TT: What is the background of the Breeze Center and the people behind the venture?
Jason Tsai (蔡明澤): This project started seven years ago, in 1995. Hey-Song Corp (黑松) is the land owner and also a partner with a 25 percent interest of the Breeze Development Co Ltd (三僑實業). Breeze Development has been the main facilitator of the project from the beginning and will manage the center for the next 50 years. Hey-song isn't involved in the planning, leasing or management.
The owner and chairman of Breeze Development is Paul Liao (
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
I serve as special assistant to the chairman and am the spokesman for the center. I am very familiar with mall tenants because I have been involved in planning and leasing for many years. So, I am essentially a trouble shooter -- I take care of whatever needs taking care of for my boss. It can be quite difficult, but its my job.
TT: Are there any plans to have Taiwan Fixed Network Group invest in Breeze?
Tsai: Not yet, but it is going to happen in the near future. Nobody knows what the exact amount will be.
TT: What kind of retail experience does the management team have?
Tsai: There are four main managers: chairman Paul Liao, executive director Henry Liao, our Japanese general manager Okaichiro (
Paul is in charge of financial and personnel management. He's never run a shopping mall before; his background is in international trade.
But our general manager Okaichiro has 35 years of experience in the department store field and used to be the head of Taipei Sogo. He's also run department stores in Japan and Thailand.
As for myself, I have been in the business for 20 years -- 10 years of which were spent in the US. I joined this company when it was founded in 1995.
TT: What was the size of the initial investment and how deep are the pockets of the backers of the Breeze Center?
Tsai: Our financial background is very strong. We haven't borrowed a penny from banks and we have no debt. Since the land came from Hey-Song Corp, there are no land costs. The total investment in the mall is NT$5 billion. The land was previously used for a Hey-Song factory.
TT: Two weeks after opening your doors, how has the public's response been?
Tsai: Business has been very strong for the past 11 days, with sales so far totaling NT$350 million, or an average of NT$32 million a day. We have already had 1.85 million customers visit our center. These results -- especially in the poor economic climate -- are beyond our expectations. Our original projection was only NT$229 million.
TT: How do you get beyond the initial customer curiosity and attract customers in the long term?
Tsai: We do that with a clear-cut, 4-part strategy. First, we have created a mall environment similar to what you see in the West here in Taipei -- that is really something. Land is a serious consideration because most of it's too expensive in Taipei. So instead of building the mall vertically [like most Taiwan department stores] we designed the center horizontally, with lots of open space and a very pleasant environment. It is not a box like most department stores, where the customers can do nothing but shop.
That was never our idea -- we sought to create something different. We acquired this land years ago, and the cost is almost zero. That allowed us [the financial flexibility] to develop the idea. We're very proud of the of environment we've created.
Second is merchandise. We've been careful to avoid really high-priced retailers because that will keep customers away. [We believe] people are often hesitant to enter a store because it only carries brand name products or has an expensive decor -- such as Cartier, which people feel carries rather exclusive merchandise.
Also we follow fashion trends very closely. Because Taiwan is only a couple months behind Japan in terms of fashion, we follow the fashion trends of Tokyo -- products that are comfortable, natural, high quality but not too expensive. Nobody is over-dressing right now.
The third part of our strategy is special events. We will make use of special events to generate traffic, and fortunately we have the space and venues to hold various events -- that's where a traditional department store can't compete with us. We have three outdoor plazas to hold all kinds of events. This gives us a considerable advantage.
The fourth and final part of our strategy is service. For example, our supermarket is getting high praise from customers, especially women. One example of our dedication to good service is that we designed the supermarket to connect directly to the parking lot. When customers purchase a large number of groceries, we provide manned golf carts to ferry people and their bags to their cars.
This may be a small part of our overall service, but customers appreciate it.
TT: How is it that Breeze was spared from the ravages of Typhoon Nari?
Tsai: One, we were lucky and two, we worked hard. Starting from the first night of the typhoon, 60 executives and general staff members spent three days doing everything we could to prevent the flood waters from coming in. Mind you, most of Fuhsing South Road was flooded -- but not us.
TT: Core Pacific City (京華城) is set to open this month just a few blocks away. They are boasting of 24-hour service and a facility three times the size of Breeze. How are you going to compete with that?
Tsai: They will do their jobs and we will do ours. As for the idea of 24-hour service, we are different because we target female customers between the ages of 18 to 38 as well as families.
Several years ago, when we were still in the planning stages, people suggested we run dance clubs or pubs to extend our business hours. However, after taking into consideration the type of youth traffic that kind of facility would generate and what comes with it -- drugs and gangsters -- we chose to avoid it.
TT: Prior to the opening of the Breeze Center, this neighborhood was fairly quiet. What kind of impact has the mall had on your neighbors?
Tsai: As an example, there is a Japanese restaurant near us and a couple days ago the boss came to our mall office to thank us for the traffic we've generated.
TT: The buzz in the local media is that you stole your current general manager from rival Sogo Pacific?
Tsai: Actually, Okaichiro left Sogo when the Japan Sogo Group went bankrupt a few years ago and retired in Japan. But we convinced him to come back Taiwan to work with us, that's why he is with Breeze Center now.
TT: You've scheduled Breeze Center's promotional period at the same time as Sogo's annual sale. Is this a declaration of war with your competitor?
Tsai: This is a competition between two rivals. We knew we were holding the sale at the same time as Sogo's annual sale.
Before Breeze Center opened, Sogo was very successful with record sales of NT$16.8 billion last year, making it perhaps the best performing department store in the world. We are doing very well however and have the power to fight back now. We have declared retail war on Sogo.
They set their annual sales goal at NT$2.2 billion, and if the number turns out lower than NT1.5 billion, we win. I believe the battle will be very difficult.
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