Editor’s Note
The shifting preferences of China’s young consumers are reshaping the retail landscape. As this article highlights, domestic brands like HEFANG are now leading where international names once dominated, signaling a significant change in the market.
For a long time, Swarovski’s crystal necklaces and Pandora’s beaded bracelets were the “permanent guests” in the jewelry boxes of China’s young, urban women. These international brands, under the banner of “affordable luxury,” captured the Chinese market and fueled young women’s imagination of a “refined life.” However, in this year’s Tmall “Double 11” jewelry and accessories category rankings, a brand named HEFANG Jewelry replaced these “foreign faces” to take the top spot.
On December 11, a reporter visited HEFANG Jewelry’s Zhuhai headquarters and Zhongshan factory and conducted an in-depth interview with founder Sun Hefang. Sun Hefang believes that with the domestic market relatively mature, HEFANG hopes to initiate its global strategy through expansion into European and American markets, seeking new growth opportunities overseas.
Data provided by Taobao shows that, including HEFANG, over 60% of Tmall jewelry and accessory merchants are now looking towards overseas markets, selling products globally through cross-border channels like Taobao and independent websites. This collective push overseas is a self-rescue move by domestic affordable luxury jewelry brands under overall market pressure. As the industry transitions from rapid expansion to structural adjustment, the more competitive European and American jewelry markets, characterized by high per capita jewelry consumption and deep category penetration, still offer considerable market space for these brands seeking growth abroad.
HEFANG Jewelry, founded by Sun Hefang in 2012, is a notably successful domestic affordable luxury jewelry brand in recent years. Its products emphasize original design and fashionable styling, with jewelry and accessories priced above 1,000 yuan, positioning it against international brands like Swarovski, Pandora, and APM Monaco. Leveraging its family-owned factory, HEFANG achieves full-chain control from design and sampling to production and quality inspection—a rare advantage among domestic jewelry designer brands.
Strong family backing provided a fast track for realizing Sun Hefang’s design concepts and ensured stability in HEFANG’s material quality and craftsmanship. Simultaneously, HEFANG uses live streaming and content marketing on platforms like Taobao and Xiaohongshu to convey its brand identity. In 2024, the popular TV series “The Story of Rose” aired, featuring Liu Yifei wearing HEFANG jewelry multiple times, which significantly boosted sales of related products.
It must be noted that in recent years, traditional affordable luxury jewelry giants in the domestic market have been scaling back, either actively or passively. For instance, Swarovski’s Austrian headquarters reportedly laid off 400 employees this year and closed over a hundred stores in China. Pandora also doubled its planned store closures in China this year from 50 to 100.
At a deeper level, this reflects a dual shift in domestic consumption trends. On one hand, consumers are moving from chasing brand logos to pursuing emotional value and self-expression. On the other hand, practical considerations regarding product materials, pricing, practicality, and even value retention are becoming significantly more important.
Currently, the HEFANG brand has been operating overseas for two years. Notably, for its first overseas foray, HEFANG did not choose to test emerging markets but directly targeted Europe and America—the most fiercely competitive main battlefield in global fashion design.
Gaining a foothold in the fashion-influential European and American markets to drive domestic and global sales is HEFANG’s plan. Against this backdrop, as HEFANG sets its sights on more competitive overseas markets, the core challenge becomes making overseas consumers understand and identify with the value proposition of its “unique design + fine craftsmanship.” This will determine whether it achieves true brand globalization rather than just cross-border sales.
However, “heavy is the head that wears the crown.” As market attention rapidly increases, the challenges facing HEFANG are becoming more severe. On one hand, HEFANG’s highly recognizable design language has become a major target for counterfeiting. Despite ongoing rights protection efforts, difficulties in evidence collection and low compensation awards mean counterfeits continue to disrupt genuine sales and brand image.
More importantly, HEFANG designs jewelry primarily using 925 silver, shell pearls, zirconia, and K-gold, with prices ranging from 1,000 to 3,000 yuan, leading some consumers to question the “match between material value and price.”
Additionally, recent record highs in silver prices, with spot silver breaking $60 per ounce in December 2025 (a yearly increase of over 110%, far exceeding gold’s rise), pose ongoing pressure for HEFANG, a brand with silver jewelry as a core product line. Balancing cost control, maintaining reasonable profits, and upholding brand value will be a key factor influencing its future development.