Saint Laurent restarts sales in Hangzhou

Luxury fashion brand Saint Laurent has resumed normal sales to an area in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, previously reported as "blacklisted" amid concerns over high return rates and livestreaming-driven consumption patterns.

Tests conducted by The Paper on the brand's official Tmall flagship store on Monday showed that addresses in the Yingfeng Street area of Xiaoshan district, which had previously been denied service, could once again place orders.

A report on Sunday by The Paper found that 20 addresses in Yingfeng were rejected for sale by Saint Laurent, while changing the shipping address to other Hangzhou districts allowed orders to go through.

Yingfeng subdistrict, dubbed the "Manhattan of Hangzhou", was established in mid-2020 and spans 23.1 square kilometers. It hosts a dense cluster of cultural media companies and livestreaming e-commerce agencies. The area has become a focal point of the fast-growing livestreaming economy in the e-commerce capital.

Earlier reports highlighted that some merchants, facing behaviors such as "wear and return" by livestreaming consumers, had implemented self-protective measures including regional blacklisting.

The story quickly attracted widespread attention. The controversy over Saint Laurent has now drawn attention to other luxury brands. The Paper also found that Miu Miu, the Italian label under the Prada Group, also limits sales of some items on its Tmall flagship store to at least three Hangzhou subdistricts.

Some merchants defend such measures as risk management, citing high return rates and disputes. Yingfeng's permanent population exceeds 220,000, with roughly 15,000 registered enterprises and a youth demographic of around 70 percent, far above local averages — factors that may contribute to elevated return activity. Courier staff told The Paper that the concentration of livestreaming businesses in Yingfeng may explain the region's high return incidence.

Industry experts stress the fine line between business autonomy and consumer rights.

Cheng Weixiong, a fashion analyst and founder of Shanghai Liangqi Brand Management Co Ltd, said from the merchant's perspective, facing repeated instances of malicious and abnormal returns from the region, blacklisting is indeed a last resort.

However, Cheng noted that from the consumer's standpoint, implementing a blanket ban that punishes everyone for the actions of a few is fundamentally unfair.

Cheng said: "Of course, platforms cannot simply wash their hands of the matter.

"They must promptly halt such regional blacklisting while implementing precise risk controls. The goal should be to prevent a minority from acting badly, ensuring that everyone else does not have to foot the bill."

A clothing goods seller, Cathy Huang said that blacklisting entire subdistricts was often their self-protective measure after individuals kept breaking restrictions via alternative accounts. "As a seller, I can only avoid risks this way," she said.

Some e-commerce operators described frequent returns of worn items, sometimes bearing perfume or makeup. "Some consumers treat returns as a free way to showcase clothes in livestreams, leaving merchants to clean items for resale," Huang said. (source: China daily)