Adidas enters e-commerce market in China

Adidas announced Tuesday that it signed a strategic cooperation with China's largest online shopping platform, Taobao.com and will inaugurate its first online flagship store in the Chinese mainland on the latter's website.

Adidas said it will kick off by launching 200 items online and gradually all of its products.

The American company's chief executive in China, Christophe Bezu, said that inaugurating the flagship shop is the firm's most important step into its e-commerce strategy in China.

A survey from iResearch showed that recently, more and more brands both from home and abroad put more emphasis on e-commerce channels. Su Huiyan, analyst from iResearch, said that as the number of online shoppers grow, the trend for traditional brands to go e-commerce will be more obvious.

Data showed that the total transaction amount on Taobao in 2009 reached 208.3 billion yuan ($30.67 billion) and clothes made up one fourth of the total amount.

Source: Global Times