Watsons China continued to accelerate its O+O (Offline Plus Online) platform strategy during the past 3 years of pandemic with nearly 850 physical stores opening in Mainland China. As the market shows a gradual recovery and an improvement in customer sentiment, Watsons China is planning to open over 300 new stores this year further strengthening its O+O platform strategy.
In the past three years, Watsons has been striving for innovation in its store designs by renovating nearly 440 stores in over 300 cities in Mainland China. Watsons China is now operating 3,900 stores across 500 cities and recently it has further opened an upgraded Watsons store and a Colorlab 2.0 makeup concept store in Shanghai Qingpu Wuyue Plaza and Jiangsu Changzhou Wuyue Plaza respectively, enhancing the O+O customer shopping experience.
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.”
Brand New O+O Store Concepts
As Asia’s leading Health & Beauty retailer, Watsons has been innovating its store design and customer experience. Vibrantly decorated to bring excitement to the younger generations, the upgraded Watsons store features a dedicated skincare zone that provides a comprehensive skincare experience to customers. Not only can customers try out the most advanced and professional skin analysis equipment in store, they can also seek personalised advice from in-store beauty advisors.
Since the first Colorlab makeup concept store launched in Shenzhen in January 2018, Colorlab has been well received by beauty-goers. Following its success, Watsons China has launched a new Colorlab 2.0 makeup concept store. Decorated in the classic black, white and grey combined with a refreshing “Watsons green” transparent colour tone, the Colorlab 2.0 makeup concept store successfully creates a fashionable and chic makeup space for customers, providing them with access to personalised makeup advice, as well as the opportunity to try out different trendy looks and play around with new products.
Malina adds, “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.”
