Incredibly, this year knitwear brand John Smedley celebrates its 238th birthday. The company continues to move forward – patiently, gracefully, modestly, with the classic style that has made it legendary in the fashion world. This year, building on its success in Europe, North America, the Gulf, Singapore, and especially Japan, its single biggest export market, John Smedley is now launching a suite of digital activities in mainland China, to drive the brand forward in the World’s largest market.
Since 1784, British knitwear manufacturer John Smedley has been synonymous with quality fabrics. Nearly two-and-a-half centuries later, and still based in the same old “mill” buildings in the small village of Lea, near Matlock in Derbyshire where all its garments are manufactured and hand-finished, the brand is going from strength to strength.
It was in the 1960’s that John Smedley’s name really began to gain an international reputation, with stars such as Audrey Hepburn being photographed in Smedley’s cool “Catkin” roll-neck sweaters, and Sean Connery wearing a sky-blue “Adrian” polo-shirt in the classic 1962 Bond film Dr No. Queen Elizabeth II even paid a visit to the brand’s headquarters, and John Smedley was later awarded two “Royal Warrants”, marks of recognition for those specially selected companies who are suppliers to the Royal Households, thereby solidifying its place in the pantheon of luxury makers.
John Smedley pushes forward this month in China, supported by Regroup China, sharing exclusive product news and style tips through its official accounts on WeChat, Little Red Book and Weibo, and also launching an e-commerce mini program shop on WeChat, so customers can buy via China’s #1 app, thereby making the brand’s luxury merino wool and John Smedley’s sea-island cotton knitwear more accessible to China’s appreciating style-lovers.
John Smedley
John Smedley
Little Red Book
John Smedley
John Smedley has such a strong fan-base among designers that several of them, including Japanese streetwear legend Hiroshi Fujiwara and cool young British brand Lou Dalton, have collaborated with the brand, infusing Smedley’s classic designs with a frisson of edginess.
The fact that John Smedley knitwear appeals to such a wide range of people – from Queen Elizabeth and Sean Connery to Scarlett Johannsson and Fujiwara – is surely a testament to its quality and timelessness. In recent years the brand has also found legions of new fans in Asia, with 5 flagship stores in Japan alone, making it John Smedley’s top export market.
“We are hugely excited to be launching the John Smedley brand in mainland China on key digital channels, to reach such a huge potential audience. Based on the success we have seen in Japan; we believe China will be a key market for the John Smedley going forward.” Jess Mcguire-Dudley, Deputy Managing Director.
When John Smedley first opened his Derbyshire mill, he can hardly have dreamed that nearly 250 years later it would still be producing some of the world’s finest knitwear, and that garments bearing his name would be attracting a growing, youthful, quality-conscious, international fan-base; but we are sure that he would have been appreciated the reason for this remarkable success: true quality and craftsmanship are timeless, after all.
Neopac is an internationally renowned manufacturer of metal tins and plastic tubes based in Switzerland. Regroup China have launched Neopac’ s dedicated China web site at https://cn.neopac.com/ as well as an official WeChat account, supporting their activities in mainland China.
Martina Bracher, Product Marketing Manager at Hoffmann Neopac AG stated:
“We appreciate Regroup’s expertise about the Chinese market and the Chinese digital channels. Their way of project management is goal-oriented and their response times are very short. We have been very satisfied.”
618 is rapidly approaching again. Why should 618 be a key date in the retail calendar for global brands?
For more information on reaching the World’s biggest market, contact our team of experts at info@regroup-china.com
WeChat’s app-store like mini programs (an app within an app) has topped the 450 million daily active users according to the WeChat Open Class Pro 2022 event earlier this year.
Mini-program usage is up 32% year on year, with an 80% increase in users paying via mini programs. There are now over 1 million mini programs available on WeChat, reflecting a boom in usage, on what is China’s #1 digital ecosystem.
Why is it important?
WeChat is part of the fabric of Chinese society, and mini programs provide an opportunity for brands to generate greater engagement with their audience and to monetise their Wechat traffic. Setting up a mini program shop on WeChat linked to WeChat pay is relatively straight forward and cost-effective, and perfect as a vehicle to test the market.
Mini programs allow users to access a wide range of services without ever leaving the main app. The system offers merchants a chance to access a huge user-base by building lightweight apps within WeChat instead of having to develop a separate app and convince users to go there.
Regroup China continues to be at the forefront of mini program development, having launch multi-brand stores and single brand stores for many leading UK retail brands.
Download our free mini program e-book here – https://www.regroup-china.com/wechat-e-book/
To discuss how to reach the largest online market in the world, please contact scott.muir@regroup-china.com
Building on our long-established association in the luxury watch / watch accessory market in China, we are very happy to announce the launch of BUBEN&ZORWEG’s dedicated China web site; https://www.bubenzorweg.cn/.
The web site launch is the latest in a number of in-market activities being managed by Regroup China for BUBEN&ZORWEG, including the management of their WeChat content & advertising, and marketplace channels; Tmall and JD.
BUBEN&ZORWEG is world renowned for the highest quality in watch safe design and watch maintenance technology. Numerous pioneering achievements in watch winder technology, safe design and the newly created category of Multifunctional Masterpieces (Objects of Time®) set standards worldwide.
It is a pleasure to be part of the story, as the brand continues its growth in mainland China.
Contact us at info@regroup-china.com to reach the world’s largest online market.
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#RethinkChina
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to Everyone.
While in Europe we spent early November complaining about the weather, consumers in China were ramping up for the biggest sales event in the world: Singles Day (or Double 11). Double 11 has continued to gain momentum in recent years to become a spectacular event that reaches far beyond mainland China with incorporated TV shows, appearances of big celebrities like Taylor Swift and Katy Perry, and most importantly showing record-breaking sales.
The two biggest marketplaces in China, Alibaba and JD.com accounted for $139 billion in sales during Double 11 this year making it the biggest ever, this being 20% up on last year, where the two marketplaces generated a whopping $115 billion sales revenue. All indicators suggest this rise will continue going forward. This combined with the news this week that China is now the wealthiest nation in the world, makes this market unavoidable for brands looking to grow their business internationally.
Regroup China provides dedicated services for brands and businesses in Europe wishing to tap into the world’s largest online market – China. With teams based in the UK, Germany and in China, we are well-placed to hand-hold you throughout the process, to help establish your foothold in this unique and ever-exciting market.
Contact us on info@regroup-china.com to discuss your plans for the China market.
#RegroupChina #RethinkChina #Singlesday
We are excited to announce the launch of the new Chinese website and WeChat presence for Aisa Automation Industrielle (https://cn.aisa.com/), a leading provider of production-line technologies and machinery for the packaging industry, internationally.
Based in Vouvry, Switzerland, and with a network that spans the globe, Aisa specialises in machines and technologies for the production of tube packaging for some of the world’s most famous brands – the tubes we use every day for toothpaste, cosmetics, shampoos, food and more. Aisa are at the leading edge of change – their breakthroughs are making packaging more recyclable, with an ever-smaller carbon footprint.
Though Aisa have long-standing customers in China already, they recognised the need for a dedicated Chinese website, optimised for that market, and commissioned Regroup to do the job.
Scott Muir, MD of Regroup, said: “We’ve responded by creating a highly engaging, responsive website which is both true to Aisa’s global brand, and tailored for the needs of their market in China. At the same time, we’re helping Aisa grow their professional network through WeChat. It’s a real pleasure working with this respected engineering company.”
Joachim Sander, Aisa’s Sales & Marketing director said, “China is already an extremely important market for Aisa, with increasingly sophisticated requirements. Our new Chinese webpages and WeChat account are now enabling our customers to get even faster access to news and information about our advanced tube-production machinery and technologies, and we’re very excited about this.”
Check out Aisa’s new Chinese Webpages at https://cn.aisa.com/
If you are interested in establishing a Chinese web site or WeChat please contact us at
#RethinkChina #RegroupChina
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