Mulberry launches on Tmall's Luxury Pavilion, engages consumers via WeChat

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Jan 15, 2019

Luxury label Mulberry has launched on Alibaba’s Tmall Luxury Pavilion, the dedicated site for premium brands. The British company is launching there at a good time with the shopping frenzy linked to China’s Lunar New Year likely to drive interest in western luxury brands, particularly those offering products specifically tailored to the local market.

With that in mind, Mulberry has also unveiled its Lunar New Year Collection which will be available exclusively through Tmall for a week from January 16. The collection’s wider in-store and online rollout will follow. 

The collection is inspired by the upcoming Year of the Pig and includes two of Mulberry’s most popular bag styles: a Small Amberley Satchel and a Mini Seaton. Both are available in scarlet or black croc printed leather and each one is accessorised with a bespoke bag scarf designed by Chinese artist Li Rui, featuring a traditional landscape painting. 

But it’s not just about products with the company also leveraging social media to reach out to Chinese consumers. It’s inviting WeChat users “to explore the legend behind the lunar year cycle with a game specially created for the platform.” In the game, once the Pig has found his way to the mythical party at the Emperor’s Palace, a New Year fortune is uncovered for each user. 

And the focus on the event continues in-store with Mulberry shops across the region also gifting visitors with traditional Lunar New Year lucky red envelopes along with their purchases. 

CEO Thierry Andretta said that “growing our Chinese customer base is a key element of our international development strategy and we see Tmall as an important partner in this journey.”

The company currently has more than 120 stores globally but only five of them are in China. It already sells online in the country but a presence on Tmall should prove a huge boost. The wider Tmall site, which launched in 2008, had over 0.5 billion monthly active users as of early last year and was the world’s ninth most visited website. 

Its Luxury Pavilion, which only launched around 18 months ago, helps funnel some of these customers to the 80+ luxury brands available there and some of the customers are heavy spenders. The company said that figures last April showed that more than 100,000 shoppers on Luxury Pavilion each spend over CNY1 million (roughly £115,000) a year on luxury goods. Nearly half of these luxury consumers are 28 years old or younger.