较小城市更加青睐网购奢侈品

Question: Who is more likely to buy a Jimmy Choo handbag from net-a-porter.com?

a) a fashion-savvy office lady in Beijing; or

b) a housewife in Zhangye, Gansu province.

Surprisingly, the correct answer is b.

A recent study conducted by the Boston Consulting Group says there will be 220 million affluent consumers, who are from households earning between $20,000 to $1 million, in China by 2020, and 75 percent of them will live in "smaller" cities.

Fashion analysis website fashionbi.com's marketing manager Marivi Avalos Monarrez indicates these people are the main consumers of online luxury platforms like net-a-porter.com.

"Now speaking in terms of online shopping, the trend is pointing again to consumers in smaller cities. It is now estimated that 250 million Chinese consumers will shop online this year and the average shopper in a fourth-tier city in China will spend 50 percent or more of their income on e-commerce than those in top-tier cities," Monarrez says in an e-mail interview with China Daily.

Zhao Shicheng, CEO and president of shangpin.com, agrees. He says most of the consumers are in the second- and third-tier, like Changsha in Hunan province, Hangzhou in Zhe-jiang province and Shenyang in Liao-ning province, and even smaller cities.

He adds these consumers are between 25 and 40 years old.

The website's statistics show the consumers who like to click to buy at home in smaller cities contributed 40 percent of the total sales early last year, but at present, it makes up 51 percent.

Multi-brand shopping mall Lane Crawford enjoyed a good growth in sales from its online platform in China's southwest cities after it opened an online service, and that is the main reason that it has put Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, on the list to open a new store, instead of metropolises like Guangzhou or Shenzhen.

These consumers prefer to buy affordable luxury products, particularly expensive garments, handbags, and accessories, not high fashion like haute couture, jewelry and watches.

These products are usually priced under 100,000 yuan ($16,700). In shangpin.com, the highest price tag in the bag catalog is 52,900 yuan - for a limited-edition LeBoy evening bag from French luxury house Chanel. On yoox.cn, the most expensive item is a medium-size black and gray fur bag from Dolce & Gabbana, with a price tag of 49,920 yuan.

Affordable luxury is the new lifestyle among consumers in the smaller cities, according to shangpin.com's Zhao. He finds many of these customers, unlike before, are getting more sophisticated. They are gradually abandoning products with big logos, but becoming more interested in the quality and styles they like.

Zhao Lin, e-commerce analyst with China Internet Network Information Center, says with the development of the Internet, consumers in smaller cities have more approaches to products from luxury houses.

However, they are not in the stage of consuming haute couture and jewelry because of their lifestyles. A typical example is a housewife in Changsha, Hunan province, who might be in desperate need of a luxury Alexander McQueen handbag to take to work, but she might not need an Alexander McQueen evening gown, because there are seldom occasions for her to dress up.

Another inevitable trend among these consumers is they are much more dependent on information from social networking services.

"And one special characteristic is the fact that people living in these cities use their online and digital resources to follow and stay up to date with their favorite fashion and luxury brands," fashionbi.com's Monarrez says.

Fashionbi tracks online shoppers' behavior and tracks more label key words that become extremely active in Sina Weibo during international fashion weeks.

Shangpin.com's Zhao concurs. He says many of the website's customers are "grouped" by WeChat, Weibo and QQ Zones.

问题：谁更有可能从颇特女士（net-a-port）网购一款周仰杰手提包？

a）对时尚有见解的北京职场女性

b）甘肃省张野市的家庭主妇

出人意料的是，正确答案是b

波士顿咨询公司最近做的一项研究显示，到2020年中国将会有2.2亿家庭收入在2万到100万美元的富裕消费者。他们中75%住在“较小”城市。

时尚分析网站时尚数据库（fashionbi.com）的销售经理Marivi Avalos Monarrez说这些人是像颇特女士这样的奢侈品网络平台的主要消费者。

Monarrez在与中国日报的电子邮件采访中说：“现在网络购物在较小城市的消费者中很流行。据估计今年中国将会有2.5亿消费者进行网购，位于四线城市的消费者平均每人会花费他们50%或者更高的工资在网购上，这一数据要比一线城市的消费者的花费高。”

尚品网CEO兼总裁赵世成同意这种观点。他说大多数消费者都是在二线或者三线城市，比如湖南省的长沙市，浙江省的杭州市，辽宁省的沈阳市，甚至是更小的城市。

他补充道这些消费者年龄都是在25到40岁之间。

网站数据显示在去年早些时候，较小城市里喜欢在家网购的消费者贡献了40%的总销售额，然而到现在，这一比例达到了51%。

在开通网上服务之后，多品牌购物中心连卡佛在中国西南城市的网络销量有明显增加，这也是决定在四川省会成都，而不是像广州和深圳这样的大都市，另开新店的主要原因。

这些消费者喜欢买平价奢侈品，尤其是昂贵的服装，手包和配饰，他们不青睐超级流行款式，比如高级时装，珠宝和手表。

这些平价奢侈品的产品价格通常在10万元（1.67万美元）以下。在尚品网，包类产品的最高价是5.29万元——是法国时尚品牌香奈儿的一款限量LeBoy晚宴包。yoox.cn上最贵的是一款杜嘉班纳中等大小的黑灰色皮包，价值4.922万元。

尚品网的赵世成说，平价奢侈品在较小城市的消费者中是一种新的生活方式。他发现这些消费者中很多人都与以前的消费不同，他们正变得越来越精致，逐渐放弃标有大商标的产品，却对他们喜欢的质量和风格变得越来越有兴趣。

中国网络信息中心的电子商业分析师赵琳（音）说，随着网络的发展，较小城市的消费者有了更多的机会来接触奢侈品店的产品。

但是，他们的生活方式决定了他们不处于消费高级时装和珠宝的阶段。典型的例子是一位来自湖南省长沙市的家庭主妇，她可以说是不顾一切的想要提一款亚历山大•麦昆的手包去上班，但是她可能并不需要亚历山大•麦昆的晚礼服，因为她很少会有机会穿那种衣服。

这些消费者的另一种必然趋势是他们会更加依赖社交网络服务上的信息。

尚品网的Monarrez说：“一个不同寻常的特点是这些城市里的人是用他们的网络或者数字资源，来跟随或者保持他们对最喜欢的时尚、奢侈品品牌的热度。”

Fashionbi对网上购物者的行动进行追踪，它也追踪了更多在国际时尚周的时候在新浪微博上尤其活跃的标签关键字。

尚品网的赵世成也在这样做，他说很多网络顾客都是通过微信、微博和qq空间分组的。