Is e-commerce and social media the next big frontier for luxury fashion?

Amazon, Alibaba, TikTok, WeChat. These are just some of the biggest and most dynamic companies of today that are probing an uncertain new digital frontier in luxury.

Traditionally reluctant to go online, and usually confined to proprietary websites or multi-label e-commerce specialists like Net-a-Porter and Farfetch, the luxury industry has been expanding its digital footprint in recent years by actively seeking new partners. Online marketplaces such as Amazon, Alibaba’s Tmall (Alibaba is also the owner of the South China Morning Post) and JD.com are racing to carve themselves as big a niche in luxury e-commerce as possible, while the rapid growth of social commerce, through media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, WeChat and Xiaohongshu (also known as Little Red Book and similar to Instagram), is a further significant potential engine for growth.