But in 2002, Ji felt the export business was starting to face a bottleneck because of rising labor costs, so he quit his business and became involved with investment activities.

During his trips throughout the world, he came across many clothes and shoes manufactured overseas that were of higher quality but cheaper than similar merchandise selling in China.

"Compared with making investments, setting up a business by myself was more exciting. I felt I was going from small to large," said Ji. "Importing fashion is promising and meaningful."

In 2008, Ji set up Xiu.com with his college classmate Huang Jin, the company's chief strategy officer and a former venture capital investor, and his co-worker of 15 years Mou Qing, senior vice-president of the company and a professional fashion buyer.

Ji said the difficulty they encountered at the start was persuading overseas companies there was a market in China for their middle- and high-end fashion.

Now, Xiu.com has more than 3 million registered users, with more than 70 percent of them active, meaning that a customer buys products on Xiu.com at least once a year. Users are mainly between 25 and 35 years old and familiar with global brands through overseas study, foreign movies or the Internet.

"Xiu.com customers have strong purchasing power, with transactions per customer averaging more than $100, the highest among Chinese e-commerce websites," Ji said.

There are between 80 million and 90 million such customers in China, according to a joint survey by eBay and Xiu.com.

Mou said that before 2010, they mainly bought clothes, shoes and bags from around the world, and then started to negotiate with companies owning fashion brands to get their authorization to sell their products.

"We have a list of 500 global fashion brands and more than 100 have been our cooperative partners," said Mou, adding that they selected from about 5,000 global brands and found the 500 that are most suitable for Chinese customers, on price and quality.

More than 50 global brands authorized Xiu.com to be their online seller last year, with top Italian luxury brand Salvatore Ferragamo joining hands with Xiu.com in September.

Mou said of the items they brought in, 60 percent are clothes, 20 percent shoes and bags and the remaining 20 percent other accessories including watches.

In November, Xiu.com cooperated with eBay in launched the joint site eBay Style so that Chinese customers can access more than 5,000 fashion brands on eBay.

A survey by eBay showed that in the first half of 2012, the time Chinese Internet users spent browsing eBay's global website totaled 17 million hours.

In 2006, eBay pulled most of its businesses from the Chinese market in answer to the "free strategy" adopted by Chinese e-commerce retailer Taobao.com, media said.

Ji said: "Xiu.com and eBay have similar clients and we attach great importance to the cooperation," adding that his company is also open to other global fashion brands.

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