What Travel Brands Can Learn From Alibaba’s New Luxury Marketplace
Skift Take
Despite the popularity and discussion surrounding the Chinese consumer in recent years, it is still a developing market worth watching and studying for nuanced changes and opportunities.
China’s $751 billion e-commerce market took a leap forward this summer with the introduction of two new luxury platforms.
Earlier this month Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group launched Luxury Pavilion — a invitation-only platform dedicated to premier brands housed within its business-to-consumer site T-mall. The minimum spending requirement is $15,000 a year, but Alibaba’s top spenders buy an average of $45,000 worth of goods annually.
Mirroring Alibaba’s efforts to cater to a ultra wealthy online shoppers, its main competitor JD.com introduced a white-glove delivery service with which purchases can be hand-delivered by black-tie staff.
"Luxury Pavilion is of course much more content-driven while Tmall is a platform with tons of products like Amazon," explains Louis Houdart, Chinese branding and creative agency Creative Capital China.
The new platforms come at a time in which th
