H&M China launched on Chinese e-commerce platform Tmall, complementing the Swedish clothing retailer’s 400-plus physical stores and HM.com Shop Online.
“We are very happy to extend our collaboration with Alibaba by launching H&M and H&M Home on Tmall,” says H&M Greater China country manager Magnus Olsson.
H&M opened its first store in Mainland China in 2007 and launched its online shop in 2014. The H&M group brand Monki has had strong development in China since its launch on Tmall, and this collaboration between the two groups, touted in December, is being extended to include both the H&M brand and H&M Home.
During the launch period, H&M’s Tmall shop is offering more than 10,000 styles of fashion items including women’s, men’s, teens’ and children’s styles, plus H&M Home. As well as special opening offers, Tmall and H&M is offering exclusive pieces featured by TF Boys singer Wang Yuan, one of the stars in a H&M/Tmall campaign film.
“With H&M’s experience in online and offline fashion retail, this collaboration signifies an important milestone for Tmall’s expansion, allowing more customers to enjoy the pleasure of interactive shopping,” says Alibaba VP for Tmall fashion and luxury Lv Jianmei.
Procurement centres
Meanwhile, Tmall Global plans to open six procurement centres across the world to help overseas vendors capture Chinese consumers’ booming appetite for newer and better imported goods, says Tmall president Jet Jing. They will be established in Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong, as well as regions of North America, Europe and Oceania.
Jing’s announcement, at the annual Tmall Global 2018 Global Partners Summit in Hangzhou, did not disclose a time frame.
Launched in 2014, Tmall Global is Tmall’s channel for cross-border e-commerce. The platform controls nearly a quarter of the market. With Alibaba’s expansive consumer analytics, Tmall Global provides overseas vendors insights into Chinese consumers’ shopping behaviour and preferences.
China is the world’s second-largest consumer market following the US, according to Boston Consulting Group. The research consultancy notes China will see nearly $2 trillion in new consumption by 2021, and also projects China’s e-commerce cross-border trade to more than double to RMB620 billion (US$98 billion) in gross merchandise volume by next year from RMB305.5 billion in 2016.
Global commitment
Tmall Global, which already offers more than 18,000 brands from 74 countries and regions, is committed to attract even more international brands and vendors to sell their goods into China in the coming year, says Tmall Global GM Alvin Liu.
New Retail, which harnesses new technologies to unify online and offline shopping, will serve as an important driver to power such growth by allowing vendors to engage with their customers in both spheres, Liu says.
“Our goal is to give Chinese consumers the best shopping experience, so we select only the best quality for China,” says Liu.“We must discover new categories and find new products so Chinese consumers can find items that are best suited to their needs.”
To achieve these goals, Tmall Global has pledged to boost the traceability of items sold on the platform. By using blockchain technology, consumers will be able to track their orders throughout every stage of the delivery process, starting from the factory at the country of origin.
Secondly, the platform seeks to expedite the expansion of overseas fulfillment centres so smaller foreign brands can introduce their products to the Chinese market more quickly.
The platform will also increase the use of bonded warehouses, where imported goods can be stored securely without import duties until the items are sent.
