Shoe retailer Tony Bianco has just entered international waters and opened its first store in China off the back of its successful daigou business. “We were having such success through the daigous that we naturally thought this would be a great opportunity to expand the brand into China. They are hungry for new brands and the growth of the middle class in China brings great opportunities for us,” director Anthony Bianco told Inside Retail Weekly. After 12 months of research and strategising,
ising, the Tony Bianco store opened in December at Chaoyang Joy City shopping centre in Beijing. The brand currently has 14 stores in Australia, six concessions in Myer and is available online at Zappos and Revolve.
Tony Bianco is also currently on Tmall and since launching into China, the footwear brand has upped the ante on its social media platforms across Weibo, WeChat and Red Book. It is also planning to grow its brand awareness through key opinion leaders with local retail specialists, Shanghai Smile Commercial.
According to Bianco, the daigou side of the business has “softened” since it launched in China.
“It’s all about building personal relationships between our retail management team and the daigous. We communicate via WhatsApp or WeChat when new stock arrives and also when popular items get low in stock,” he said.
“We also allow live streaming in stores so daigous can get live feedback and orders from their customers. This also gives a personal shopping experience for the girls shopping in China via live chat.”
This isn’t Tony Bianco’s first entry into the international market. A few years ago, its online growth in the US began to increase, then it launched onto Revolve and rolled out an international influencer strategy, which helped organically grow its overseas customer base.
Bianco hinted that in the future, there is definitely potential for the brand to expand its store network into the US.
“Since the launch of our dedicated online store for US customers, it’s been exceeding sales targets each month and we’re ahead of track (131 per cent) to meet the first-year trade goal,” he said.
“Launching locally has been a huge win for our US customers as we now offer faster and more competitive shipping rates. They’re charged in US dollars and they can return [products] locally, making it an overall better shopping experience.”
Tony Bianco first launched in Australia in 1972 and, according to Bianco, the key to its success has been focusing on evolving the brand and product.
“Locally, [the footwear market] is a challenging environment at the moment, but we are always trying to bring new, fresh and exciting product to market, we’re continually developing so the customer doesn’t get bored,” said Bianco.
“Customer service is at the forefront of our mind, we relaunched our Tony Bianco loyalty program [last year] and we continually look at ways to bring everything back to that one-on-one relationships we have with our customers.”
