The "Chinese version of Zara" went to London to shop but it was not aimed at foreign customers

Source of the picture: urban revivo

With the rising purchasing power of Chinese consumers, it is estimated that by 2030, China will become the largest apparel market in the world. While more international brands are pouring into China, local brands are also going out. Recently, Urban Revivo, a fast-fashion brand in China, officially landed in London in order to attract Chinese consumers with its international brand positioning.

Urban Revivo, with more than 200 stores in China, has long been regarded as a competitor to Zara in China. The store is currently planning to open its first London flagship store in London at Westfield London in March, the second time the brand has entered the international market after opening a store in Singapore last year.

However, this does not mean that Chinese brands are ready to meet with Western consumers. On the contrary, Urban Revivo's overseas expansion aims to attract more Chinese consumers who love shopping overseas.

PricewaterhouseCoopers data show that Chinese consumers will spend 500 billion US dollars in 2018 on fashion and footwear. In addition, the L2 Luxury Goods Report finds that Chinese consumers make up 30% of the global luxury goods market, while domestic brand consumption accounts for only 7% of the total market, with the difference mainly coming from the overseas shopping of wealthy consumers in China.

As a result, Urban Revivo's London store may just be a brand new option for overseas Chinese consumers.

Urban Revivo was founded in 2006 and inspired by Zara, which has now become a brand with annual sales of 450 million U.S. dollars and more than 20,000 new products launched each year. Raymond Ngoh, the company's vice president, told the Straits Times that London is only part of a plan to expand to more than 400 locations around the world in order to create an "international fashion empire."

Perhaps Urban Revivo's expansion roadmap can be surprising as it is far from being a household name in Chinese brands. In practice, however, this may make overseas expansion easier as Chinese consumers may not be as impressed by the mid-market brands.

Liz Flora, editor of L2, a New York-based business intelligence firm, said the western brands are still dominating the Chinese market today. Urban Revivo, on the other hand, represents a middle-to-low-end middle-class brand, and by 2012 they targeted mainly wealthy 90-year-olds when they expanded in China because they did not have many options at the time. But over the past five years, the retail ecosystem has undergone tremendous changes. Now, being an international brand may be the most attractive strategy for consumers, compared to the main streets throughout China's cities.

Meanwhile, the company's latest luxury goods report released in May last year showed that the Chinese luxury goods market grew by 4% in 2016 while Western brands still dominated social media and digital channels, including China's local networks, Weibo, WeChat, Baidu, etc. Some brands, such as search engines and even other Asian brands, such as South Korea and Japan, are even more attractive than local brands in Chinese consumer perceptions.

Some analysts believe that Chinese brands need to follow the Japanese model of the 1970s and 1980s to cultivate emerging designers like Yohji Yamamoto, while learning from Europe's design masters in order to eventually form their own style.

And more people think that Chinese fashion designers are at the cusp of this growing global acceptance. Fashion blogger Timothy Parent said that China's fashion brand has taken a giant leap forward in less than a decade. In 2009, only a handful of domestic designers sold their own designer clothes in stores, while most Chinese customers were not interested in Chinese brands and lacked national pride.

Parent added that in the past few years, China's fashion has been "explosive". Shanghai Fashion Week for many designers to provide the opportunity to show. These opportunities have also been shown to have some bearing on the development of Chinese fashion, such as Uma Wang's presence in Paris, international chain retailers such as Crawford and the ongoing collaboration with Chinese designer brands such as Huishan Zhang, Hermès Shang Xia, a Chinese handicraft, has also been well received in the international market.

Karl McKeever, retail analyst and head of Visual Thinking, said: "H & M and Zara have been around for years and understand the demographics and subtle differences in customer demographics. Although Revivo knows the differences and trends in China, It can be difficult to fine-tune a product based on the environment of another country, which takes time. "

Of course, Urban Revivo will not be the first Chinese brand to try to expand overseas, or even the first brand to expand its market in London. Prior to this, Bosideng, the international holding company that produces high-end down jackets for companies such as Adidas, invested about $ 1.3 billion a year in the company's 2012 stores in London and New York. However in the end the company shut down all its overseas stores in 2016. According to Chen Wei Chan, retail partner at consulting firm Oliver Wyman in Hong Kong, this is due to the lack of story and localization of Chinese brands abroad.

If Urban Revivo plans to consolidate and strengthen its domestic presence by expanding globally, London is indeed a good place to start as a global tourism hub. According to McKeever, it is perfectly correct to choose to enter the mall instead of having a separate store in Oxford Street. Because for the discerning shopper, these malls themselves can become brand ambassadors. However, whether this strategy can really attract Chinese consumers to "go home" will not give the exact answer at this moment.

Author: Li Zaihui