Fashion brand hopes No 8 brings good luck in China

A model demonstrates on a catwalk during a fashion show in Seoul organized by China's Alibaba Group and brands from the Republic of Korea in September. CHINA DAILY

Eight is a very auspicious number in China and smart businesspeople in South Korea know all about it.

When fashion brand 8 Seconds was created in Seoul two years ago, parent company Samsung C&T already had a plan to enter the China market by adding a lucky Chinese number into it name.

Now the company, which runs a strong fashion division with a six-decade history in South Korea, has chosen as its entry point a virtual store on China's bustling online marketplace.

It announced in mid-September that it will open a flagship store on Tmall and choose Juhuasuan, a group-buying platform, as its online marketing channel.

Yoon Ju-hwa, head of the fashion division of Samsung C&T, said his company has the ambition to make China its "second home market".

"E-commerce is what we see as a critical approach to achieve this goal," he said.

Samsung C&T is not the only Korean fashion company that plans score in China via e-commerce. In mid-September, Alibaba hosted its first overseas fashion shows in Seoul with as many as 200 fashion brands interested in tapping into China's huge e-commerce market participating.

"There are a lot of cultural similarities between China and South Korea. With the rising popularity of some South Korea soap operas in China, fashionable products, such as clothes and cosmetics, are a big deal in China, especially among young people," said Zhang Jianfeng, president of Alibaba's retail business unit.

Zhang said that e-commerce can better help South Korean brands access China's rising middle class.

"Our mobile Taobao has more than 100 million visitors a day. Even those who target a niche market are able to see solid sales with the help of our online platforms," he said.

Cross-border e-commerce, which allows Chinese shoppers to buy imported goods directly from overseas vendors, has also proven an effective way for Chinese to get the latest fashion trends from South Korea.

To tap the growing demand for imported goods from South Korea, Alibaba and its e-commerce rival JD.com have launched online channels dedicated to imported Korean goods.

Beijing-based JD.com told China Daily that nearly 100 Korean companies have set up stores on its online channel, called Korean Mall, and sales in August were 10 times those of March when the mall was launched.

"Brands from South Korea had transactions of over 10 billion yuan ($1.57 billion) on JD.com in 2014. The number is expected to exceed 50 billion yuan in the next three years," the company said.