Touting its customer-oriented services, a new shopping mall set for a grand opening tomorrow could reinvigorate the Taipei Railway Station neighborhood.
The 20,000 ping (66,100m²), seven-story Qsquare (京站時尚廣場) expects to see NT$5 billion (US$151 million) in receipts in its first year of operation, said Christina Ko (柯愫吟), general manager of Jing-Jan Retail Business Co (京站實業), which runs Qsquare.
It is expected to see NT$500 million in sales in the first two weeks alone, she said.
The new mall is part of a property that also includes luxury housing, a gym, a cinema complex and a five-star hotel poised to open next spring.
NEW IN THE AREA
Qsquare is expected to revive the shopping landscape of the Taipei Railway Station area, where Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store (新光三越) is the only major mall.
With an innovation budget of NT$1 billion, Qsquare is expected to break even in three years — a common time frame for mall operators, said Sunny Liu (劉懿慧), Jing-Jan’s strategy and planning director.
Qsquare is setting its eyes on the 500,000 daily commuters transiting at Taipei Railway Station, who take the MRT, railways and buses, she told reporters during a pre-opening media tour yesterday.
As many as 100,000 commuters take express buses in and out of the Taipei Bus Station (台北轉運站) alone, she said, giving Qsquare an edge as it is located adjacent to the station.
The mall targets shoppers between 18 and 45 years of age and seeks to offer unique services that meet customer needs. For example, it boasts freezer lockers outside of the Jason’s supermarket in the basement so that shoppers can drop off their purchases of frozen food and go for a movie before going home.
Qsquare is also hoping to win women over with a large lingerie section complete with heated floors in the changing rooms to keep shoppers warm while they try on garments.
There are also carts for lingerie shoppers and a larger fitting room to allow groups of shoppers to stay together while they try on garments.
SPORTS
The mall also hopes to attract sports and health enthusiasts with everything from tanning rooms and a skateboard playground to a bicycle parking lot.
Cyclists can hang their vehicles on the wall on the third floor or put foldable bikes into tailored lockers.
A shower room is also available for cyclists.
“Qsquare differentiates itself from rivals by targeting mainly the younger crowds,” said Chiou Jyh-shen (邱志聖), an international business professor at National Chengchi University.
Its strategic location in the bustling Taipei Railway Station neighborhood will help business, he said.
Government figures show that revenues for shopping malls and department stores in Taiwan in the first 10 months of the year inched up nearly 1 percent from last year to NT$182 billion. Sales in October alone grew 10.8 percent year-on-year to NT$27 billion thanks to anniversary promotions.
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) today unveiled a long-haul network expansion plan at a shareholders’ meeting in Taipei, including direct flights to Barcelona, Spain, and Zurich, Switzerland, as well as a service connecting Taipei, Sydney and New Zealand. Starlux is to become the first Taiwanese carrier to offer non-stop services to the two European cities, while the inaugural oceanic route is expected to expand transit opportunities within the Australia-New Zealand market, Starlux said. Flight services to Chicago, Dallas, Washington and New York are under evaluation, the airline added. Prior to the shareholders’ meeting, the airline earlier this year announced that it would be
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
RSS