Farfetch expands its luxury customer reach to China
Farfetch expands its customer reach: Chinese digital marketing agency, CuriosityChina, will help José Neves sell luxury fashion items in Asia.
Farfetch, the British luxury fashion company founded by Portuguese José Neves, just bought the Chinese digital marketing company, CuriosityChina. The digital marketing agency will be merged into Farfetch.
The transaction’s value wasn’t revealed, yet according to Bloomberg acquiring the Chinese digital marketing specialist will assist Farfetch in expanding its influence in their market (i.e. through the social media platform WeChat, the company will have direct access to around 1bn Chinese users). customer
This transaction happened a year after the e-commerce platform JD.com invested €365m in Farfetch. Since then, the luxury clothing online store has been strengthening its presence in the Chinese market.
The “high-end fashion boutiques and labels” selling “clothes, shoes, accessories and jewelry online” will be able to create their own channel on WeChat.
" Almost everything happens in WeChat – that’s how far its reach goes. CuriosityChina’s extensive knowledge in managing this platform is the reason behind the acquisition.”
Platforms such as Facebook are forbidden in China and WeChat is the most used social media network in the country. Besides being a chat service, the app allows its users to buy goods and pay for services: you can hail a taxi or even order a pizza through the app.
In the West, apps and social media have an entirely different utilization. While in Europe and the US the users tend to use different apps for different tasks in order to pursue their consumer cravings, in China and specifically with WeChat, the majority of the services are focused in one single marketplace unit.
“For years, during our meetings with our partners, there has been increasing pressure towards finding ways to enter the Chinese market. Our luxury brands want it. Almost everything happens in WeChat – that’s how far its reach goes”, said Giorgio Belloli recently in an interview. The chief commercial and sustainability officer at Farfetch also explained the logic behind the acquisition of CuriosityChina as beneficial as they have extensive knowledge in managing this platform.
The co-founder of CuriosityChina, Judy Liu, will run the Farfetch China branch.
