Watsons to open over 300 stores to accelerate its O+O platform strategy

Watsons is planning to open over 300 new stores in China this year, further strengthening its Offline Plus Online (O+O) platform strategy.

According to the company, Watsons has continued to accelerate its O+O platform strategy during the past three years of the pandemic with nearly 850 physical stores opening in mainland China as the market shows a gradual recovery and an improvement in customer sentiment.

During the pandemic, Watsons renovated nearly 440 stores in over 300 cities in mainland China to improve customer experience.

Recently, Watsons also opened an upgraded Watsons store and a Colorlab 2.0 makeup concept store in Shanghai Qingpu Wuyue Plaza and Jiangsu Changzhou Wuyue Plaza respectively. Decorated in the classic black, white and grey combined with a refreshing “Watsons green” transparent color tone, the Colorlab 2.0 makeup concept store features a skincare zone that provides a comprehensive skincare experience to customers. 

Customers can seek personalised advice from in-store beauty advisors. The upgraded store aims to create a fashionable and chic makeup space for customers.

Malina Ngai, CEO of A.S. Watson (Asia & Europe), said, “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, the 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,” Ngai added.

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