The Breeze Song Gao (微風松高) department store in Xinyi District (信義) has become one of the most popular spots for window shopping in Taipei.
It is due to the three-floor Hennes & Mauritz AB (H&M) shop that opened in the department store on Feb. 13, which saw hundreds of people lining up daily in front of the Swedish fashion brand’s first store in Taiwan during the Lunar New Year holiday.
“I stood in line for 10 to 15 minutes with my friends to enter the shop,” Kelly Chen, a 28-year-old office worker, told the Taipei Times on Feb. 22. “Although the brand’s pricing is higher than I expected, I still bought several products.”
Photo: CNA
Chen is among the dozens of Taiwanese who had been waiting for the H&M brand — which has more than 3,500 stores in 55 markets worldwide — to open an outlet in Taiwan.
However, H&M is not the first international “fast fashion” brand to launch operations in Taiwan. Uniqlo, operated by Japan’s Fast Retailing Co Ltd, drew widespread attention when it opened its first local shop in 2010. It has more than 50 stores across the nation, as well as the GU sub-brand that it introduced late last year.
Zara, the Spanish brand operated by the Inditex Group, opened its first store in Taiwan in 2011, while Gap Inc from the US opened its first local store last year.
Industry experts say fast fashion retailers usually launch new collections and products faster than mainstream brands by quickly moving designs from catwalk to stores to capture the latest trends.
Such brands have generated new opportunities for local retail and department stores.
The H&M store in the Breeze Song Gao accounts for about one-third of the department store’s total floor area, and the store expects the fashion brand to help generate between NT$1.8 billion and NT$2 billion (US$57.14 million and US$63.49 million) in annual sales or about half of its total sales of NT$3.6 billion a year.
The nearby ATT 4 FUN mall, formerly known as the New York New York Shopping Center (紐約紐約展覽購物中心), is home to the flagship stores of Gap, GU and Pull&Bear’s — another Inditex Group brand — and is set to open the first shop of the Los Angeles-based Forever 21 brand later this year.
Xinyi District may not yet be considered a major Taipei fashion hub, but ATT 4 FUN’s focus on fast-fashion brands has helped it turn a profit and become competitive following several loss-making years.
Other major Taiwanese department store operators have not overlooked the potential of fast-fashion brands.
“We want more of these popular fast-fashion brands to set up shop in our department store,” said Lin Chang-li (林彰豊), an assistant general manager of Far Eastern Department Stores Ltd (遠東百貨) who is in charge of the Mega City (大遠百) in New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋).
Gap launched a store in Mega City in late 2013 that is forecast to generate about US$4 million in annual sales for the shopping center. Mega City posted NT$8.14 billion in revenue last year, according to the company’s data.
Department stores and retail operators are constantly transforming themselves to meet new demands from customers, but the rise of fast-fashion brands has brought them new challenges.
“Department store operators and Taiwanese retailers have to strengthen their store themes and find their niche market,” said Henry Liao (廖鎮漢), executive director of Breeze Development Co Ltd (微風廣場實業), the operator of Breeze Song Gao.
The booming fast-fashion business has hurt some older casual wear brands in Taiwan such as Hang Ten and Giordano, while Baleno Kingdom Ltd, a Hong Kong-based casual wear retailer, left the Taiwanese market in October last year, closing dozens of stores.
However, Wendy Tsao (曹美虹), store manager of Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store Co Ltd’s (新光三越百貨) Xinyi Place (台北信義新天地), said the rise of fast-fashion business in Taiwan may still have a more positive effect on the department store sector than negative ones.
“When more brands join the market, they will raise the diversification and give customers more choices, further boosting the market scale to benefit the overall retail and department store sector,” Tsao said.
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