Every serious luxury watch brand knows that quickly establishing a presence in Mainland China is a must if they want to weather the economic storms coming to the West. Notwithstanding the dark clouds over Europe and the United States, China is undoubtedly the jewel of the East, now surpassing Japan as the world’s second largest market for luxury goods. Recognising this opportunity, Mainland China is rapidly becoming the new Eldorado for luxury brands eager to make their mark in a previously product-starved economy, with brick and mortar shops popping up at an alarming rate in tier two as well as lower tier cities.
If you are already packing your digital marketing bags to launch out into the Chinese market, take a moment to check that you are well prepared for the trip. Having your website translated into Chinese is not enough. An appropriate offensive digital strategy for the Chinese market must take some extraordinary factors into consideration. In fact, entering this complex market requires crucial passkeys that many luxury brands have neglected to prepare beforehand.

Coming up against the Great Firewall of China
One of the major hurdles to Western brands is the unbelievable amount of time it takes for mainland locals to actually be able to access a brand’s website. A recent study published this summer by Strangeloop evokes this colossal time lag as the most dissuasive blockage for Chinese Internet users, 80 per cent of whom lose patience before actually accessing a brand’s homepage. On the whole, optimal load time for a website should not exceed two seconds. However, the reality is that some high-end brands go so far as to brush with the 40-second mark. And in cases where the homepage does finally appear, most users never make it past the first page.
Why the wait? The geo-localisation of the site is the spanner in the works. When targeting Chinese consumers, one click of the mouse and Internet users will know precisely on which side of the Chinese Firewall the site is hosted. It is estimated that sites hosted outside of Mainland China can see their site’s upload speed severely handicapped, requiring about five times more time to open the homepage.
In an attempt to remedy this situation some brands have solicited the help of a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to speed up load time. However, statistically even this has not proven fruitful. Brands will simply have to face the harsh reality of the structural limitations to their website functionality, and revamp their digital strategy accordingly.

Out with the old, in with the new? Not in China
While most web users in the Western world succumb to the overwhelming technology phenomenon of instant-obsolescence, Chinese users have been merrily surfing along for years on outdated equipment and operating systems. And while the West enjoys and relies on its mass availability of technology, Chinese users are now beginning to see their outdated tools as roadblocks to the access to basic information and an enjoyable user experience. But awareness does not proffer a solution from the user end. It is in the hands of companies to adapt appropriately, since web technology in China is simply not able to support sites that require a large bandwidth to operate.
Luxury brands do a double-take when they realise that over 60% of online shoppers in Mainland China still use Internet Explorer 6 (IE6), a browser that had its final update in 2008. To make matters worse, it is no longer even supported by Microsoft, but rather is viewed as an object of derision in the company’s online countdown to the browser’s death and burial. But as most online banking in China is done on IE6 and there are no plans in the pipeline to change this, there appears to be no light at the end of the tunnel for the browser’s demise from the user end. The good news is that for Chinese online shoppers using alternatives to IE6, a more pleasurable and engaging web experience is within their reach, provided brands have already made the necessary modifications to accommodate the firewall issues.

How to guarantee an optimal web experience
Given these technological and legal constraints, what can luxury brands do to create the most seamless flow of navigation on their sites for users in Mainland China?
Any optimal web experience will be contingent on the brand’s ability to come to terms with the unorthodox modus operandi imposed by the local Internet framework. Understanding the challenges and implications of China’s web reality is just the beginning. To this end, a logical first step would be for brands to do their homework. Having a trusted partner geographically on-site to evaluate the site’s current accessibility statistics and “feel” would be a good place to start.
Once the current gap between website user experience objectives and hands-on reality has been identified, companies can enquire about the practical steps and legal formalities that need to be taken to host the site on the mainland. Usually, a non-Chinese company will only be able to host in Hong Kong or in Macau. This will most likely involve going through registration formalities facilitated by a local partner or Chinese-speaking representative. Whether a brand decides to go down this road or not will determine their potential to effectively reach this growing pool of wealthy consumers.
After that, IT specialists will have to sit down and simplify, simplify, simplify. A successful website should perform well across a range of browsers. After all, what good is it for a brand to open the door of their luxury universe to Chinese consumers if users will only see it slam back in their face?
Convincing Mainland Chinese that they are understood by luxury brands goes much deeper than language. Most brands that already have a mainland presence have been able to successfully adapt their web content to reflect specific local trends and preferences. But it is only when Chinese consumers feel that a brand has engineered its site to make the unique Mainland web experience as positive as possible, that a brand will stand out from the crowd. It will have successfully created a subtle but non-negligible touchpoint on the right side of the Wall.

On November 14, 2011, Digital Luxury Group calculated the average loading time of the websites for the following brands from Beijing, Shanghai and Hong-Kong: Audemars Piguet, Blancpain, Breitling, Breguet, Bulgari, Cartier, Chopard, Ebel, Franck Muller, Girard-Perregaux, Hublot, Longines, Omega, Patek Philippe, Piaget, Rado, Raymond Weil, Rolex, TAG Heuer and Zenith. The average loading time is 11 seconds, which is 9 seconds slower than the optimal loading time to attract and retain visitors’ attention.

Average website loading times for watchmaking brands

Source: Europa Star December - January 2012 Magazine Issue