Many e-commerce sites in China sell a wide selection of merchandise across different product categories from luxury to home goods etc. In other countries the luxury brands would never tolerate this? Why is China different?
We found that customers are more comfortable testing a website with entry level products and once they trust the platform, service and products then will trade-up. This is one reason why we still offer 18% of our product assortment through cosmetics [because they are cheaper and hence a less risky to try the service].
消費者らは、まずはお試しレベルの商品でウェブサイトを試し、一旦そのプラットフォームを信頼すると、次第に購入するサービスや製品の価格を上げるという傾向を有することが分かった。これが、我々が商品ラインナップの18％を化粧品を通じて提供していることの理由の一つである。（そのほうが安価なため、サービスを試すリスクが小さくなるのだ）
カスタマーはまず値段の安い商品でウェブサイトを気楽にテストし、そのサイトのプラットフォーム、サービス、製品をいったん信用すれば、より高い買い物をするのである。私たちが取り扱う商品カテゴリーの18％がいまだに化粧品である理由のひとつはこれである。なぜなら、化粧品は比較的安価であり、低リスクでサービスを試すのにぴったりの商品なのである。
Of course as the market [in China] evolves and becomes more mature we ourselves are also trading-up. Some brands we accepted onto the site two or three years ago we aren’t inviting them to participate anymore because they no longer match our image and also because we now have other preferable brands.
Also to be honest the supply of luxury goods is a bit erratic. Some seasons [the designs] work very well and the brands have no left over stock that we can sell. I don’t think its wise to build a long term scalable and sizeable business only with first-tier luxury brands, so we also work with fashion brands and accessible luxury that include Glamour Sales as part of their distribution strategy and some are even manufacturing products just for us.
Will Glamour Sales always focus on luxury in the future? I’m not sure – I don’t think so! We might try a site that has different products environments like a real shopping mall with a basement level, first and second floor etc. In this December, we are launching the virtual tree of our website where we will separate some products in terms of presentation and so the accessible and first-tier luxury designer brands will be featured separately as has been requested by both the brands and customers.
Are Glamour Sales customers coming to you specifically for flash sales?
People like the concept of flash sales that start everyday at 9am. They also like the fact that it’s a bit of a race and competitive because some products are limited. We have up to seven new brands going on sale everyday and each brand has about 100 different items, so altogether around 700 new items go on sale every day, and the sales last for seven days. About 50% of sales happen in the first day, 80% in first three days.
毎朝9時にセールがスタートするフラッシュセールスのコンセプトは好まれています。また、商品に限りがあるため、ちょっとしたレースや競争になっていることも人気の要因のひとつです。毎日、最大で7ブランドのセールを開催し、各ブランドは約100種類の商品を用意しているので、合計で約700の新商品が毎日セールに登場します。セール期間は7日間ですが、初日に約50％、最初の3日間で80％が売れます。
人々は、毎日午前9時に始まるフラッシュ・セールのコンセプトが好きだ。 また、彼らは、幾つかは限定商品のため、それが少しレースや競争でもあるという事実も好きだ。 我々は、毎日新しいブランドを7種類までセールに出しており、各々のブランドには約100種の異なったアイテムがある。 それは、全部でおよそ700種の新しいアイテムが毎日セールに出ていると言うことであり、そのセールは7日間続く。 約50%のセールが初日に行われ、80％が最初の3日間に行われる。
At the end of the day why do people come back? It’s because they enjoy the overall experience and the customer service. So from the brands we choose, the products we choose, the overall display, sizing, photography, product description, all the way up to the experience with payments, then deliveries, returns and after sales service, I think all of this is what we call the customer’s experience and we focus on that.
What effect is the rise of mobile having on your business?
Mobile is huge for us! In four years we went from 2% to 22% of sales come via smart phones and if I include tablets, then its about half of our business today. In comparison, in Japan, smart phone sales are already 40%. So based on this trend, I’m very confident, that by end of next year we will realize half of our sales coming from mobile.
We are challenging ourselves and I’m pushing all the teams from IT to creative to refocus the whole approach to concentrate on the mobile first. Whereas before we developed things first for the desktop website and then adapted the apps etc. for mobile. Now the transformation of the company is to think mobile fist, and then once you have the mobile elements right, to adapt them into the desktop. So now, everything from the description we write about the product and the images we shoot to the interfaces we develop etc. is now mobile centric.
ありがとうございます！！