for chat-marketing purposes.”
How should the brand respond?
“In 2024, luxury brands should be adopting strategies that educate their followers and communities against money-motivated elitist actions in favour of posting purchases candidly, and promoting healthy lifestyles,” said Anton.
“Shortening cycles of discounting and focusing on correcting the always-on discounting problem of the post-pandemic rebound that stagnated store traffic, is “the” key tactic of reversing momentum.”
Claudia D’Arpizio, a Bain & Company partner and leader of Bain’s global Luxury Goods and Fashion practice, said in the report as a narrative of resurgence and resilience emerges, luxury brands must rethink their value propositions to prioritise trust and connection with consumers.
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