Unknown Source, True And False, Luxury Online Shopping Chaos

Recently, with the exposure of LV's fake websites, people found that under the impetus of luxury consumption craze, Jingdong mall,

But Louis Weedon, Armani, Gucci, Prada, many of the world's top luxury related personages have told reporters that they have never authorized any domestic e-commerce website to sell their products online.

These brands will not provide any inspection requirements for online shopping luxury goods, as well as after-sales maintenance, global.

Unknown source of goods

Opening the luxury area of Dangdang and Jingdong mall, one of the familiar luxury brands quickly comes into the eyes of reporters: LV, Gucci, Prada, Coach, Armani, Fendi......

However, it is hard for the outside world to think that the luxury goods purchased by the e-commerce website are not the luxury companies.

Louis Weedon, a related official in China, told our reporter that in China, Louis Weedon would only invite customers to go directly to the franchised stores to buy goods, without authorization of any form of online shopping channels.

"Louis Weedon's policy in the world is not to authorize, not to act, not to find partners, and all sales channels are direct.

At present, in the United States and Japan, Louis Weedon has opened online shopping business, but it is only limited to its own official website.

The source said.

Coincidentally, a staff member of Armani also told reporters that at present, Armani headquarters is the only authorized online shopping channel in China with only Emporio Armani's official website. In addition, it has never authorized any other websites.

Reporter survey found that almost all the international luxury brands have not made any form of authorized distribution agent to the domestic e-commerce website. Where did the luxury goods come from? The reporter asked the customer service staff as a customer's identity. The customer service personnel said that the luxury goods on Dangdang can be divided into two categories: one is direct luxury goods, the other is supplied by third party businesses.

"We can guarantee that all luxuries on Dangdang are genuine, including the third party merchants, but we don't know where the goods come from," he said.

The customer service staff said a third party merchant named "JJMODA" is the main supplier of Dangdang luxury goods.

The so-called "third party business" refers to those independent business shops, renting the platform of well-known e-commerce websites to sell their products.

The reporter contacted JJMODA company, the company official said, the luxury goods sold by the company were all imported from Italy, but it was not known whether they were directly purchased in luxury goods factories.

Lu Xiao, an assistant professor of marketing at Fudan University and a luxury brand management expert, said that because of the lack of authorization from the luxury brands, domestic e-commerce sites could not get the right to purchase directly, and there were three possible ways of obtaining goods.

"First, discount stores from Italy, overseas duty-free shops, or discounted luxury goods purchased from overseas outlets, and then pported back to China to form regional differences; two, some agents or channel operators in Southeast Asian countries have sold their luxury goods to China's domestic websites for the purpose of digesting the backlog of inventory in the previous year or the previous quarter; third, it is not ruled out that the high real counterfeit goods."

Lu Xiao said.

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Difficile true

Although the customer service staff of Dangdang and JJMODA have promised journalists that they will sell the products are genuine, the two are very difficult to produce convincing proof materials.

A staff member of JJMODA told reporters "recognition" skills that they could provide import and export declarations for every luxury item bought online; meanwhile, every luxury handbag has a serial number in its memory, which is a unique "identity card" of luxury goods. Consumers can take this number to inquire about luxuries on the official website.

"If you don't feel relieved, you can go to the local shop in Shanghai to check the goods."

The person promised to assure reporters.

Since then, the reporter has called a "customer service hotline of Louis Weedon China Limited Edition special sale designated official website", the other customer service personnel's argument is similar to those mentioned above.

This website has been exposed by CCTV's weekly quality inspection report in mid October. The program says that a domain name is "www.lv.cn", which is claimed to be "Louis Weedon China Limited Edition special sales designated official website", which is confirmed by the Nanchang Municipal Public Security Bureau as a false website.

Police said the website was very confusing and all its LV products sold were counterfeit products.

In October 18th, when reporters searched "LV official website", they found that the fake website appeared again on the homepage headline of Baidu search after changing the domain name.

The customer service staff, known as "LV official website", told reporters that the Louis Weedon products of the website were genuine products, and they all came from Italy. They could provide customs declarations and support cash on delivery.

If you do not feel relieved, you can also get the counter to check the goods.

But Mr. Wei, a foreign trade company, told our reporter that the declaration form could not be used as a genuine certificate, because the customs declaration only represented the product through customs, and the customs declaration form could be reissued, which left too much trouble in the operation.

Mr. Wei told reporters at the same time that the so-called "identity card" of luxury goods can not really be true or false.

"The first two letters in this string represent the place of origin, and the latter 4 represent the production date.

There is no such enquiry service on the international official website of luxury goods.

As for the "inspection of the shop counters", Louis Weedon, a Chinese district official, told reporters that for the LV products purchased by the informal channels, the entity stores refused to provide any form of "confirmation service".

Quality is difficult to guarantee

Lu Xiao believes that if there is a lack of physical counters verification, luxury online shopping will undoubtedly contain a huge risk of selling, because for the high simulation of luxury goods, the vast majority of customers do not have the ability to distinguish.

However, even if online shopping buys genuine products, consumers may still be worried about not enjoying luxury after-sales service.

A Coach store owner told the reporter that Coach promised consumers that they would provide free maintenance and repair services for 12 months of sale, but only customers who bought the products were not listed here because they could not verify the authenticity of the products.

And a Hongkong head of Prada China also told reporters that Prada products enjoy 24 months' global joint guarantee service, but customers must produce shopping vouchers, small bills and warranty couplet before their maintenance.

"Even if it is genuine, I can not guarantee that Prada will accept the maintenance of online shopping products.

Even if accepted, online shopping products will not enjoy free services within two years.

These people said.

For luxury magnates, the customer service staff of Dangdang and JJMODA told reporters that if the online shopping luxuries involved quality problems, they could be sent back to the website or third party merchants and sent back to Italy for repair.

However, the expenses will be borne by the customers themselves.

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Links

Lu Xiao: why luxury goods refuse online shopping?

Reporter: Why are luxury brands unwilling to join hands with internet providers?

Lu Xiao: the luxury industry is a very special industry with a unique marketing system called "selective retailing".

For the protection of its brand image, luxury goods will strictly control and approve sales channels, and be subject to special legal protection in the European Union and the United States.

A more famous case is that Carrefour ran poorly in Japan, so LV's handbags were sold in supermarkets to attract popularity.

Soon, Carrefour was prosecuted by LV and finally lost.

At that time, the court gave the reason that Carrefour had no formal authorization, and luxury goods were not suitable for sale in supermarkets.

Because of its special location, luxury goods have high requirements for the sales environment of products.

From a worldwide perspective, authorized agents can promise in the contract that products will be sold in what kind of environment they are likely to be authorized.

And for domestic websites, it seems that such conditions are not yet available.

Reporter: through luxuries purchased by online shopping, physical counters do not provide testing, nor can they enjoy quality warranty after-sale service. This can be regarded as a boycott of online shopping channels by luxury goods companies.

Under such circumstances, how far can the domestic luxury websites go?

Lu Xiao: now the electricity supplier industry is developing rapidly. Many electric providers are looking at the strong market demand of luxury goods, but no one can solve the practical problems of authorization.

In fact, the business model based on this is very risky because consumers will always feel uneasy without a stable source of supply.

Luxury companies seem to be more interested in online sales through their own website, because the official network knows how to create a consumer atmosphere for luxury goods compared to the third party.

Reporter: but the domestic consumer groups are quite different from those in Europe and the US. They will be more sensitive to prices. Does this mean that online shopping channels will have a longer chance to survive?

Lu Xiao: indeed, the consumers who choose online shopping will pay more attention to the price. They may be just graduated college students or small white-collar workers whose income is not high, which has a large number of "mass base" in China.

But with the increase of age and income, this consumer group will have a mature process.

They will pay more attention to the whole process of obtaining luxury goods.

I think consumers will gradually mature and return to formal channels, and those who do not care about after-sale quality assurance and shopping experience are not the core group and target group of luxury consumption.