Despite anticipating increased competition from newcomers, department stores in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) remain confident about future business, representatives said at a press conference yesterday, citing their niche-finding efforts and product differentiation.
The Xinyi Commercial District, already home to several malls, expects two new Breeze Development Co Ltd (微風廣場實業) entrants in the next two years, with the first — on Songgao Road — to be launched later this year.
Current malls are not worried about the competition, they said.
“With different customer foci, these new department stores might raise a complementary effect and create shared prosperity for this shopping area,” Uni-President Hankyu Department Store (統一阪急百貨) president Wang Po-ming (王寶銘) told reporters yesterday.
Bellavita, another Xinyi District department store, which is seen as one of the nation’s top luxury malls, is also bullish about future business.
Wang said Uni-President Hankyu in Taipei has focused on female customers in their 30s since it opened in 2010, a strategy proved to be successful by the store’s more than 360,000 members — whose annual purchases account for about half of the store’s sales.
The contribution from members — who might number 380,000 by the end of this year — drives the store’s confidence in its momentum, Wang said.
Uni-President Hankyu has seen sales in the first eight months of the year rise 14 percent from the same period last year, mainly on the back of the department store’s partial renovation this year and a rising contribution from Chinese customers, Wang said.
The overall tax refund amount at the department store has showed 30 percent growth for this year, with about 80 percent of it coming from Chinese customers, data from Uni-President Hankyu showed.
Launched in October 2009, Bellavita (寶麗廣塲)has built brand awareness by introducing several exclusive luxury brands into the mall, with the department store eyeing elite clientele between 40 and 60 years old as its target customers.
Anita Leung (梁佳敏), director of ChunYee Co Ltd (震怡), Bellavita’s operator, said she hopes the mall’s sales over the second five years of operation will double from the first aggregate amount.
Bellavita has added more than 20,000 members over the past five years, with their annual purchases accounting for half of the department store’s yearly revenue, Leung added.
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