Luxury’s new playbook: From checkout to experience

The next phase of growth for online luxury platforms is moving into the physical world. In late April, Tmall Luxury Pavilion joined forces with British luxury house Burberry and Wedgwood, the British ceramics brand with royal warrant status, to host a three-day, two-night luxury journey at Songtsam Linka Kunming boutique hotel. The immersive lifestyle experience, themed “Seeking Spring at Ease,” brought together more than 20 VIC clients from Tmall Luxury Pavilion’s Luxury Club, weaving British aesthetics into the local culture of Yunnan. Unlike conventional brand events centered on product displays and one-way presentations, the journey was designed around the five senses: scent, sight, touch, craftsmanship and taste. Guests “smelled” the essence of spring through bamboo fans in a mountain bamboo grove; captured its colors at a Burberry and Wedgwood new-collection presentation; “touched” the season on a cycling route by Dianchi Lake; created unique spring objects in a beading workshop; and ended with a bespoke dinner that blended Yunnan ingredients with British aesthetics. The journey was far more than a brand event for high-net-worth clients. It signaled a quiet but profound shift in the luxury industry: brands are moving from merely chasing visibility to engaging the right people through experiences. If the journey showed the emotional side of the relationship between luxury brands and high-net-worth clients, it also reflected a bigger question at the center of China’s next luxury cycle: how brands can keep building consumer connections as the market recovers. According to Roland Berger’s forecast for China’s luxury market, growth is expected to recover to 3%-6 % in 2026 and remain at a steady 5%-7% over the next five years. Julien Bourdinière, a senior partner at management consultancy Roland Berger, said luxury brands should capitalize on this window to accelerate their investment in AI and digital capabilities. Those that build digital touch points early and deepen consumer relationships are poised to rebound first in the next recovery. This means China’s luxury recovery will not simply return to the old playbook of store expansion and rising foot traffic. Fragmented purchase decision journeys, earlier-stage discovery through content seeding, and high-net-worth clients’ demand for bespoke services are all pushing both brands and platforms to evolve. The new-launch engine: Driving core growth The industry widely regards China’s recovery as a matter of when, not if. Luxury brands are treating the market as a key launchpad for new products, deploying more localized merchandising strategies to secure their growth base. Tmall Luxury Pavilion brings together more than 200 leading luxury brands and a large pool of high-net-worth clients within Alibaba’s ecosystem. That concentration of brands and users is creating a Matthew effect: more houses are prioritizing the platform as the first stop for launching new products, limited editions and collaborations. Ahead of 520, China’s online Valentine’s Day, more than 100 luxury brands are releasing over 10,000 new products on Tmall. Dozens of labels, including Burberry, Cartier, Maison Margiela, OMEGA, Tiffany and TOD’S, are introducing Tmall-exclusive or special-edition pieces, from Cartier LOVE Unlimited Bracelet, Flexible to Tiffany’s Sixteen Stone Earrings and OMEGA’s De Ville watches for men and women. This year marks the highest number of Tmall-exclusive luxury releases to date. During Tmall’s 618 Mid-Year Shopping Festival, one of China’s most anticipated consumer extravaganzas, luxury demand is expected to be further unleashed. As products once confined to windows, runways or small private circles become visible, discussable and instantly attainable online, “going to Tmall for new launches” is evolving into a steady consumer habit. It is also giving luxury brands a more predictable source of growth. Tmall Luxury Pavilion data shows that sales of new products grew at a high double-digit rate over the past year. During last year’s Singles’ Day, sales of Tmall-exclusive new products were roughly seven times higher than those of standard new products, with particular appeal among Gen-Z and female consumers. Consumer-centric, cross-channel operations If product scarcity defines the appeal of online luxury retail, sustainable growth depends on whether brands can build closer ties with their clients. Today’s luxury consumers follow a fragmented decision path. They may discover a trend on Xiaohongshu (also known as RedNote), study craftsmanship in a livestream session, try on a piece in-store and complete the purchase online. Online and offline are no longer competing channels, but an integrated network that shapes brand perception together. This shift has given rise to two parallel consumer-centric strategies. The first targets high-net-worth clients online, where brands are moving from sales to deeper relationship management. Today’s high-value clients transcend simple definitions based on spending power alone. The VIC profile is becoming more complex, and their motivations are changing. These clients care about self-realization and lifestyle fit. Brands need to move beyond old demographic labels to identify and serve a new cohort of high-value consumers, one driven by values and looking for deeper resonance. This explains why Tmall Luxury Pavilion launched “Luxury Journey” as an event IP this year. Since March, the series has partnered with brands including Ralph Lauren, Tory Burch, MIKIMOTO and Longines, inviting Luxury Club members to visit flagship stores, view high jewelry and watches, and attend private parties and celebrity dinners. The format gives clients immersive experiences that combine new products, local culture and elite socialization, while offering luxury brands a one-stop solution to connect precisely with high-net-worth clients from online to offline. As Tmall Luxury Pavilion’s core community, Luxury Club amassed more than 300,000 consumers interested in high-end travel, sports, art, culture and quality living, wielding strong influence within its circles. Ninety-percent of members are aged between 25 and 49, with women accounting for more than 70%. The club operates a tiered membership system, with four levels of benefits spanning exclusive gifts from more than 100 brands, luxury cashback rewards, private sales and offline events. Beyond loyal luxury shoppers, Luxury Club is also drawing high-net-worth clients from across Alibaba’s consumption ecosystem. Through benefits, content and experiences, it is extending membership beyond one-off purchases into a more identity-driven community. High-net-worth customer management is no longer limited to after-sales service; it is moving into the realm of aesthetics, culture and lifestyle affinity. Backed by the Taobao and Tmall Group ecosystem, Tmall Luxury Pavilion is extending high-net-worth client operations into broader lifestyle contexts, building a map of how these consumers live. For the Kunming journey, the platform worked with Fliggy for the first time, inviting F6 members (Fliggy’s highest loyalty tier) to take part. Fliggy’s F4 to F6 members can now access Tmall Luxury Pavilion’s Luxury Club directly, allowing high-end travelers accustomed to premium airlines and global boutique hotels to enjoy exclusive luxury-brand benefits through Tmall. The second strategy is aimed at digitally native younger consumers. For them, brands must rebuild the logic of interaction. Their path from awareness to purchase is often shaped by content seeding, livestream explanations and community discussion. Last year, Tmall and Xiaohongshu drew industry attention with the partnership to power cross-platform shopping. Content on Xiaohongshu can link directly to Tmall stores for purchase, making the path from discovery to conversion visible and easier to optimize. Combined with the widely used cross-platform marketing tool, the system empowers brands with full-chain tracking from content seeding to transaction. Over the past year, more than 100 luxury brands have leveraged the new plan to move millions of consumers from content discovery to transactions on Tmall platform. Data shows that direct sales conversions through this path have risen by 30% year-on-year. But cross-platform conversion depends on consistency across channels. If product information, pricing systems or membership benefits break apart across touch points, consumer trust will erode quickly. Bourdinière has also stressed that luxury brands’ physical stores must be deeply integrated with online platforms and work in complement, rather than in isolation. In the next growth window, digital commercial capabilities will be critical, especially the use of AI and digital technology to deepen consumer relationships, personalize interactions and sharpen marketing. Deeper support comes from the recovery of Chinese luxury consumer confidence. Roland Berger’s latest consumer survey shows that more than one-third of Chinese luxury consumers say they plan to increase spending. “Quality” and “brand reputation” have again become the most persuasive purchase drivers. At the same time, the two motivations that powered market growth over the past decade — self-expression and the signaling of social status — are making a strong return. For luxury brands, this implies a dual mandate: they must hold fast to the foundations of product — craftmanship, materials and design cannot be compromised — while making their value visible, legible and trustworthy to a new generation of consumers. Anny Liu, General Manager of Tmall Luxury Pavilion, told Jing Daily that the platform will continue focusing on omnichannel marketing, consumer operations and product supply, working with brands to build long-term growth engines and deepening influence among young consumers and high-net-worth clients. Ultimately, for luxury brands, future growth will not happen only at the moment a new product goes live. It will happen in every scenario where consumers are inspired, understood, invited in and brought closer to a brand’s world. This time, capturing the opportunity hinges on truly understanding Chinese consumers’ journey — whether they are standing in front of a shop window or scrolling on a phone.

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Luxury’s new playbook: From checkout to experience

How Bottega Veneta weaved China’s forever it bag