Luxury brands have hit some bumps on the road to expanding their sales in China, so many are coming up with new ways to reach their customers, especially younger ones, by opening up more social media accounts.

CCTV’s Hu Xiaocen reports. 

If you haven’t noticed, an increasing number of luxury brands are showing up somewhere new these days, especially with accounts on new media. The pages have information about the brand’s latest products, their culture, and sometimes even personal tailoring services. Just a few days ago, Dior, for example, offered a limited edition of a personally tailored bag online, just in time for Chinese Valentine’s Day. It sold out in one day. Julia Zhu is one of many loyal followers of luxury brands’ social media posts, and she’s very happy to find them there. 

Zhu said the way luxury brands are marketing has changed in recent years. Opening social media pages draws her closer to these brands. Now she can get to know the latest trends of the brand with her phone. 

Some of the brands even include an online shop in their social media accounts. Zhu said that while she’s normally happy shopping online, when it comes to luxury goods she usually prefers to go to offline stores. 

“I value the quality and service of luxury brands so if I want to buy something, I will go to offline stores. Still, I do look for information in online stores or their official websites, look for the trendy products and see 360 degree photos to decide whether I want to buy them or not,” Zhu said.

“In addition to making an appearance on social media themselves, many brands are now working with online opinion leaders – fashion bloggers, famous critics, or simply web celebrities. These online key opinion leaders introduce the latest fashion trends to millions of readers every day, and shape their shopping decisions too,” Cathy Zhang, one of their readers said. 

“When there is only online shopping website like Taobao, most of time I prefer offline store for their quality and the convenience to see the product for real,” Zhang said. “But these fashion bloggers, they are trying to be as genuine as possible and they will tell you how they truly feel about the item. In that aspect, I would actually try some of the items they recommend rather than look around.”

A US monitoring company says that 92 percent of the luxury brands that have entered China have set up accounts on social networking sites, up from less than half that figure two years ago.