L'Occitane opens shop in Alibaba's TMall

UNABLE to resist entering the lucrative China beauty market and to wrestle control of product sales from unauthorized sellers, L’Occitane has opened a shop in TMall, the Alibaba-operated online shopping platform for high profile brands.

L’Occitane products were already selling on the platform without the French skincare brand’s permission, according to Andre Hoffmann, president of the Asia-Pacific region for L’Occitane. “This is the only way we can assure that expired and damaged goods are not sold,” said Mr. Hoffmann.

To woo high-end brands to TMall, Alibaba committed to clean up its online sites of fakes and purge unauthorized sellers.

L’Occitane sales for half year to September 30 were driven primarily driven by Japan, Hong Kong, the US, and China, with the Mainland one of its fastest growing markets.

Estée Lauder and Burberry  are among the high profile brands in TMall, whose sales have surged 10 times in the last three years to $50.9 billion, according to Euromonitor International.