Whenever we’ve looked at specialist Chinese e-commerce sites that focus on fashion, they’ve pretty much all been aimed exclusively at women. And so the startup Chaoren360 – which is a pun on the word ‘superman’ in Chinese – is bucking that trend by selling only men’s apparel, shoes, and accessories.
Chaoren360.com is based in Guangdong in southern China – now home to over 10 percent of all Chinese startups – and is actually more of a magazine than an online mall because it just links to products on others sites such as Alibaba’s Taobao.com or Tmall.com. And so the startup is just curating all these men’s fashion items and wrapping them up in a social layer that resembles a microblog in which you can follow other users and ‘like’ their listed products (pictured below). And that’s fine, as it’s an interesting approach – sort of social commerce without the inventory and overheads.
The main social element of the Chaoren360 site.
To make it even more social, there’s a ‘club’ area that’s a sort of forum for fashion-minded guys to talk and post images, and a ‘VIP’ section that showcases some of the site’s most active and engaging users. Plus, it supports third-party login with Sina’s (NASDAQ:SINA) Weibo, or Tencent’s (HKG:0700) own Weibo or QQ platforms.
In further contrast to some of the female-oriented e-commerce sites, there are no official tie-ups with major luxury brands on Chaoren360 as of yet, and so the selection is cheap and cheerful.
Check out the Chaoren360 site or follow the startup on Weibo.