Aussie label has designs on China growth

Fortune favours the brave — and the very prepared. And for those trying to crack the lucrative China market, preparation is everything.

C/meo Collective head designer Siham Elmawey with model Emilee MacCormack in one of the label’s creations. Picture: Alistair Nicholls

Fortune favours the brave — and the very prepared. And for those trying to crack the lucrative China market, preparation is everything.

Adelaide fashion brand C/meo Collective has just taken up virtual residence on China’s biggest business-to-consumer marketplace, Tmall, one of the first Australian fashion brands to do so.

“It feels fantastic to be one of the first on Tmall,” says Blake Williams, chief executive of Australian Fashion Labels, which produces four brands.

“It’s something that we have been working towards, establishing ourselves in China from an almost zero start in 2015.”

That year, the company set up a satellite branch in Shanghai, headed up by its China chief executive, Mei Ping Doery.

Rather than trying to set up stores with local partners, it looked to wholesale distribution as a first step, and focused on PR, marketing and building brand awareness.

This includes using local ­social media platforms including Weibo and WeChat, as well as collaborations with Chinese “KOLs” (Key Opinion Leaders) or influencers, who may or may not live in China but appeal to the Chinese millennial consumer, both in China and living abroad.

“If you went to Tmall without brand awareness you would not be successful.”

AFL’s four brands are sold in 300 retailers across China; this domestic China market makes up 10 per cent of the company’s business. This is expected to grow to 15 per cent next year.

If figures include Chinese domestic buyers shopping from other international sites, such as its Australian e-commerce platform, that figure is expected to reach 20 per cent.

Tmall, a marketplace for international brands in China, has nearly 700 million active users.

Australian fashion is considered an emerging category for Tmall. Doery says “Brand Australia” continues to have positive equity in China, and fashion can also tap into this.