Q: Can you articulate (again) the big advantage of having that special invitation letter from Tmall?

A: You were already invited by Tmall to open a store. The question is the TYPE of flagship you are allowed to open. Not all flagships are the same.

If you have all trademarks registered under one entity, then you can use that entity to open a multi-brand flagship with full rights to brand traffic.

If the ownership isn’t clear, you can only register as a group and “add” sub brands later…NOT ideal: you will only have rights to the GROUP name, rather than appearing in search for all individual brands in the store. When a consumer searches by brand or trade name (and you don’t have rights), then you won’t appear “automatically” on the first page in the reserved top positions.

This effectively cuts you out of a major portion of brand traffic…and revenue. You will pay to play.

But you are limited in your use of brand advertising tools and your cost per sale will be high. You likely won’t rank. So the key point is how inclusive and flexible the store structure is.