Understanding the Chinese super VIP

█ What’s it like to be rated a VIC — a very important customer — by Prada? Meet Stefan, who has been obsessed by the Italian luxury brand since his school days and is now, at 27, a true VIC.

He’s been shopping at Prada for five years. As a VIC, he says, he receives all sorts of privileges including fixed discounts, first dibs on in-store new arrivals and early access to end-of-season discounts.

Stefan and his fellow VICs are given the special treatment by luxury brands not simply because they spend lots of money. They’re also considered the brands’ greatest evangelists. In some cases, they become friends to sales staff, executives and even the brands’ design teams.

The idea that the Chinese market is composed of first-time luxury consumers is rapidly becoming outdated. VICs like Stefan have often been customers for years. In 2020, the number of Chinese UNHWI (ultra-high-net-worth individuals with a net worth of more than $30 million) increased by nearly 16 per cent year-on-year to 70,426, according to The Wealth Report by UK real estate business Knight Frank.

“VIP customers have higher brand loyalty,” says Elsie Zhang, client development director of Digital Luxury Group. “Maybe they don’t account for the majority of the brand’s performance, but their high repurchase rate represents a higher input-output ratio.”

Hermès

Brands are always looking for ways to step up — discreetly, of course — the customer service experience for their super VIPs.

VICs at Prada, such as Stefan, certainly feel the love, even more so during the global pandemic when luxury brands have focused even more intensely on the Chinese market. Prada VICs received limited-edition numbered shirts last Christmas. After Raf Simons’s first show as co-creative director of Prada menswear in January, Prada held an exclusive event for VICs at the iconic Rong Zhai building in Shanghai, where orders were invited for the Autumn/Winter 2021 collection.

As a true “crown jewel” customer, Stefan might also be flown to Milan to watch a show or given access to Prada’s special customisation service. “There’s normal customisation, like for traditional suits or shirts,” says Stefan. “But there is another magical service: as long as the brand has enough extra fabric, they’ll ‘copy’ any style from past seasons. For this service, Miuccia [Prada creative director Miuccia Prada] herself needs to sign off on an application.”

A VIP might receive special service on many levels, but there’s no way of precisely defining the service — indeed, this imprecision is calculated to a certain extent, enabling a brand to reinforce a sense of exclusiveness.

Besides Prada, Stefan also highlights Dior as an example of a brand that provides extra attention in all areas, such as helping customers to “find the best diamonds in the world” or even to buy artworks.

Super VIP Selina, who has been buying luxury goods for more than 20 years, works in the investment sector. For her, the ultimate luxury is couture: she has been ordering Chanel haute couture for four years. “I used to buy a lot of ready-to-wear clothing,” she says, explaining her transition to couture. “Within Chanel’s ready-to-wear clothing, there’s some distinction between their ordinary series and the high-end handmade workshop series, but I think there’s still a lot of repetition.”

For Selina, couture is the very essence of Chanel. “The high unit prices in the categories consumed by VIP customers are representative of the brand’s social capital,” notes Zhang, “Luxury brands are using high-end series or limited customisation to show special attention to their VIP customers.”

Prada

Heavy use of brand ambassadors or influencers doesn’t mean much to a veteran high-end consumer such as Selina. It might even backfire. “It’s a matter of attitude,” Selina says, suggesting that the value of a piece to a VIP rests in restricted production. “Of course, every brand wants to make money. But when they have a lot of influencers wearing one high-end piece, then they go on to make a hundred.”

VIPs are clear about what they want. “I’m not easily influenced,” says Eric Young, a VIP who loves Hermès. “Now everyone is pretty clear about how things work — if overnight you see dozens of artists and bloggers using a certain bag, how are you going to believe something like that?”

Young says Hermès has been smart to not appoint a brand ambassador. “Hermès is spreading the meaning of luxury itself rather than the word of a particular product. Their events won’t be the type where you’ll see stars all over.”

Stefan believes the role of the brand ambassador should be handled with care. “The influence a spokesperson has on people who already buy the brand will be short term,” he says.

Selina and fellow luxury shopper Cecilia both prefer to stress the value of their personal relationships with sales staff, designers and senior executives. These relationships may endure when people switch companies, moving from one luxury brand to another. “Today this person may be in this company, the next day they’ll go to another company; then you’ll get some different purchasing channels, different opportunities,” Cecilia says, emphasising the importance of “communication and bonds between people”.

Prada

Technology is connecting VIPs and brands with increasing efficiency. Last autumn, some 20,000 VIP customers in China received a private link to watch a live stream of a Spring/Summer 2021 show while noting their favourite products, with sales teams on hand to help finalise orders.

The technology used is called Smartplayer, launched in June 2020 and developed by luxury creative and tech agency Mazarine. Jean-Laurent Vilon, managing director of Mazarine Asia Pacific, says the company is working to make the software work even more effectively across Chinese social media platforms and brands’ own websites. “It allows brands to interact with consumers more intuitively, and allows brands to engage sales on platforms such as WeChat, Tmall, official website e-commerce and offline stores,” says Vilon. 

High-quality online content is essential for high-end brands, Vilon says. AR technology utilised in Cartier’s live stream for their Tmall Super Brand Day was a recent standout. “The most important thing is to create storytelling. When the content is well designed, then consumers will be interested in the purchase,” says Vilon. “A trend this year is online content as exciting and beautiful as a Hollywood blockbuster.” 

In a China-specific context, consumers in third- and fourth-tier cities have the highest rates of online participation and conversion, notes Vilon. “The online experience may be the first time for them to have a deep interaction with the brand. They will then go to the brand’s stores in first-tier cities, not to shop, but to further experience. In the end, they will go back to their city and place orders online,” he says.

Super VIPs interviewed by Vogue Business often shop across four premium luxury brands — Louis Vuitton, Dior, Hermès and Chanel — that often align with the same kind of VIP consumers. Runci, 29, is a VIP shopper who favours Louis Vuitton and recently attended a VIP-exclusive womenswear fashion show for Louis Vuitton in Shanghai. While before the pandemic, LV might have staged an in-store VIP preview or trunk show, now a full show is considered a more complete experience.

Runci says that in order to buy items from the show, customers book in advance, but there is no hard sell. “I think Louis Vuitton is pretty good — I’ve never had to buy a certain amount in order to get access to more exclusive goods or anything,” he says.

More brands are stepping up their focus on VIPs, with VIPs often ready and willing to widen their personal portfolios of favoured brands. On 26 February, Bottega Veneta staged an event combining a fashion show and shopping opportunity for media and VIPs at the Shanghai International Dance Center.

Nicole, currently a VIP at Hermès, recently fell in love with Bottega Veneta under the creative direction of Daniel Lee and has become a VIP customer too. “After changing designers in the past two years, the clothes have a design sense more in line with my aesthetic,” she says. “I buy their clothes and shoes every season.”

VIP consumers enjoy the stability of a long-term stable relationship with brands and also the sense of belonging to a small, tight-knit community with fellow VIPs. “Hermès is fun,” says Selina. “They don’t have a standard where you have to earn access to better items, it’s just about whether they like you or not.”

New business models are also gaining momentum, most notably secondhand luxury site Vestiaire Collective’s initiative to cooperate with the likes of Alexander McQueen and Mulberry to resell luxury goods. Many of these are owned by VIP customers. One way or another, the VIPs have an influence way beyond their numbers.