By skyforbes 
7 reasons why the Tmall shopping platform works for (sports) brands
With a market share of 57 percent, Tmall is clearly ahead of competitor JD with 27 percent of e-commerce sales in China.
JD belongs to the Internet empire and Alibaba competitor Tencent. The picture shows a mobile phone screenshot of a personalized homepage of a Chinese Tmall customer. Tmall, JD and Co also make a considerable turnover with sports products. After all, interest in sporting goods is growing in China. This is due in particular to the growing middle class.
Around 700 million Chinese buy sports products.
This is about half of the Chinese population. According to Intersport Asia and Pacific, the volume of goods at Tmall for sporting goods is estimated at around 19 billion US dollars annually, at JD it is 8 billion and the remaining e-commerce platforms together still have a value of 5 billion US dollars.
By way of comparison: According to Statista, Germany had a total of around 2.3 billion US dollars in 2017. The dimensions are gigantic, and this quickly becomes clear here. But why is the Tmall platform so interesting, especially for European and US sports brands?
Tmall is like a showcase for brands.
The platform does not function like a department store, but rather like a department store with numerous flagship stores. In the online portal, each brand has its own virtual shop.
This is an invaluable advantage for well-known European and US brands, because they are incredibly popular with the Chinese and are regarded as a status symbol.
Nike (pictured: Air Jordan Store in Shanghai) is the top-selling sports brand in Chinese e-commerce, ahead of Adidas.
Third place goes to Anta, the first Chinese company. However, since there are many counterfeits in circulation in China, especially of Western brand products, it is particularly important for the Chinese to acquire “genuine” Nike sneakers or Adidas hoodies. And this is where Tmall’s competitive advantage comes in.
Tmall has very high entry barriers for brands.
The operators ensure that only selected branded companies open a shop on their platform. ISPO also supports the establishment of contacts to Tmall and has a Tmall shop. (The picture shows the homepage of the Patagonia-Tmall-Shop.)
The Chinese buyers thank them for this understanding of quality with absolute trust. For Western brands this is an invaluable advantage, as Chinese can be sure that they will buy the original when they buy from Tmall. A world-famous women’s fitness brand also profits from this.
This is Lorna Jane. The photo shows the homepage of Lorna Jane’s Tmall shop.
The brand has been successfully using Chinese e-commerce platforms as its sales market for years. “The Tmall concept is an ideal match for Lorna Jane,” says Sales Director David Brown.
The company develops 80 to 100 new styles every year. Brown: “We don’t really need to worry about other content for our Tmall shop, because we always have something to offer and attention due to the constant presentation of new collection items”. The (potential) Lorna Jane customer gets this through the personalized start page at Tmall. And that’s how it works:
Tmall creates individual start and channel pages for each user based on their user habits, characteristics and preferences.
To do this, the Alibaba company uses countless personal data that customers leave behind during their online customer journey. What actually appears on the automatically generated Tmall pages also has to do with how successful a company is at Tmall.
On the one hand, companies pay an individually agreed annual fee and – similar to Facebook – have to build up a fan base. The more popular the brand and the posted contributions are, the more likely they are to be played out to other customers who are “fans” of the brand and follow it on Tmall. Patagonia of course does not have so many new collection items…
…and relies – like many other brands – on content at Tmall that is not directly related to the collection. Wo-Wang works in marketing at Patagonia and says that Patagonia still has to constantly offer new content: “We use the same Patagonia campaigns that are used in other countries. We import the content that we get from the USA”.
At the same time, Patagonia streams live broadcasts of Chinese trail running or climbing events to Tmall, for example. So there are different ways to be successful at Tmall. But one thing applies to everyone…
Whoever enters the Chinese market should get support from China.
Only those who know the local conditions will be successful in online trading – whether at Tmall or the competition. ISPO also supports brands on their way into the Chinese (online) market. Click here for more information.