Bally’s phygital and winning in China: online sales +200%

Bally’s phygital and winning in China. In fact, since the beginning of 2020, the Swiss brand’s online sales in Beijing have considerably increased by 200%. “Tmall is going to be our leading store, in terms of earnings, quite shortly”, pointed out Chief Executive Officer Nicolas Girotto (in the picture) while speaking to WWD. He also illustrated Bally’s investments in digital, physical retail and (in particular) in Hong Kong.

Phygital and winning

“We are currently taking advantage of shopping return. We do not expect journey frequency to get back to 2019 standards earlier than 12 to 18 months”, claimed Girotto while speaking to WWD. In China, continued Bally Chief Executive Officer, “buyers are still a bit wary of physical engaging, but they are actively playing again as to phygital shopping. Thanks to higher digital interaction, physical selling stores may enjoy a recovery much more quickly. Covid-19 outbreak made our virtual agenda faster, and China could already rely on suitable infrastructures to implement an integration between digital and physical sales”. As a result, in May, Bally’s sales (the Chinese market drives 30 to 40% of their revenues) enjoyed a boost in double figures, compared to 12 months before. As regards online sales, in China, since January 1^st they even increased by 200%.

Investments

Here are the reasons why Bally have carried out some digital investments. For example, the ones about the opening of a virtual showroom. Besides that, they will present their next spring collection by using a “micro portal” fully integrated to bally.com and interconnected with WeChat. In other words, the social network Chinese like the best. Yet, the Swiss company does not overlook the physical network of their selling stores either. Since the beginning of 2020, they have opened two boutiques in Shanghai. Not to mention Hong Kong, where they do want to stay despite a rather negative social and health situation: “We do not want to spoil our visibility in that city”, wrapped up Girotto.

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