Shanghai La Chapelle Fashion, one of China’s largest fashion apparel companies, is to buy online fashion retailer Hangzhou Anshe eCommerce Company, owner of the brand QiGeGe.
QiGeGe is one of China’s emerging internet companies which maintain and operate fan bases through online channels like Wechat and Weibo, which lower the operating expenses and increase the conversion rate from visits to final transactions. La Chapelle’s owner say using these channels help the company realise the goal of ‘low cost, high conversion rate’ in online sales.
La Chapelle will pay RMB135,000,000 (US$21,577,560) for 45 per cent of QiGeGe’s capital before investing a further RMB65,000,000 (US$10,389,195) in additional capital to help fund expansion. After this, it will hold a controlling 54.05 per cent stake in QiGeGe, according to documents filed with the Hong Kong stock exchange.
La Chapelle says the investment is a part of a strategy to strengthen its leading position in mass-market ladies’ casualwear market. Having launched the group’s online flagship store on Tmall last year, La Chapelle has been actively looking to form a strategic alliance with additional online shopping platforms to further improve its online sales and marketing capabilities.
“QiGeGe has a reputable team specialising in online marketing and sales with extensive experience in conducting effective online marketing and advertising through the operation of online platforms and interactions with customers,” the company said in a statement.
“Investing in QiGeGe therefore enables La Chapelle to capitalise on the talents of the former, while QiGeGe will also benefit from the group’s strong supply chain and capability to execute multi-brand strategy.”
Wang Yong, executive VP of La Chapelle, said the economic benefits from the fan groups of Wechat and Weibo have been increasingly obvious in recent years.
“A number of new internet companies with strong online sales capabilities have been spawned by this Fans Economy. QiGeGe is one of the representatives in this field.
“QiGeGe’s strong online operational capability and effective marketing among fans group has established high reputation in the online fashion retail sector in China, making it an ideal partner for La Chapelle to develop online sales platform under our own brand. The cooperation between the two parties could enhance the online operational capability of the company and drive the growth of online market share of our brands, which will develop La Chapelle’s own online platform into a leading corporation in the industry,” he said.
Meanwhile, the multi-brand product development abilities, comprehensive supply chain and strong offline sales channels possessed by La Chapelle could provide QiGeGe with essential resources for its expansion into the largest online fashion sales platform under its own brand in the PRC.
“The cooperation allows La Chapelle to realise the strategic target of developing into a product-centered online and offline fashion shopping platform in this new economic era.”
Founded in 2001, La Chapelle is a fast-growing multi-brand fashion group which designs, markets and sells apparel products with a focus on mass-market ladies’ casualwear. The group has eight brands – La Chapelle, La Chapelle Sport, 7.Modifier, Candie’s, La Babite, La Chapelle Homme, Pote and La Chapelle Kids. The group directly controls and operates 100 per cent of its nationwide sales network of 5671 retail stores located in some 1900 physical locations, mainly department store concessions and in shopping malls.
Founded in September 2009, Hangzhou Anshe E-Commerce is an online fashion retailer in China, which sells a wide range of fashionable apparel products including apparel, women’s shoes and accessories under the brand names of QiGeGe, Othermix and Othercrazy. Upon QiGeGe’s establishment in Taobao, its robust growth has made it become a well-known Tao-brand.
