(Yicai) Sept. 17 -- Bernard Arnault, chairman and chief executive officer of global luxury group LVMH, is in Shanghai for his third visit in three years.

Arnault was first spotted at the new Louis Vuitton boat-shaped concept store on West Nanjing Road in Jing'an district yesterday, according to social media posts.

Later, Arnault visited the jewelry store of Laopu Gold in the Shanghai IFC Mall in Pudong New Area, netizens claimed on social media, noting that he found the gold jewelry on sale in the store "exquisite and interesting."

Yicai verified with insiders that Arnault and his party did indeed visit the Laopu Gold store. They also pointed out that this was not the first time executives from LVMH visited Laopu Gold stores, as another senior executive went to one of the Chinese firm's jewelry stores in Beijing for research purposes in June.

The customer overlap rate between Laopu Gold and brands under LVMH, such as LV, Hermès, Cartier, and Bulgari, exceeds 77 percent, according to data from Frost and Sullivan.

In the past two years, global high-end consumption cooled, and demand for luxury goods shrank significantly, dragging down the operating performance of related enterprises. For example, LVMH's revenue fell 4 percent in the first half of the year from a year earlier, while its net profit narrowed 22 percent.

The number of global luxury consumers plunged to 350 million at the end of last year from 400 million in 2022, according to a report by US consulting firm Bain.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Futura Costaglione