Sina launches luxury online store in China

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Asian tech site Penn Olsen reports that the Chinese online media company Sina, mainly known for its Twitter-like Weibo microblogging service, launched Sina Luxury on Friday.

The new e-store enables designers to sell their collections directly to customers - those who have already signed up include highest-profile Western brands such as Dior, Burberry, Gucci, and Paul Smith, all "100 percent guaranteed genuine," as the homepage states, referring to China's counterfeit problems.

According to Penn Olsen, Sina Luxury's main rivals on the Chinese market are the luxury e-tailing start-up IHaveU.com, which as opposed to Sina also sells menswear, as well as a new fashion store called Netease and e-commerce giant Taobao's TMalls.

The latter also launched a so-called "designer-to-consumer" (D2C) site on Thursday for limited-edition or custom-made clothes.

http://l.sina.com.cn/