Business in Contemporary China

Weibo’s marketing research institute published a luxury industry white paper generated from data from over 1000 consumers on the platform. The report was created as a guide for brands to navigate top fashions with young Chinese consumers and better understand the hottest-selling items, categories, and brands from 2018. It also explained behavioral differences between Chinese post-80s, -90s, and -00s luxury consumers.

中国已成为全球奢侈品市场的重心，千禧一代正日益崛起为全球奢侈品消费的增长主力，如何高效撩动这届年轻人成为奢侈品牌占领行业先机的必修课。

作为互联网原住民的TA们成长于更开放的环境，求同存异，乐于分享，注重自我表达，更呈现出多元的消费态度。社交媒体已然成为TA们数字生活的标配，满足了TA们获取资讯、追逐热点、发展兴趣的需求，也深刻影响着TA们的奢侈品消费决策。

微博开放广场型的社交属性和庞大丰富的内容生态，既是奢侈品牌洞悉TA们兴趣圈层、内容偏好和消费理念的窗口，同时也为品牌与TA们的精准沟通提供了多维触点。以人群洞察为基础，借力微博场域内的影响者和内容资源，善用营销工具催化传播效能，从而构建高效的用户沟通路径，抓住TA们多变的心，实现粉丝沉淀，进阶品牌忠诚。

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine internationalising luxury fashion retailers' entry and post-entry expansion strategies in mainland China.

Design/methodology/approach - The study adopts a pragmatic mixed-methods research approach, including a quantitative mail survey and qualitative face-to-face in-depth executive interviews.

Findings - Different from initial single entry methods, multiple methods are increasingly popular for luxury fashion retailers' post-entry expansion in mainland China. Although directly controlled expansion strategies have become significant, local partnerships are still important and omnichannel distribution strategies are rapidly growing.

Research limitations/implications - The findings were generated in mainland China only.

Originality/value - This work provides an understanding of luxury fashion retailers' activities in the Chinese market from both macro and micro perspectives. It examines luxury fashion retailers' initial entry strategies, as well as their post-entry expansion strategies in mainland China. Few studies in the area of international luxury fashion retailing have employed a mixed-methods approach with this number of participants.

Purpose - The paper aims to further extend our understanding by assessing the extent to which two prominent cultural values in East Asia i.e. face saving and group orientation drive consumers' perceptions of luxury goods across four East Asian markets.

Design/methodology/approach - A multi-methods research approach was adopted consisting of: an expert panel of close to 70 participants, group discussions with five extended East Asian families, personal interviews with eight East Asian scholars, a pilot test with over 50 East Asian graduate students and a multi-market survey of 443 consumer respondents in Beijing, Tokyo, Singapore and Hanoi:

Findings - The authors extend previous conceptual studies by empirically investigating the impact of these two cultural values on the perception of luxury among East Asian societies. Specifically the study reveals that across all four markets face saving has the strongest influence on the conspicuous and hedonistic dimensions of luxury, group orientation meanwhile is the strongest predictor of the quality, extended self and exclusivity dimensions of luxury. Collectively these two cultural values significantly influence East Asian perceptions of luxury. Overall, the findings reiterate the importance of understanding different cultural values and their influence across different East Asian societies.

Practical implications - The findings have important implications for managers of western luxury branded goods that are seeking to penetrate East Asian markets or seek to serve East Asian consumers. Specifically, to assist with developing suitable brand positioning, products, services, communications and pricing strategies.

Originality/value - This study contributes to our understanding of the subject by exploring the impact of face saving and group orientation on the perception of luxury goods across four East Asian countries. Several directions for future research are suggested.