E-commerce sales at Laopu Gold have surged more than 1,000% during the first three quarters of this year compared with two years ago, while Songmont’s online bag sales have grown about 90%. By contrast, Gucci’s online bag sales in China have slumped more than 50% and Michael Kors’ has dropped about 40%. Other Chinese labels – make-up brand Mao Geping Cosmetics, perfumier To Summer, and luxury clothing label ICICLE – have pulled off similar feats in their categories.
On Tmall, the country’s largest online retailer, revenues for some Chinese brands are on par or even higher than overseas ones: Laopu sold $630 million in its Tmall store over 12 months through to October, compared with $57 million for Van Cleef & Arpels, according to industry consultant Hangzhou Zhiyi Tech. Mao Geping’s revenue was $125 million, more than doubling Bobbi Brown’s sales. For Laopu Gold, sales for both online and in-store jumped 250% in the first half of this year, after doubling in both 2023 and 2024, according to its financial results. Mao Geping Cosmetics, a homegrown beauty label named after its celebrity founder, reported double-digit revenue growth so far this year as well as in 2024.
Meanwhile, Bain & Co. estimates that China’s luxury market, which is dominated by European giants like LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Kering SA, and Burberry Group Plc, shrank by as much as 20% last year, its steepest decline since at least 2011. Though there have been glimmers of recovery, executives talk about “caution” and “uncertainty.”
