(jingdaily.com) - On a recent Thursday evening, the young professionals in Shanghai’s city center started rushing to the subway through the Kerry Center shopping mall. When a consumer walked into the cosmetics concept retailer Bonnie & Clyde, a beauty consultant quickly came to greet them and walk the customer through the spacious store and its stand-alone display tables and shelves chocked full of $400 face masks and $125 blushes. The cross-border retailer uses the store as a showroom to sell a range of niche foreign brands such as Natura Bisse from Spain and Chantecaille from France. It is a version of the “try offline, buy online” model that allows consumers to scan a QR code to place orders through a WeChat Mini-Program, which are then delivered in under four hours within Shanghai, and under 24 hours to the rest of China. “We have all of our stock within the free trade zone in Shanghai, and we invest a lot of support into our logistics,” said the concept store’s Founder and CEO, William Lau. Merging online and offline operations, click-and-mortar (also referred to as “clicks and bricks”) is an existing trend in omnichannel business models that has been accelerated by COVID-19. While the term refers to an innovative combination of physical and web store marketing in other countries, in China, the model could have a lot more manifestations as mobile-friendly consumers are used to shopping online.
