AS Watson Group (ASW) celebrated another corporate milestone following its flagship retail brand Watsons reaching 4,000 stores at the end of 2013. Growing rapidly across Asia and Eastern Europe, in the past 3 years Watsons has been organically expanding its store portfolio, to bring quality Health & Beauty products and professional services to customers.
Extending the model of success
Watsons’ store expansion accelerated in 2012-2013 with over 1,000 openings at the pace of more than 1 new store per day, a record of store openings for ASW with all markets increasing their store numbers lead by Mainland China which now operates 1,700 stores, and this momentum is expected to carry on in 2014, “Our global expansion plan for AS Watson is to exceed 13,000 stores in 2015. Watsons is one of the Group's flagship retail brands. This year alone we plan to open 1,200 new stores amongst which 700 will be under the Watsons brand. This represents an average of over 3 new stores a day throughout the year,” said Dominic Lai, AS Watson Group Managing Director.
“Store opening aside, our game plan is to deliver sales growth through an increasingly customer centric approach. Currently we have over 80 million members in our loyalty programme worldwide. We have invested significantly in building our customer relationship management technology which will allow us to better understand our customer purchase behaviours and product preferences so we can improve personalization of offers. And to drive differentiation, we will increase collaboration with strategic suppliers to improve category management and bring more innovative products to our customers at great value.”
Brand Development as Key Driver
As a pioneer in the Health & Beauty business in the market, Watsons has put tremendous efforts in providing the best shopping experience to our customers. The brand refresh exercise brought a vibrant image to WOW customers in its 12 operating markets with friendly, caring and professional service, contributing the success of Watsons as No.1 Pharmacy/ Drugstore brand in Asia* for 5 consecutive years.
*Campaign Asia-Pacific “Asia’s Top 1,000 Brands” survey 2013 of over 6,000 respondents
Opportunities on Digital – The Future of Retail
Watsons expands not only through its store openings, the brand is also winning impressive battles in the digital world. By doubling its business on Yahoo! online platform, Watsons Taiwan ranked top in the e-shopping channel in 2013 and was given the “Super Golden Store Award” and “Most Popular Store Award”. Watsons China has won the title of “Best eCommerce Platform” in 2013 Cosmopolitan Beauty Awards, which the brand is currently one of the top beauty merchants in Tmall, a popular online shopping platform in Mainland China, with more than 17 million visitors and an impressive sales growth at over 120% in 2013 (vs. 2012).
ASW has been advocating e-Commerce for its 15 retail brands with e-Commerce infrastructure investments and Watsons enjoys the benefits from it, realised by the introduction of 8 e-Commerce-enabled websites in 2013-2014, covering different markets including Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Türkiye and Ukraine. Capturing the opportunities in digital world, Watsons believes that it could leverage business potentials in the untapped areas without store penetration. Social media is an integral part of the Watsons brand image building and we get in touch with over 7 million fans from different social networks, contributing to the holistic customer experience of Watsons.
By reaching our customers online and offline, the dual-channel development of Watsons is expected to bring the brand to further success and consolidate leading position with unparalleled competitive edge in the market.
