THE WHAT? Watsons China has announced that it plans to open more than 300 new stores this year, further strengthening its O+O (online + offline) platform strategy.
THE DETAILS The Asian health and beauty retailer has been innovating its store design and customer experience, launching an upgraded store format aimed squarely at Gen Z shoppers featuring a dedicated skin care zone. The drugstore giant has also debuted a Colorlab 2.0 make-up concept store, designed to encourage trial.
THE WHY? Watsons said that the market is showing a gradual recovery after the ravages of COVID-related restrictions and an improvement in customer sentiment. Malina Ngai, CEO of AS Watson (Asia & Europe) says, “O+O is the new standard of retail. By seamlessly integrating offline and online platforms, the O+O platform strategy helps us better understand our customers’ needs, while enabling them to shop with us across any channel at anytime and anywhere. Our customer insights show that, at Watsons China the spending of our O+O customers who shop with us in both physical and online stores is 3.1 times more than those who shop with us only in the physical stores. Thus, O+O platform strategy is proved to be very important for us.
“Looking ahead, the O+O platform strategy will still be our core growth engine, and physical stores will continue to play a significant role in creating irreplaceable O+O customer experience. Therefore, Watsons plans to open over 300 new stores in Mainland China this year with an innovative store design enriching product assortment and providing an advanced customer experience to better suit the needs of customers. Retail is not dead; it just needs to be better for our customers.”
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