Mapping China: Fashion - Shopping Location

How to find the best shopping location to sell your products, when you enter the Chinese market? The importance of the most suitable mall is one of the most underestimated aspects of being successful in China. An interview with Koen Naber, owner of the Chinese branch of O’Quirey, which sells fashionable and popular handmade shoes. One of the topics he mentions is how to choose your best shopping location. But he also explains about his relationship with Chinese customers, and their changed attitude in purchasing fashion articles.

Koen Naber: ‘Location, the most common mistake'

Many entrepreneurs in the fashion world adapt to Chinese customers, but Koen Naber is acting different. The young entrepreneur always carries out his Dutch entrepreneurial spirit and hospitality. "After all, that is what people expect of me, as a foreigner in this world."

Parkview Green, one of the most beautiful shopping malls in Beijing, where art plays an important role in the public space. The mall in the central Dong Da Qiao Road is not your average mall where any entrepreneur fits in. You find different shops here, often with surprising concepts.

One is run by Koen Naber. He is owner and managing director of the Chinese branch of O'Quirey, that offers handmade shoes which indeed are different - the upper leather part is sewn together with the leather sole in a sustainable way and with high quality. Matching belts are also sold. O'Quirey is best known for its bright colored shoes. One of the best-known fixed clients in the Netherlands is football analyst Johan Derksen.

"People in China are curious and for them the shoes are beautiful", says Naber. "The customers who visit my shop normally do not look too much at the price. If they want something, they buy it right away. I had a young woman who bought five pairs of men shoes (250 euros each) and she also ordered three pair extra for herself. She paid cash."

Chinese people are willing to spend money on fashion, but want something more than just the product. ,,Especially in the beginning. That’s what I am for. Good information is important to people, they want to hear my expertise and they want to know what they are buying. It’s about product ánd service, more than in western countries. I like this type of customers: sophisticated people, who often already have seen something of the world and therefore are familiar with non-Chinese brands."

Certainly the first purchase is important to keep the customer. "With personal contact. After this first personal experience they may also order by internet, because then they know what they're receiving. We also brand ourselves as foreign, which appeals to many people as well."

At Parkview Green, the former student of the University of Groningen – he first worked as a tax lawyer with Baker & McKenzie – has an excellent location for his business. And this is something crucial for who plans to go into business in China, he emphasizes.

"If you look at the fashion world this is certainly important. You have to know which mall attracts what type of audience, what other shops are already there or plan to establish. If you're at the wrong spot, you can normally forget about being successful. This is a risk. Real estate tycoons sometimes want to put you on a location where you have nothing to win. Make sure you do good research, to avoid this. It is the biggest mistake made in a city like Beijing."

Naber - who also owns Wolfgang Gieler, a German brand of high heels which expresses elegance, confidence and sex appeal – has seen rapid changes in the fashion scene in this part of the world, in the last few years.

"People here are earning more and more money, you can notice it everywhere. Years ago, many Chinese are happy with imitation branded goods, but today it is like a dream come true when they can afford genuine branded items. "

Those items do not have to be from the most expensive brands. ,,If Chinese people know an item has good quality, and is durable, they are interested. People here are not stupid, they often do good research before they make any purchase. If you have a good product which does not have any disadvantage, and you tell the people with passion about it, you're doing well. "

Return to the index page of Mapping China: Fashion