More Chinese are starting to favor Chinese apparel brands now according to a survey, although top international brands are still the frontrunners. The proportion of Chinese consumers who like Chinese apparel brands has more than doubled to 46% compared to two years ago, said the survey covering 2,450 respondents in 22 domestic cities by consulting firm OC&C Strategy. China’s apparel market has grown by double digits for decades and overtook the U.S. to be the biggest apparel market in the world in 2015 and is now worth close to USD300 billion, according to market research firm Euromonitor International. Although negativity toward domestic labels has dropped to a record low of 10% from 24% two years ago, the research also suggests Chinese brands still suffer from a less competitive marketing strategy and product design. Respondents said they chose “value for money” and “Chinese elements” as the top reasons for buying Chinese apparel brands while they focused on “better quality”and “better design” when they bought international apparel brands. Frontrunners are predominantly international brands, with Uniqlo, Adidas and Jack & Jones occupying three of the top five spots, the Shanghai Daily reports.

Unmanned convenience stores, first envisioned by Amazon, are popping up in China, enabled by mobile payment and supported by facial and voice recognition technologies. Little-known tech start-up BingoBox, based in Guangdong province, has made its name in China this summer by opening its first unmanned convenience store in Shanghai. In a container-like structure stocked with products supplied by French supermarket chain Auchan, BingoBox lets customers go shopping after they are admitted via facial recognition to the 10-square meter area. Security measures ensure that those inside the store are customers and not shoplifters who entered illegally. Sensors and cameras scattered throughout the area identify items in the shoppers’ carts and automatically charge the customer’s WeChat Wallet, a smartphone-enabled mobile payment run by Tencent, as they walk out the door. With a dozen such stores under trial operation in China, BingoBox is looking to beat much bigger companies to become the first to commercialize the new shopping model on a national scale. “We want to adopt a rather aggressive approach in terms of expansion,” said Chen Zilin, Founder of BingoBox, adding the goal is to have 5,000 such stores in China in the coming year via a franchise model. More than 10 companies from big retail chains to small start-ups have launched unmanned stores, with more than CNY130 million in venture capital money invested in the sector in the past three weeks, according to Chinese research firm IT Juzi. In theory, unmanned stores that are open 24 hours a day can reduce labor costs and therefore lower retail prices for customers, the South China Morning Post reports.

Louis Vuitton has launched an e-commerce service in China, seeking to capitalize on a rebound in the world’s largest luxury-goods market, where online sales have been dominated by local internet firms. The site will let customers buy Louis Vuitton’s leather goods, shoes, accessories, watches, jewelry, luggage and perfume. The site will cover 12 cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, with others to be added later. China is driving a rebound in luxury sales after a multi-year downturn prompted by a crackdown on corruption, with LVMH, Hermes International, Kering and others reporting strong gains this year. Louis Vuitton began selling online in France in 2005 and has expanded to 11 countries. E-commerce in China has been dominated by local operators such as Alibaba Group Holding and JD.com. Louis Vuitton said customers will be able to use Alibaba’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat online payment solutions.

Alibaba announced the launch of a U.S. business network that connects small-scale manufacturers to U.S. companies already selling to Chinese consumers on Alibaba’s Taobao sales platform, providing easier access to more than 500 million consumers. The Taobao Global U.S. Merchants Network has more than 300 Taobao Global merchant members. These merchants can sell products made by small- and medium-sized U.S. companies to “more than half a billion consumers on Alibaba’s platforms”, it said. Alibaba aims to have two billion customers buying on its platforms within the next 20 years, Alibaba Vice President Brian Wong told reporters ahead of the company’s Gateway ‘17 event in Detroit last month, where Chairman Jack Ma welcomed thousands of U.S. SMEs. Alibaba is aiming to derive about 40% of revenue from international transactions within the next five years. U.S. small businesses on the network will have access to a centralized platform, “where they can connect with and sell their products to experienced Taobao Global merchants who sell to Chinese consumers”, according to an Alibaba statement. Alibaba will also organize training seminars on a regular basis on logistics and other e-commerce issues to help merchants in the network better identify industry trends and improve the experience for U.S. suppliers and Chinese consumers.

Shopping mall operators in China are bracing for a difficult decade as their retail tenants continue to lose market share to online vendors, suggesting little room to push up leasing rates in line with historic trends, according to Henderson Land Development Vice Chairman Peter Lee. “There are already fewer visitors going to shopping malls in remote areas,” Lee said at a Hong Kong forum last month. And with advertising now increasingly switching over to online and mobile, Lee added that income from shopping malls will continue to suffer because retailers would turn to China’s tech giants Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, rather than renting physical space in a shopping mall. “In the next 10 years, we are not hopeful that we can raise rental rates,” he said. “It will have a serious impact on our income.” Henderson Land owns 91 million square feet of office and shopping malls in 14 Chinese cities. China’s e-commerce sector – the world’s largest – is equivalent to the combined size of the next six biggest markets, including the United States, Britain, Japan, Germany, South Korea and France. China’s online retail sales are expected to rise to USD812 billion in 2017, accounting for 17% of the nation’s total retail sales, according to a June report by global consultancy McKinsey & Co. Maureen Fung, Director at Sun Hung Kai Properties (China) said mall operators have unique advantages that can be expressed through the physical environment. SHKP is to build a 3 million sq ft high-end shopping mall in its mega 7 million sq ft integrated project, Xujiahui Center in Shanghai, the South China Morning Post reports.