Department store's link with online brand a pioneering move

Hong Kong-listed New World Department Store China Ltd has begun operating online-to-offline sales channels with an online fashion brand in Shanghai, the first of its kind in China's retail market.

INMAN is one of the largest fashion brands by sales volume and number of consumers, which had sold products online to some six million customers by last month with sales revenue of more than one billion yuan ($156.5 million).

The brand is seeking expand offline sales to some 10 percent of total revenue by next year and 30 percent by 2020, and opening bricks-and-mortar stores will help reach more consumers and display more products, according to brand founder Fang Jianhua.

Analysts said the cooperation between the department store and the online fashion brand is a pioneering model that enables a bricks-and-mortar store to become an effective showroom and change fans of the online brand to foot traffic in a store.

The integration program is the first of its kind between a fashion brand and a department store, which can be translated in many other sectors, showing that online and offline sales channels are not only competing but also integrating and mutually beneficial, according to Chen Jianmin, head of China Brand Business Alliance.