Dallas-Based High-End Retailer Currently Has 42 Stores#
Off to China?
As major luxury brands continue to open new locations throughout the Chinese interior, another trend that appears to be picking up steam in the country's larger cities is the spread of multi-brand luxury retailers. In recent years, venerable Hong Kong names like JOYCE and Lane Crawford have set up shop in Beijing and Shanghai, and earlier this year details emerged about the French retail giant Galeries Lafayette's grand (re-)opening in Beijing, set for an as-yet-undetermined date "before 2013." Now, the Dallas-based luxury retailer Neiman Marcus is said to be eyeing an ambitious China expansion that will include brick-and-mortar locations as well as e-commerce.
The company aims to expand internationally through its online operation first. However, it is investigating both brick-and-mortar and e-commerce opportunities in China. Neiman Marcus teams have been to China three times so far to do research, and are working “aggressively” on the opportunity, Hall said.
“What will affect us is the influx of Chinese travelers,” she said. “They do business in a certain way, they have a specific mindset of what they’re looking for. And because of the sheer [size of the market], we have to make sure we have the depth of product [that Chinese shoppers] are looking for, based on their interests.
"We have to understand their culture, and how we size differently.”
Neimans is already working to attract more Chinese traveler customers in its gateway stores—those in markets like Hawaii, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Las Vegas.