Luxury retailers’ entry and expansion strategies in China

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine internationalising luxury fashion retailers’ entry and post-entry expansion strategies in mainland China.

Design/methodology/approach

The study adopts a pragmatic mixed-methods research approach, including a quantitative mail survey and qualitative face-to-face in-depth executive interviews.

Findings

Different from initial single entry methods, multiple methods are increasingly popular for luxury fashion retailers’ post-entry expansion in mainland China. Although directly controlled expansion strategies have become significant, local partnerships are still important and omnichannel distribution strategies are rapidly growing.

Research limitations/implications

The findings were generated in mainland China only.

Originality/value

This work provides an understanding of luxury fashion retailers’ activities in the Chinese market from both macro and micro perspectives. It examines luxury fashion retailers’ initial entry strategies, as well as their post-entry expansion strategies in mainland China. Few studies in the area of international luxury fashion retailing have employed a mixed-methods approach with this number of participants.

Citation

Bai, H., McColl, J. and Moore, C. (2017), "Luxury retailers’ entry and expansion strategies in China", International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol. 45 No. 11, pp. 1181-1199. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJRDM-11-2016-0232