Chinese wedding dress exporter finds success by being good, fast and cheap

August 3, 2015

Author: Rosa Caballero

Cut-throat prices, rampant online piracy and fierce competition in China’s internet marketplace almost killed Gao Wei’s dream of setting up his own wedding dress company.

But the boom in cross-border e-commerce in recent years gave his business fresh impetus and has helped make his products known to thousands of shoppers around the world.

The office of Gao’s Suzhou Pansy Garment Company is on the top floor of a newly built shopping mall in the centre of Suzhou, Jiangsu province, at the centre of the Yangtze River Delta.

Part of the building, as required by the local government, has been listed under the name "Suzhou wedding dress cross-border e-commerce industrial park".

More than 60 rival online wedding dress export firms have moved in alongside Gao.

Photo: taupe bridesmaid dresses

"We are lucky to be an early mover in this industry," said Gao, 31, founder and general manager of the company that sells gowns under its own brand name, Sarah Bridal.

"It may need 10 to 20 years for a traditional wedding dress retailer to grow into a business the size of ours. But thanks to e-commerce we took only four years."

Gao’s business, founded in 2010, hit 30 million yuan (HK$37 million) last year after seeing its annual sales double in its first few years. It is now one of the top online retailers among China’s wedding dress designers and expects to hit 50 million yuan of sales this year.

Gao, who once worked for Alibaba.com, moved with his fiancee from Nanjing in 2010 so they would be in Suzhou, China’s largest wedding dress distribution centre, when they launched their e-commerce business on Taobao.comal, the country’s biggest online shopping portal.

But they soon discovered the market was dominated by low-quality, cheap products and firms that often used images stolen from their rivals’ websites.

"Can you imagine, there were people selling wedding gowns for only 99 yuan with free shipping?" Gao said. "In that market environment, it was impossible to talk about quality products or services, let alone build up a proper brand.

"Although we were making money at the time, we knew it was not what we wanted to do in the future."

Several months later, a friend suggested Gao try DHgate.com, a new Beijing-based cross-border e-commerce portal that helps small Chinese businesses sell products overseas.

Without doing any advertising or promotion, Gao found his sales from the website were quite encouraging and the profit margins almost double those of the domestic market.

A few months later, Gao decided to focus his company completely on foreign customers. Yet he is not the only one: it is estimated that in Suzhou alone, there are between 2,000 and 3,000 wedding gown businesses that export their goods.

"Dresses for weddings, … are always the most important for China’s cross-border e-commerce," Gao said. "This is partly because the prices on China’s online portals are between a tenth to a fifth cheaper than those found in many other countries, which is attractive enough for foreign customers.

"In addition, wedding dresses are also light in weight and so they are not that costly to ship."

Unlike most other wedding dress sellers, who provide tailor-made services, Gao offers customers only standard-sized dresses, which has helped improve business efficiency and also cut down on the time it takes for his shipments to arrive.

Every month, Gao’s company now sells up to 10,000 Sarah Bridal wedding dresses and ceremonial gowns on eBay, Amazon and Dhgate.

The United States, Britain, Germany and Australia are his main markets, with each country requiring a different focus.

"In the US or Britain, you need to follow the fashion trends very closely as consumers there expect to wear the very latest styles seen in fashion magazines or worn by film stars," Gao said.

"In contrast, buyers in Germany are more conservative and prefer not to look too sexy. They can afford higher prices than people in other countries, but they are less tolerant about any small loose threads or slight stains on dresses they’ve bought and get impatient if you keep them waiting too long.

"What we offer in Australia is quite different from the other markets. Our bestsellers in Australia are those dresses made from light materials and decorated with colourful patterns. The women in Australia love to wear our dresses on the beach or when they go out to parties."

The average price for one of Gao’s dresses is about US$100.

With his company now well established, his biggest worry these days is how to improve his customers’ experience so they are willing to come back again and again – and buy more expensive items.

"In the cyber world, there’s hardly anyone who is prepared to pay more than US$500 for a dress, even if you promise them a refund in case they find it unsuitable," Gao said. "But this is the common problem facing every cross-border e-commerce enterprise."

Gao’s company recently rented warehouses in the US and Britain to help shorten delivery times for overseas buyers.

"In future, if a cross-border e-commerce company wants to be successful, it must make local customers feel they can provide services that are not only cheaper than their local retailers, but also offer the same level of quality," he said.