RETAIL EXPERT ADVICE
EXPERT ADVICE
Offline plus online: The future of retail
A.S. Watson’s Malina Ngai explains why O+O is the new standard for retail
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stablished in Hong Kong in 1841, A.S. Watson is now the world’s largest international health and
beauty retailer, operating over 16,000 stores under 12 retail brands in 27 markets. Each year, it serves over 5.9 billion shoppers via its O+O (offline plus online) platforms, powered by technology and AI. Malina Ngai, CEO, A.S. Watson (Asia & Europe), tells Cosmetics Business what O+O means for A.S. Watson.
What are the limitations of the traditional store strategy setup? Traditional physical store setup relies only on nearby footfall and shopping is limited to time, location and space available. This restricts the number of customers you can serve, and the store productivity. And when online platforms emerged, the industry started to see O2O (online to offline, offline to online) strategy fighting against each other, sometimes within the same company.
When talking about operating retail today, what does O+O mean?
Almost always, a customer’s shopping journey involves online and offline. For the benefits of customers, we have to focus on their lifestyle. Forget physical versus online. It’s not either or. O+O is the new standard for retail. Simply, O+O describes how customers shop today. It creates an integrated experience to better serve customers’ needs and enables them to shop across any channel, anytime, anywhere. There is no cannibalisation in customers’ spending in physical stores. In fact, the O+O customer spends three times what an in-store-only customer shops with us.
What are the pillars of A.S. Watson’s O+O retail? At A.S. Watson, delivering O+O retail
cosmeticsbusiness.com
Malina Ngai, CEO, A.S. Watson (Asia & Europe) Malina Ngai is CEO, A.S. Watson (Asia & Europe). She has been instrumental in formulating A.S. Watson’s customer and digital strategy
www.aswatson.com
with excellence is a combination of our 16,000+ extensive physical store network as core touchpoints, 140,000- strong customer service team who serve customers in-store as well as online, integrated with 100+ online platforms, and very importantly, the customer connectivity with our 139 million loyalty member base, powered by AI and big data capabilities.
What key examples of these are already in place?
In Asia, all of our stores are connected to digital platforms, meaning the product offering is never limited by shelf space. In a few clicks, store teams can order products for delivery or pick-up by customers. Our loyalty members are also digitally connected with social media and digital platforms, so they can shop online not only on our mobile apps and websites, but also via WhatsApp, WeChat and phone. At The Perfume Shop in the UK and ICI PARIS XL in Benelux,
customers who browse on our online stores can speak to an in-store beauty advisor to get a consultation and to see the product texture on video via our Go-In-Store service. Meanwhile, Watsons China’s customers can seek personalised advice from in-store beauty advisors via MyStore on WeChat and enjoy one-to-one personalised recommendations and can receive product delivery within one hour.
What benefits do these provide to your customers and A.S. Watson retail brands?
‘Customer is king’ is the motive behind the new O+O model we created in our business. They want what they want when they want it. They want things to be easy for them. They want human touch and relationships. They want differentiation in the products and services we provide. By focusing on delivering these benefits for our customers, A.S. Watson retail brands will gain more loyalty from more customers.
What other O+O retail experiences can we expect from you in future? We are focusing on developing our O+O experiences on mobile phones, because this is the lifestyle of customers, everything takes place on their own phones. Currently we are enhancing the skin analysis technology so customers can see detailed skin condition analysis on their screens, and get advice from our beauty advisors. We are also working on a foundation finder for customers to solve their common pain points in finding the right shades. Another O+O retail experience you can expect to see more from our brands is live streaming, which is increasingly popular
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