Louis Vuitton also boasted the strongest spontaneous recall score, having been mentioned by 65% of contributors. Chanel delivered 50%, ahead of Gucci's 41% and Christian Dior's 30%.Making up the leading ten players were Hermès, on 28%, Rolex, on 21%, Armani, on 19%, Prada, on 17%, Cartier, on 15%, and Versace/Versus, on 9%.Elsewhere, the report found that China has become the preferred destination for purchasing exclusive goods, replacing Hong Kong and Europe, which assumed this status last year. Branded stores constitute the favoured channel for buyers. The web is also playing a more important role, with 10% of luxury offerings now acquired in this way, hitting 17% for premium cosmetics.

Similarly, nearly 80% of interviewees either currently utilise social media services to learn about these products or plan to in the future. lv outlet Upon discussing purchase intentions for the next 12 months, a 54% majority of the sample actually anticipated cutting their outlay on watches, a total reaching 48% for both handbags and jeweler. By contrast, 43% expect to boost their expenditure on cosmetics and shoes during this period, ahead of wines, spirits and cigars, logging 40%."We are seeing a change in spending patterns, not a drop in the desire for luxury items," said Elan Shou, Ruder Finn's managing director for China and vice President for Asia. "Chinese consumers buy luxury products mainly to reward themselves or build confidence, as well as to reflect their taste and personality, and will continue to do so this year."

At present, China is the second largest ecommerce market in Asia behind Japan, and the fourth biggest worldwide. In 2013, it is expected to have overtaken Japan and only trail the US on a global basis. One key driver of such trends will be the rapid increase in the amount of people acquiring goods in this way. At the end of the forecast period, fully 67% of Chinese web users should make online purchases, equivalent to 36.8% of the entire population. These totals stood at 39.5% and 15.9% in turn last year.

By way of comparison, the ecommerce audience currently contains 150m people in the US, where overall internet penetration comes in at around the 80% level. Elswhere in its report, eMarketer suggested that increasing demand for a broad range of products among shoppers outside first and second tier cities will help fuel demand.” Try buying the latest Sony camera or a limited-edition Louis Vuitton bag somewhere like Datong without going online," said Tim Schlick, senior vice president, strategy and market development, Asia-Pacific at Thoughtful Media Group. Other factors supporting growth include the rising number of players opening up branded stores on Tmall, China's biggest ecommerce site LV handbags.