Role of Market-Oriented Factors in the Chinese Luxury E-Retail

Abstract

For the last thirty years China has been experiencing a phenomenal evolution and transformed from poor rural country to one of the largest consumers of luxury goods in the world. Due to significant cultural differences and the fact that the market has reached a great importance globally, not yet fully matured - tactics used while dealing with Western luxury consumers are inapplicable in case of China. More to say, both the development of new retail techniques and rather complicated nature of the Chinese consumers, that are younger and more computer-savvy than their Western counterparts, predefined the great role to be put on the development of the luxury e-retail. Since the customer is still may be perceived as the cornerstone of the luxury business development, it was decided to identify what factors influence online luxury consumers in China in order to build a Chinese online luxury value model and define the role of customer orientation in it. After conducting both primary and secondary research, 25 factors were outlined and 15 of them were labeled as 'market-oriented'. Although stating the per se importance of customer focus, the study has shown their less significance compared with the core values usually attributed to luxury and e-commerce, for what reason the constructed model incorporated both the widely-accepted principles of ‘luxury’ and ‘e-retail’. Not being the most important, market-oriented factors, though, still of a paramount importance for luxury managers as they are the only ones that may allow business differentiating on a very competitive Chinese market, lead to increased quality of e-services, e-loyalty and, in the long run, the maturing of the very market nowadays being characterized mostly with price competition that is considered an essential part of e-retail but not e-luxury.