Economy

Male big spenders splash their cash

By Karen Yip and Bao Chang (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-07-12 10:03

Booming business

In addition, the fitness and sports and clothing segments are booming too. Fitness and sports are opportunities to socialize and "it's about brotherhood and masculinity", Sinha explained.

The virtual cash register at Vancl.com, an online clothing retailer founded by entrepreneur Chen Nian in October 2007, is ringing in brisk sales. By the end of 2008, company sales (including both online and offline channels) reached about 300 million yuan, turning Vancl.com into China's first business-to-consumer brand for men's clothes.

Vancl.com, which registered a sales growth of 29,576.86 percent in three years, was the winner of Deloitte Technology Fast 50 China 2009, an award to recognize rapid, growing high-tech companies in China.

Currently, the company has more than 800 employees. Sales reached 600 million yuan last year, with an average consumption of 240 yuan per customer.

"We started the online business for men because men's clothes are easy products unlike women's items. Besides, we also found that the higher percentage of computer users is men. The boom in Internet usage helps us too," Chen Nian said.

"With men's clothes, we pay more attention to colors that customers can choose to suit their moods," he added. In the pipeline for its spring/summer collection are shirts with cultural themes and polo T-shirts in an assortment of colors.

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His challenge is to build a strong brand for Vancl.com and to manage and recruit talent. "Some may be puzzled by Vancl's success, but I can tell you that what's behind our growth is our strong team," said Chen.

Business is so good that in June 2009, the company entered the women's clothing industry and by August, Vancl also started to market footwear products, continually expanding its product lines.

For Inditex Group, the listed Spanish retailer of renowned global brands such as Zara, the Chinese male consumer is essential, a spokesman told China Business Weekly. "Inditex has been offering male collections in China since the arrival of Zara in the country in 2004. Chinese male consumers are very important for the company because they have a special fashion taste and they are looking for the best clothes and accessories."

To increase sales and brand awareness, Zara collaborated twice with MTV for a special collection of men's T-shirts last year. For the current season, Zara launched T-shirts featuring works by late artist Keith Harring, a celebrated American pop art and graffiti artist.

Zara now has 36 stores in mainland China plus seven in Hong Kong and one store in Macao. Massimo Dutti has seven stores in Greater China; Pull and Bear has five; Bershka has 13 outlets.