Fendi by the durian: Chinese grocery retailers embrace luxury brands

What happened Shoppers in China can now buy Fendi on Hema (盒马), the grocery app best known for fresh produce. The platform also offers Gucci scarves, and Coach and Longchamp bags, among other luxury goods. These items are part of Hema’s cross-border retail business, the “Global Selection” series under “Global Buy,” provided by third-party sellers who handle product information, delivery, and after-sales services, with Hema Xuanxuan managing promotion. Hema’s luxury gambit: From fresh produce to Fendi To understand this crossover, it helps to look at what Hema is today. Founded in 2015, the platform has been Alibaba’s flagship “new retail” experiment from the start. Its core model blends an online app with physical stores that function as both shopping spaces and fulfillment hubs for its signature 30-minute delivery service. Fresh groceries — the defining category and traffic engine — have attracted urban families looking for convenience and quality, fostering high-frequency purchasing habits. While Hema appears to be a digitized fresh-food supermarket, at its core it is a data-driven platform that uses fresh produce as a high-frequency entry point to serve demand for one-stop lifestyle shopping. As the global luxury market faces a period of slower growth, many brands contend with inventory pressure and sluggish sales. Partnering with a retailer like Hema, with its established membership system, offers a way to move past-season goods and improve cash flow. These luxury items are not sold by Hema itself, but through “Hema Global Selection,” supplied and serviced directly by overseas third-party sellers. Hema’s role is primarily promotional. The model allows luxury brands to test a new channel with minimal investment and low risks. The Jing Take Hema is hardly the first to make such a move. Earlier in 2025, Sam’s Club began selling of luxury items — Gucci scarves, Armani down jackets and more — both in-store and online. Some of the more popular products even trended on Weibo as shoppers rushed to buy them. The membership model: Luxury’s new distribution channel As a large membership-based foreign retailer, Sam’s has long positioned itself around differentiated products, a distinctive shopping experience and a lifestyle built for middle-class families. In today’s more cautious consumer climate, shoppers prefer to buy luxury goods through trusted channels at prices that feel reasonable. Whether it’s Sam’s membership ecosystem or Hema’s fresh-food traffic engine, both have tapped into the same shift: allowing consumers to satisfy their desire for luxury while validating their sense of smart spending, folding high-end purchases into everyday shopping routines. For Hema, luxury represents a way to drive traffic and generate buzz beyond its fresh food base. For Sam’s, luxury serves to retain members by offering scarce, high-demand products that justify the membership fee and reinforce customer loyalty. As Xiaohongshu user Insider Iris Gu (@圈内人Iris谷) observed, this type of collaboration appears to be a “win-win-win”: brands move inventory, retailers boost visibility and loyalty, and consumers access luxury at lower prices. Trust issues: The authenticity crisis But beneath the opportunity lies a growing crisis of trust. Despite assurances of authenticity, cross-border items sold under “global purchase” models do not support unconditional returns — a flaw that erodes user experience and platform credibility. Social media is filled with complaints: damaged goods, doubts about authenticity, and consumers with no clear path to resolution. The severity of the issue was exposed in one case. In March 2025, a consumer who purchased a Gucci belt on the Sam’s app had it questioned by his wife as potentially resold. The topic, #HusbandBuysGucciAtSamsWifeSuspectsResale (丈夫山姆买古驰妻子怀疑二次销售), went viral on Weibo, reaching 227,000 views and sparking public concern over the platform’s quality control and sourcing. Although Sam’s eventually issued a refund, the reputational damage was done. Beyond inventory management: The brand value question If a crisis of trust is merely a surface-level challenge for this retail experiment, the real test of a brand and platform’s wisdom lies in how well they can protect brand value in a new channel. In the long run, the foundation of luxury brands remains their brand value and heritage of craftsmanship. The core challenge for all parties involved is how to embrace new channels and reach new customer segments while safeguarding these essential assets. Despite the challenges of maintaining brand positioning, the blurring of retail boundaries has become inevitable. The practices of Hema and Sam’s Club demonstrate that if a platform understands its target audience and builds trust, even a fresh-food supermarket can become a channel for luxury brands. The true winners in this transformation, however, will not be the platforms that treat luxury goods like everyday items, but those that can uphold both brand dignity and consumer trust. The Jing Take reports on a piece of the leading news and presents our editorial team’s analysis of the key implications for the luxury industry. In the recurring column, we analyze everything from product drops and mergers to heated debate sprouting on Chinese social media.

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Fendi by the durian: Chinese grocery retailers embrace luxury brands