European software provider Cegid has opened a data centre in China to help UK retailers with stores locally to adhere to strict data privacy laws introduced across the mainland.

Cegid’s new cloud point of delivery (POD) is based in Shanghai and is the company’s fourth international data centre, adding to existing locations in the US, Ireland and Singapore.

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The new cloud POD will ensure that all retailers operating in the region will be able to comply with local data residency requirements.

The Chinese authorities are constantly enacting new laws concerning the protection of personal data which dictate that customer information must be kept locally, Cegid says. Many retailers, lured to China by the prospect of significant growth, with high demand for western brands in particular, face a crippling process of following all the legislative text and complying with regulations limiting the storage and transfer of data outside the territory.

“For over 15 years, we’ve supported many speciality retailers and luxury brands in developing their activities in China,” says Nathalie Echinard, director of the retail business unit at Cegid. “Cegid’s investment in this new data centre in China is in response to meeting the needs of our customers and complying with the constantly evolving regulatory framework for enhanced data protection and data localisation. Many luxury brands look upon China as a vital market for sustained growth and will continue to benefit from our local support and international expertise.”

Already, over 60 apparel and beauty brands – including Longchamp, L’Occitane, Lancôme, Delsey and Isabel Marant – have adopted the Cegid Retail solution to run their stores across China.

To extend its cloud services across the Chinese mainland and deploy the new POD, Cegid has partnered with Chinese operator 21Vianet Blue Cloud, one of the premier cloud computing solution and service providers in China and an official partner of Microsoft for Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform.

The Cegid Retail solution is already adapted specifically for the Chinese market: covering local business, legal, language and taxation requirements, but also in accordance with a greater reliance on social media and online marketplaces (like Tmall, WeChat and JD.com) for digital shopping in China. With this new cloud point of delivery, retailers can now benefit from Cegid Retail’s SaaS solution in China.