Martha Stewart was in China to participate in Alibaba's super kitchen day. (Photo : Getty Images)
American household giant Martha Stewart was in China recently to promote her line of housewares in Alibaba's Tmall. The e-commerce giant sponsored an event called "super kitchen day".
Analysts are skeptical whether Martha Stewart's brand of household items would be able to break into the Chinese market. Sequential Brads bought Martha Stewart's company for $353 million.
"The essential hardware of the Martha Stewart way of life-a garden in which to grow food, an oven in which to bake it, and a large, stand-alone house is still inaccessible to most Chinese. As a result, America's lifestyle icon hardly registers in China," the analyst from Bloomberg said.
Sequential Brands CEO Yehuda Shmidman thinks otherwise.
She said, "Alibaba tells us the trends in the Chinese consumer towards urbanization are leading to modernization and then to Westernization. Particularly the notion that people are putting money into their homes for the first time."
Alibaba and Martha Stewart believe that Chinese consumers need to be made aware of the brand and they believe that the consumers will eventually catch on.
In Stewart's blog post, she wrote, "In this dynamic time there is an expanding wealth, and that is, in turn, creating a growing, young middle-class with unprecedented purchasing power."
She noted, "They have the opportunity to focus on the quality of life within their homes, using all the wonderful new products that you can get a glimpse of here at this show today."
The homemaker mogul has been expanding to the e-commerce market. She shifted from selling products on Amazon instead of eBay.
"It's a much bigger audience," she said in an interview. "It's the powerhouse retailer online in the United States."
