Sanpower brings premium Chinese brands to House of Fraser

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Apr 10, 2018

The House of Fraser department store chain is under huge pressure at the moment and the latest initiative announced for the company certainly shows that its management is thinking both flexibly and globally.

Its majority owner Sanpower Group has announced a new UK-China supply programme that will bring a number of premium Chinese brands to the UK for the first time, via the department store chain.

The company also said the deal “creates a pathway” for the brands “to access the Europe and rest of the world… further enhancing House of Fraser’s position as a unique brand platform.”

Launched at the first Sanpower Global Supplier Conference in Nanjing on Tuesday (April 10), the global supply chain management platform aims to “spur local premium brands and products to expand into new markets." It supports the Chinese Government’s ‘Belt and Road’ vision, which aims to boost trade and stimulate economic growth across Asia and beyond.
 
The new Sanpower Supply Chain and Branding Management Centre will undertake and manage House of Fraser’s trade orders, increasing the breadth and depth of in-house products and shortening product development cycle and delivery, we’re told.

HoF’s UK global product sourcing director Simon Pickering said the traditional image associated with Made in China is changing: “Increasing numbers of high-quality Chinese products are becoming popular with British and European consumers. Once these products enter House of Fraser’s sales channel, they will be able to access Europe and the greater global market. Furthermore, consolidating our global supply network through made-in-China products and Chinese brands will support [us] in further boosting sales and competitiveness.”
 
Kong Jun, Sanpower’s New Commerce Industry Group CEO, added that Chinese manufacturing has transformed in recent years from extensive processing and production “into a new era marked by independent designs, proprietary brands and innovation.”

Sun Xiaoqing, who’s chairman of Jiangsu Hongkun Supply Chain Co, one of the participants and advocates of the initiative, said that past “limitations of talent, channels, and costs” have made it difficult for companies to develop their export businesses on their own. “International supply chain platforms like this help to bring together high-quality suppliers with similar needs to form a group. In the future, as these enterprises share their information and data, cross-border and cross-business interconnection will create greater value”.