尚品了解中国奢侈品消费者

    当然，尚品的发展也并非一帆风顺。赵世诚表示：“与全球其他地区，尤其是欧美的奢侈品消费者相比，中国的在线消费者需要我们花更多的时间对他们进行指导，帮助他们解读奢侈品文化、奢侈品故事和时尚品牌，尤其是那些新兴的高端品牌。”也就是说中国的时尚消费者虽然现在已经有能力购买任何高端品牌，但他们可能并不知道自己真正想要的是什么。

    有鉴于此，尚品将在9月15日推出一本在线杂志，向消费者介绍奢侈品文化。尚品已经从纽约和欧洲招聘了一些能说汉语的时尚编辑。尚品的这一战略是要自主创造时尚内容，如果这本杂志的确能够引导读者的奢侈品消费，那么这一战略还是相当划算的。毕马威会计事务所（KPMG）今年曾在中国的24个一线和二线城市对1,200名中产阶级人士进行过访问调查，结果近70%的受访者表示，他们至少每个月会在网络上搜索一次关于奢侈品品牌的信息。其中30%的受访者每周至少搜索一次奢侈品信息。这些数据表明，尚品的目标顾客可能对尚品的这本在线杂志如饥似渴，而且说不定还会把它当成购物参考。

    尚品CEO赵世诚不仅着眼于时尚潮流，也关注商业趋势。赵世诚并不是做奢侈品起家的，他最早在中国的金融机构圈里崭露头角，后来他在2000年来到美国，曾先后在惠普（HP）以及其他美国公司中供职，初来美国时，赵世诚主要从事的是电子商务。在2005年前后，赵世诚返回中国创业，利用他在美国所学的东西，和他在金融界和电子商务领域的关系，成立了北京盈天讯科技发展有限公司（Vansky），该公司主要和中国的银行一道，建立在线软件和服务。

    后来，赵世诚灵光乍现，冒出了尚品的点子。由于中国奢侈品市场的增势乐观，因此尚品的商业理念本身就具有巨大的增长潜力。不过尚品的真正创新之处，在于赵世诚与公司的三大关系银行——建设银行（China Construction Bank）、民生银行（China Minsheng Banking Corporation，也是中国第一家非国有制银行）、华夏银行（Hua Xia Bank）进行了合作，邀请这三家银行的顾客直接成为尚品会员。也就是说，尚品的会员身份也成了这些银行向顾客提供的一项特殊服务，而且会员们也可以邀请他们的朋友成为会员。这项奢侈品服务主要面向富裕的银行顾客，它有些像花旗银行的“艺术品咨询与金融”服务（Citi Private Bank Art Advisory & Finance），花旗银行的这项服务始于1979年，主要向富有的花旗私人客户提供关于艺术品收藏方面的咨询服务（尚品网负责欧洲业务的副总裁仲亿澄就曾在纽约花旗银行的这个部门工作过。）

    一些观察人士认为，从尚品所采用的策略来看，这家公司本身在本质上也不过是一个超高端的仿冒品，或者用中国流行的说法，是个山寨货。不过公平的讲，第一个吃螃蟹的人未必成功，成功的未必是第一个吃螃蟹的人。顶级的美国企业，如谷歌（Google）和苹果（Apple），也未必是各自领域内的第一家成功企业。比如谷歌并不是世界第一个搜索引擎，苹果也不是第一家生产MP3播放器的厂商——他们都是在业内前辈的工作上有所改进，才成就了今天的霸业。赵世诚特别指出，尚品网的确“从Gilt和Vente Privee的成功上获得了灵感”，但是他和他的同事们“并非简单抄袭，而是进行了许多其它创新以及细节上的革新，以符合在线奢侈品销售的本质。”其中包括尚品提供的大量客户服务，以及建立专门的团队来“做内容”，向中国的高端消费者普及奢侈品的品牌知识。

    看看中国奢侈品消费数据的节节攀升，Gilt Groupe、Vente Privee、Net-a-Porte以及其他众多发展中的电子商务网站或许也应该从尚品网身上学到些什么。

    译者：朴成奎

    There are obstacles, of course. "Compared to those from around the world, especially luxury shoppers from USA and Europe, Chinese online shoppers need more coaching time in terms of interpreting the culture, the story of luxury and fashion brands, especially for emerging high-end brands," says Zhao. What this means is that the new Chinese fashionistas might not know what they really want, even if they can afford to buy almost any high-end label.

    So on September 15, Shangpin will try to address this obstacle by launching an online editorial magazine. The company has actively been recruiting fashion editors in New York and Europe who can also speak and write in Mandarin. This strategy for providing style-related content could prove lucrative if it steers Shangpin's readers toward purchasing. In a survey conducted this year among 1,200 middle class respondents in 24 cities in tier-one and tier-two cities mainland China, audit and advisory firm KPMG found that nearly 70% of respondents said they search online for information on luxury brands at least once a month. Thirty percent do so more than once a week. These stats suggest that Shangpin's target customer likely will be hungry for the type of online editorial content Shangpin plans to provide and, ideally, buy it as shopping advice.

    Zhao pays attention to trends not only in fashion but also in business. His initial experience was not in the rag trade, but in the world of Chinese financial institutions. Having moved to the United States in 2000, he worked at Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and other U.S. companies, focusing on e-commerce during its early days. In the mid-2000s, he returned to China as an entrepreneur and decided to apply what he learned and the connections he made in both finance and e-commerce, forming a company called Vansky, which worked with Chinese banks to create online software and services.

    Then, inspiration struck: he came up with the idea of Shangpin, which in itself is a business idea with obviously huge potential, simply given the optimistic trends in China's luxury market. But the real innovation behind Shangpin is Zhao's idea of inviting lists of wealthy customers of three banks he worked with -- China Construction Bank, China Minsheng Banking Corporation (China's first privately held, and not state-owned bank) and Hua Xia Bank -- to become members of Shangping. This exclusive membership to the shopping site is pitched as a special service to them, and they are encouraged to invite friends to become members too. This luxury-focused special service for affluent bank customers echoes the concept of Citi Private Bank Art Advisory & Finance, which since 1979 has offered art collecting advice to wealthy, private banking customers of Citi (in fact, Shangpin vice president M. Claire Chung, based in Europe, once worked for this arm of Citi in New York).

    Given the tactics that Shangpin has borrowed and adapted, it might seem to some observers that the company is an example of an ultra-high-end, entrepreneurial version of what in China is known as Shanzai culture, or the practice of copycat innovation. But to be fair, top American companies such as Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL) are not always the first in their fields of success, either; Google wasn't the first search engine, and Apple wasn't the first to create MP3 players—they improved on the work of their predecessors. Zhao will say specifically that the company is "inspired from the success of Gilt and Vente Privee" but that he and his colleagues "are not just copying; we made a lot of other innovations or micro-innovations to fit the nature of online luxury shopping." These include Shangpin's extensive customer service offerings and the idea of creating a content arm that would educate high-end Chinese buyers about the labels that they plan to purchase.

    Besides, looking at the data on the rise of luxury consumption in China, it might turn out that trailblazing e-commerce sites such as Gilt Groupe, Vente Privee, Net-a-Porter and countless others would be wise to learn from Shangpin, too.