Let's talk about TMALL
IMAGE: Tmall
Tmall, also known in Chinese as 天猫 (Tianmao or sky cat) is the second biggest business to consumer E-commerce platform in the world after it’s big brother site Taobao. Tmall is acts as platform for local Chinese and international businesses to sell brand name goods to consumers in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan therefore making it one of the most important and lucrative sites for any luxury or emerging brand wanting to break into the Chinese market.
Originally introduced to the public as Taobao Mall in 2008 the site became known as Tmall three years after its initial launch as Alibaba decided to make it its own company separate to Taobao. These new changes also saw the site’s service fees raised from 6,000 yuan ($940) to 60,000 yuan ($9,400) a year, and a compulsory fixed sum deposit gone from 10,000 yuan ($1,570) to up to 150,000 yuan ($23,500). The increase was intended to help weed out merchants that are too often a source of fakes, shoddy products and poor customer service. These merchants threatened Tmall’s creditability with some Western luxury brands who at the time once referred to the site as their most dangerous and damaging adversary.” However, since then times have since changed.
Fast forward to 2020 and foreign brands are now clamoring to open their own stores on Tmall’s luxury pavilion space. UK Based Luxury fashion retailer Net-A-Porter recently launched on the platform’s space and American affordable luxury brands such as Michael Kors value luxury pavilion as “the perfect venue for us to communicate Michael Kors’ brand vision.” Tmall’s luxury pavilion is a dedicated space Alibaba created for high-end brands on site. Currently high end luxury brand such as Valentino, Burberry, Versace, Ermenegildo Zegna, Moschino, Giuseppe Zanotti, MCM, La Mer, Maserati, Kering Group-owned Qeelin as well LVMH-owned Guerlain, Givenchy, Tag Heuer and Zenith all hav stores in the Luxury Pavilion.
I personally am still waiting for Louis Vuitton to open a store on the site but have yet to hear of any plans of this happening. I would also like to see Tmall to have a dedicated space for emerging Chinese and foreign designers who are hoping to have a greater presence in China’s fashion market.
If Tmall has proven anything it is that a store that was once misunderstood by the Western fashion world is now their biggest chance of entry into the world’s biggest fashion market, where there is literally something for everyone.
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Written by: Jourdie