With this, brands can obtain more sufficient display space and time, acquire customers and collect feedback from a comprehensive perspective, which facilitates the timely optimisation of product and marketing strategies.
Incorporating consumer retail into the showroom space could be a smart move, as it allows brands to receive feedback on product and buyers to observe what consumers are gravitating towards in real time. “Brands can only truly understand the current market situation by going to stores in person,” Chao says. “Overly idealistic sales expectations may really need to be digested by designer brands themselves. In the past, brands inevitably criticised showrooms or buyers’ stores for poor sales.”
Inside trade show Onetimeshow’s RedNote section, brands displayed see-now, buy-now current season collections (with a lot of inventory), ready for KOLs to purchase or borrow and post on the social platform, often prompting very high sell-through.
When touching on the growth of Chinese boutiques, Chao remains optimistic: “We can see that boutiques in Tier 2 and 3 cities are rising rapidly. Thanks to the advantages of operating costs such as manpower and rent, their operations are more stable. Especially in Northeast China, Central China and other regions where the richness of brands can be further explored, it may become a new opportunity for brands and showrooms to continue to refine and deepen their cultivation.”
Transforming trade hubs: Risks and rewards
Although there is a growing crop of showrooms during Shanghai Fashion Week, it remains challenging to exist solely as a sales platform. To thrive in the long term, showrooms must transform into trade hubs that can help brands and stockists achieve common prosperity.
Lexi Zhang, a senior showroom manager who is also a media consultant, says many showrooms are currently out of balance when it comes to differentiating their positioning. Some showrooms focus on style or geographical relevance to gain recognition — for example, those that focus on quiet luxury, Nordic brands or Japanese brands — but there may be a paradox here. “It is inevitable that there will be internal competition for buyer resources among homogeneous brands. Therefore, when positioning themselves, showrooms should be vertical to the deep portrait of their existing core customer base, rather than simply metaphysical style and geographical relevance,” says Zhang.
Sometimes, how a brand is perceived in terms of its consumer identity is more influential than its aesthetic or stylistic choices alone. “For instance, when you clearly know that your core customer base is highly intelligent women aged 30 to 45, don’t blindly define them as lovers of minimalist style, but deeply understand their clothing needs for [different occasions],” he adds.
At the same time, Zhang says: “Whether from the brand side or the buyer side, showrooms should never think about making quick money, otherwise every penny of quick money earned is actually overdrawing their own future reputation and market potential.”
Chao of Mons Showroom agrees. “The prosperity during the [pandemic] was a variable, and the current ‘calmness’ is the norm in the market. Retailers and designers need to learn to accept the small and beautiful survival philosophy, and the same goes for showrooms,” says Chao. “This year may be a watershed, and the industry concentration is rapidly increasing. ‘Survivors’ must establish irreplaceable core capabilities, with healthy cash flow and a unique brand portfolio as far more vital than blind expansion.”
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