A.S. Watson Group wins the “Top Ten Retailer in Hong Kong – Gold Award” in the Retail Asia-Pacific Top 500 Awards 2017

Watsons and PARKnSHOP Win Six “Top 10 Retailer” Titles in Asia Markets

HONG KONG, 2017-Aug-14 — /EPR Retail News/ — A.S. Watson Group (ASW) has won the “Top Ten Retailer in Hong Kong – Gold Award” in the Retail Asia-Pacific Top 500 Awards 2017 organised by Asia Retail Publishing. The Group’s flagship brand Watsons was ranked high amongst other retail companies in five markets, including Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines, while PARKnSHOP supermarket also won the Asia Top Ten retailers in supermarket category.

Jointly organized by Retail Asia Publishing, Euromonitor International and KPMG, the annual Retail Asia Pacific Top 500 Awards recognise retail companies with best performance in the market. The top 500 retail companies in Asia from 14 key economies across Asia-Pacific were ranked in terms of business performance, based on Euromonitor International’s retailing data and analysis, while the top ten retailers from each market/retail format category will be awarded.

SOURCE: A.S. Watson Group

Watson House, 1-5 Wo Liu Hang Road, Fo Tan,Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong

+852 2606 8833
+852 2690 2836
grouppr@aswatson.com

Watsons China ranked 25th in the latest “Top 100 New Retail Brands Ranking 2017”

Hong Kong, 2017-Jul-19 — /EPR Retail News/ — Watsons China was ranked 25th among the top retail brands in China, according to the latest “Top 100 New Retail Brands Ranking 2017” released by PinTu, a renowned business media platform based in China. The recognition reflects that Watsons has become a highly trusted and popular brand and successfully earned customers’ heart in China.The ranking grounded on an in-depth research of retail brands in China across 5 categories – Financial results of the business, retail foundation, digitalisation, channels development and Innovation on the business model.

As one of the leading health and beauty retailers in Mainland China, Watsons’ footprint has expanded rapidly throughout the country with more than 3,000 stores in over 430 cities and over 60 million members. In the digital arena, Watsons China has a strong online presence in eCommerce with its newly launched mobile app “萵筍” (pronounced as “Watsons”) and the electronic membership card lately, which offers one-stop solution to customers while enabling round-the-clock, O2O (Online-to-Offline) service.

Source: A.S. Watson Group

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Watsons launches Brand Refresh Campaign; introduces brand-new store team uniforms

Hong Kong, 2017-Jul-10 — /EPR Retail News/ — At Watsons, we always make customers “LOOK GOOD, FEEL GREAT”. The brand has launched a Brand Refresh Campaign throughout 12 operating markets across Asia and Eastern Europe. The best way to live the “Look Good, Feel Great” brand value is to start with our employees, therefore Watsons evolves by introducing brand-new store team uniforms which help project a young, energetic and stylish brand image.

Emily Wong, Regional Marketing Director of Health & Beauty Asia said, “To move the brand with times and build more interactions with our young customers, we have launched a Brand Refresh Campaign to convey a sense of youth and vitality and offer refreshing online and offline shopping experience. A set of brand-new uniforms has been introduced to kick start the campaign.”

Nurture Local Talents

In recent years, Watsons has endeavored to attract more and more young customers to shop with us. To make them look good and feel great, our store team plays an important role as they are representing Watsons to interact and communicate with our customers.

To drive more new ideas on uniform design, we teamed up with the Institute of Textiles and Clothing of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, to organise a uniform design competition and help design a set of youthful and refreshing uniform for our store team. The competition opened to all students from Institute of Textile and Clothing, which enables young student designers to put their knowledge into practice, gain valuable experience as well as international exposure.

Listen to Our Employees

As an international brand with global business presence, the choice of uniform fabrics and designs has to fit the needs of our teams in different regions. For instance, due to the hot and humid weather in Hong Kong and other countries in Southeast Asia, the uniform fabrics should be thin and breathable. To help students understand the needs of store in 12 Watsons markets and learn to apply their knowledge into real-world situations, they were offered a chance to get in touch with store team in person and listen to their preferences and opinions. Their task was to design stylish yet comfortable uniforms which enhances our image and makes our store team looks smart and help provide quality and professional services to our customers. Watsons strongly believes that listening to our employees is one of the key element for them to build stronger bonding with the company and commit to provide better service to our customers.

Uniform Turns Stylish!

After a rigorous selection process, Sharon Yeung stood out among all creative designs and became the winner. She explained, “Each and every detail adds up to a good retail brand experience. When designing the uniform, I paid meticulous attention to every detail of it. The uniform design is suitable for daily operation works (such as stocking shelves) plus a touch of fashion, for example, the new store manager uniform carries with delicate and subtle details on the collar. The slim-fit design makes them look younger and more confident.”

New Watsons uniforms help build a young and professional image for our store team while addressing their daily practical needs. Our beauty advisors uniform comes with a makeup bag which lets them put all beauty accessories and provide make up and beauty advices to our customers at convenience. For our Health and Fitness Advisor uniform, it has a touch of lime green on the usual medical white colour.

In Watsons Brand Refresh Campaign, we started by bringing new look to our store team and giving fresh and energising experiences to our customers. There are more to come to excite our customers.

Contact:
Tel: +852 2606 8833
Fax: +852 2690 2836
Email: grouppr@aswatson.com

Source: A.S. Watson Group

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Baidu Waimai to deliver Watsons products to over 30 million online shoppers in China

HONG KONG, 2016-Mar-04 — /EPR Retail News/ — A.S. Watson Group’s (ASW) flagship retail brand Watsons has reached an agreement with Baidu Waimai, one of China’s fastest-growing O2O (online-to-offline) platform to provide high quality and convenient shopping experience, making Watsons products available to over 30 million shoppers in 120 cities in the Mainland.

As the largest international health and beauty retailer in Asia and Europe, ASW is committed to provide world-class shopping experience, in our online shops and over 12,400 stores worldwide. It is definitely a good news to the sophisticated online customers in China, where the quality premium products from Watsons can be delivered to door within 2 hours of order confirmation on Baidu Waimai eCommerce website, thanks to the advanced point-to-point delivery service from Baidu’s platform.

eCommerce is one of the strategy focus of ASW, and the collaboration with Baidu is an example of innovation we provide to improve customer experience. Together with the establishment of in-house eCommerce unit eLab, ASW is enabled to provide enhanced digital experience to our customers.

SOURCE: A.S. Watson Group

A.S. Watson Retail (HK) Ltd
A.S. Watson Brand Contact Methods

Watson House, 1-5 Wo Liu Hang Road, Fo Tan,Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong
+852 2606 8833
+852 2690 2836
grouppr@aswatson.com

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Baidu Waimai to deliver Watsons products to over 30 million online shoppers in China

Baidu Waimai to deliver Watsons products to over 30 million online shoppers in China

SM Prime Holdings, Inc. opens its 55th mall in the Philippines, SM Center Sangandaan

Pasay City, Philippines, 2015-10-26 — /EPR Retail News/ — SM Prime Holdings, Inc. (SM Prime), one of the leading integrated property companies in Southeast Asia, opens today SM Center Sangandaan, October 23, 2015.  It is SM Prime’s 55th mall in the Philippines, and first mall in the populous City of Caloocan, one of the16 cities within Metro Manila.  The new mall provides an additional 38,622 square meters (sqm) in gross floor area (GFA), giving SM Prime a total retail space of 6,825,206 sqm, the largest footprint in the country.

SM Center Sangandaan, strategically located  along the busy intersection of Samson Road and A. Mabini Street Sangandaan, Caloocan City, will give SM Prime access to the northern tip of Metro Manila, bringing a unique shopping experience closer to the highly dense cities of Malabon, Navotas and Caloocan.

“SM Center Sangandaan reflects SM Prime’s commitment to be part of the growth across communities. We are very pleased to open our first mall in Caloocan City which is a testament to the fact that Metro Manila is far from being saturated by modern retail facilities,” SM Prime President Hans T. Sy said.

The mall opens its doors to more than one and a half million Filipinos with 90% of the space lease awarded to various tenants. SM Center Sangandaan will have anchor tenants such as SM Supermarket, SM Appliance Center, SM Cinema, Ace Hardware, BDO, and Watsons.

There will be a total of three levels of prime spaces which includes four cinema theaters with a total seating capacity of 824 and 493 parking slots.The mall’s facade gets its inspiration from different shades of blue, gray and white, giving the exterior a quirky geometric visual design. The main interior features a high glass ceiling, complemented by white walls which maximizes daylight and adds futher dimension to the mall. SM Center Sangandaan was delicately planned around a simple yet efficient design that allows shoppers to easily stroll around and provides clear line-of-sight to all shops on all levels at the same time.

To date, SM Center Sangandaan is the fifth SM mall to be opened this year, after Cherry SM in Shaw Boulevard with a GFA of 24,165 sqm and SM City Cabanatuan. These malls recently opened last October 13 and October 9, respectively. The highly anticipated, SM Seaside City Cebu, is scheduled to open on November 27, 2015.

By the end of 2015, SM Prime will have 56 malls in the Philippines and six in China with an estimated combined GFA of 8,301,267 million sqm.

SM Prime remains committed to its role as a catalyst for economic growth, delivering innovative and sustainable lifestyle cities, thereby enriching the quality of life of millions of people.

SOURCE: SM Investments Corporation

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SM Prime Holdings, Inc. opens its 55th mall in the Philippines, SM Center Sangandaan

SM Prime Holdings, Inc. opens its 55th mall in the Philippines, SM Center Sangandaan

Watsons opens its 333rd store in Thailand at Siam Square

SIAM SQUARE, Thailand, 2015-3-13 — /EPR Retail News/ —  Watsons, as the number one health and beauty retailer in Thailand, celebrates the grand opening of its 333rd branch to mark a new milestone of the brand. The new flagship store at Siam Square, the renowned shopping landmark in Bangkok, enjoys a spacious sales floor area of over 5,700 square feet, is the largest Watsons retail store in Thailand, offering customers a one-of-a-kind shopping experience.

A.S. Watson Retail (HK) Ltd.

Watson House, 1-5 Wo Liu Hang Road, Fo Tan, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong
Tel +852 2606 8833
Fax +852 2695 3664
Website http://www.aswatson.com
Email grouppr@aswatson.com

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Mr. Rod Routley, Managing Director of Watsons Thailand (3rd from right), officiates the 333rd store celebration ceremony

Mr. Rod Routley, Managing Director of Watsons Thailand (3rd from right), officiates the 333rd store celebration ceremony