Hundreds of people formed a long line along bustling Zhongxiao E Road in Taipei yesterday morning, waiting for the grand opening of Japanese clothes giant Uniqlo’s flagship store in Taiwan.
The Japanese casual wear designer, manufacturer and retailer opened its sixth flagship store in the world in Taipei yesterday.
It is the first of six stores it is planning to launch within two months in Taipei. As of 10am, more than 700 diehard fans of the brand were ready to snap up the clothes once the store opened.
Photo: Pan Shao-tang, Taipei Times
Huang Yu-ting, 24, who happened to have a day off, arrived at about midnight for a place at the head of the line.
Waving her “No. 1” card with a smile, Huang said that her “main target” was a down jacket, adding that her budget for the day was about NT$5,000 to NT$6,000.
Uniqlo’s flagship store occupies the first three floors of the 12-story Ming Yao Department Store (明曜百貨), which also held a grand opening yesterday after seven months of renovation.
Uniqlo’s billionaire founder Tadashi Yanai and Uniqlo Taiwan Ltd chief executive Kousaka Takeshi attended the opening ceremony.
They said they were delighted at the opening and promised to provide top-level service as a way of thanking their customers.
Due to the large crowds at the grand opening of Taiwan’s first Uniqlo store, also in Taipei’s east district, in October last year, the company asked about 500 staff to be on duty yesterday.
When the first Taiwan Uniqlo store opened, 2,500 customers lined up and 7,000 people visited the shop on the first day.
The 3,630m2 flagship store at Ming Yao with 39 fitting rooms and 45 cashier counters is the biggest Uniqlo store in the country,.
Uniqlo casual wear is popular among local young consumers and at present the company has two outlets in Taiwan.
Earlier, Takeshi announced that Uniqlo was launching a plan next year to open 30 outlets each year in Taiwan. The goal is to eventually have 100 outlets around the country.
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
The government yesterday approved applications by Alphabet Inc’s Google to invest NT$27.08 billion (US$859.98 million) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. The Department of Investment Review approved two investments proposed by Google, with much of the funds to be used for data processing and electronic information supply services, as well as inventory procurement businesses in the semiconductor field, the ministry said. It marks the second consecutive year that Google has applied to increase its investment in Taiwan. Google plans to infuse NT$25.34 billion into Charter Investments Ltd (特許投資顧問) through its Singapore-based subsidiary Fructan Holdings Singapore Pte Ltd, and
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
The US said it plans to help build a first-of-its-kind industrial hub in the Philippines to boost production of inputs crucial to US supply chains. The 4,000-acre hub is intended to be “a purpose-built platform for allied manufacturing” and “an investment acceleration hub where the specific industrial activities are shaped by market demand,” the US Department of State said on Thursday. The project — touted as an “economic security zone” — would be within the Luzon Economic Corridor, a flagship economic project backed by the US and Japan on the main Philippine island. The project was also described as “the first artificial intelligence
RSS