Johann Rupert’s Swiss luxury brands group, Richemont on Friday formed a joint venture with Chinese online retailer Alibaba. The partnership shows the strongest signs yet of how the combined forces of China and online retail are reshaping the global luxury goods industry.
The joint venture will see Richemont-owned online retail sites Yoox Net-a-Porter (YNAP) and Mr Porter launched on Alibaba’s Tmall Luxury Pavilion for consumers in China.
Launched in 2017, the Tmall Luxury Pavilion enables brands to deliver highly personalised shopping experience through curated homepages, customised brand pages, product recommendations and exclusive VIP awards.
Rupert said in a media release, “Our digital offering in China is in its infancy and we believe that partnering with Alibaba will enable us to become a significant and sustainable online player in this market.”
Alibaba will provide technology infrastructure, marketing, payments, logistics and other technology support to the joint venture and in turn will be able to tap into YNAP’s strong relationship with luxury brands, some 950 of them being currently distributed through YNAP in China.
Meanwhile, Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang said, “Chinese consumers are expected to account for nearly half of the global luxury market by 2025 and through this partnership, Alibaba and YNAP will be even better positioned to capture this compelling market opportunity.”
