Are Diamonds Chinese Consumers’ Best Friends?

According to the Competitive Map China included in the latest report released by Contactlab and Exane BNP Paribas, China is the most advanced digital market in the world. However, it seems that Western luxury brands still struggle with keeping up the local market growing demand.

Western luxury brands are making more and more efforts to engage with customers in China. Nevertheless, they still have a fragile digital position, as they are still lagging in providing services which have great relevance for Chinese consumers. Therefore, no wonder digital luxury is still dominated by Chinese champions.

There were some brands that stand out among competitors for their attention to the Chinese target.

I wanted to analyze the behavior of three luxury brands, in the Competitive Map China specifically jewelry brands: Cartier, Bulgari and Tiffany. It is known, China is currently the second biggest consumer of jewelry in the world. Probably because jewelry is another alternative to bank savings, and investing money becomes a priority in a country with strong economic growth; in fact, Chinese consumers buy jewels and they love them.

Looking at the digital competitive matrix China only Cartier stands out on the axis. Bulgari and Tiffany on the contrary are positioned at a low-level axis.

Cartier is the best performer because has an e-commerce monobrand in addition to the most popular Chinese social networks like Baidu, WeChat, Welbo and Youku. Also a significant presence of customer services on Chinese websites is a plus. Exploiting all possible e-commerce channels and the use of major local celebrities are actually winning moves.

On the other hand, Bulgari is not performing so bad but it is still struggling to achieve a better position on the competitive map, because it hasn’t an e-commerce monobrand yet. Its presence on WeChat is important but it should increase the range of products since it is still limited to a few pieces (just 12 pieces for Christmas, necklaces for Chinese Valentine and just 3 rings from B.Zero collections.)



Tiffany is at the very bottom of our Competitive Map China. Even if it is on the main Chinese social networks (Baidu, WeChat and Welbo) and e-tailers (Secoo and Jd.com. 5Lux.com) and has a localized Chinese website what makes the difference is the absence of a localized monobrand e-commerce platform. Moreover it seems it doesn’t offer neither a personalized customer service nor cross-channel services. Such a lack of digital presence penalizes the sales in a market where more and more consumers prefer to buy luxury goods online.