A major home furnishings and kitchenware retailer, Working House (生活工廠), yesterday inked a partnership with the fast-food chain Mos Burger Taiwan as part of a plan to expand its market share, a company executive said yesterday.
"Forming strategic alliances to create added value and expand our customer base is the key to staying competitive in the home furnishings market," company president Dennis Hsu (許宏榮) said at a press gathering yesterday in Tamsui.
Working House and Mos Burger yesterday inaugurated a new joint-outlet in Tamsui.
"We chose Mos Burger as our partner because their image of nature and health is compatible with ours," said Hsu. "We will cooperate on many fronts, such as outlet expansion and marketing."
The 13-year-old Working House has 139 stores in Taiwan and hopes to increase the number to 165 by the end of next year. Offering a variety of kitchenware, home furnishings, stationary and general houseware items, the retailer hopes to create annual sales of NT$1.9 billion this year and up to NT$2.2 billion next year, Hsu said.
"Customers' needs can be met and upgraded," said Hsu. "We plan to develop customers' fondness of our style and products and make them shop through this new marketing strategy."
To achieve its goal, the life-style store said it plans to open a 600-ping joint-outlet with Mos Burger in two years at a shopping mall invested in by Kolin Co (歌林) in Hsinchuang, Taipei County. In addition, Working House is also seeking potential partnerships with other businesses, including florists and coffee shops, to increase the added value of its image.
They have approached "3Royalty 3House" (
Working House's efforts aims to secure its market share before Muji (Taiwan) Co (台灣無印良品), a powerful rival introduced by a Japanese company and Taiwan's largest convenience store chain, President Chain Store Corp (統一超商), formally enters the local home furnishings market early next year.
"We plan to open our first outlet in the first half of 2004 in Taipei," said Lillian Lin (林立莉), President's public relations manager.
Muji, a 23-year-old Japanese retailer specializing in home furnishings with "simple, natural and quality" designs, created annual sales of US$887 million last year with 121 stores throughout Japan. It also opened shops in the UK, Ireland, France, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea.
"Muji's targeted customers include students and office employees who emphasize taste. I believe our stores' layout and the products' design will make us stand out from the competitors," Lin added.
One analyst was positive about Working House's strategy to develop a clustering effect and thereby expand its scale of customers.
"In the face of President Chain's know-how and resources in retailing, it is helpful for Working House to cooperate with President's competitors," said Raymond Yang (楊晴華), an analyst at KGI Securities Corp (中信證券).
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last