Tmall’s Luxury Pavilion, an app-within-an-app currently home to more than 200 luxury brand flagships, saw sales jump 159 percent year-on-year the January to March 2021 period, according to statistics provided by Tmall to local Chinese media.

Last year, as international luxury brands were faced by closures and economic headwinds in markets around the world, many turned to Chinese e-commerce as a potential bright spot in an otherwise dismal 2020. An average of one new flagship store per week opened on the Luxury Pavilion last year, which is now home to brands including Cartier, Gucci, Prada, Armani and Hermès.

This year, Saint Laurent and Van Cleef & Arpels have also joined the Luxury Pavilion party, opening stores in February and March, respectively.

According to Bain & Company research, the global luxury market shrunk by 23 percent in 2020, but the consumption of luxury goods in China, where consumers have been spending domestically, rather than while travelling overseas as they once did, rose by 48 percent. China’s luxury online penetration increased to 23 percent in 2020 from 13 percent in 2019, the same report said.