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What’s in China?
Digitally-Inspired Retail Strategy
To maintain its position as a market leader in each of
its businesses, the Hutchison group of companies have
developed a keen awareness of each local market it serves, in
order to stay in touch with customers. Its ability and flexibility
to incorporate innovative digital media technologies into
its business model includes extensive use of e-commerce
platforms for trade.
As part of this organisational strategy and in view of
the ever-changing retail environment, Watsons China has
implemented a digitally-inspired retail strategy that improves
service to customers by encouraging online purchases. To
this end, Watsons China has launched various online digital
touch points that also serve to increase customer contact and
involvement. They include a dedicated e-commerce website,
Apps on mobile devices, and third-party online trading
platforms such as Tmall, a Chinese-language “virtual mall”.
Watsons China’s business to consumer (B-to-C) platform is
built around the integration between the brand’s social media
presence and these newly established digital touch points,
allowing for a much wider coverage of customers, and moving
past the traditional approach to retail sales. Though physical
retail stores still operate in 216 cities in Mainland China, this
innovative, high-tech B-to-C approach provides Watsons China
access to additional markets, such as regions without access
to physical stores like Tibet and Xinjiang.
A major aspect to e-commerce convenience comprises the
carry-over to mobile devices. Since the Watsons China App
was launched in October 2012, over 400,000 downloads
to Apple iOS mobile devices have been logged. The App is
designed to provide customers with the convenience of online
purchasing and allows members to check accumulated loyalty
points for future redemptions of additional products. To
broaden its reach, Watsons China also launched an Android
version of the App in February 2013.
While Watsons-brand products and selected health and
beauty brands have sold particularly well online in Mainland
China, the Group as a whole now offers over 1,000 different
products on numerous e-commerce platforms. For example,
ESDlife, a Hong Kong commercial website initially launched
in 2001 as an Hutchison-HP joint venture, boasts over one
million visitors and seven million page views monthly and
over 600,000 members. While it is the number one wedding
media in Hong Kong, the site also offers advertising and
marketing services, web and Internet solutions, and a popular
e-commerce platform carrying a diverse range of products
including health checks, wedding products, computer and
digital equipment and home electrical appliances.
Hutchison-Priceline, an online travel service subsidiary
operating in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, has likewise
become a leader in the region due to its e-commerce strategy.
The site collaborates with more than 400 airlines and
74,000
hotels globally and aims to provide travellers with
convenience, value for money, and a secure environment for
online transactions. Hutchison-Priceline now sees over a
million travel-related searches each week and hundreds of
thousands of electronic purchases made by each month by
visitors, reflecting a 50 per cent growth rate in traffic in the
last year.
Recognising that consumers are now adopting new
technologies more quickly than ever before, Hutchison
believes the market for e-commerce still has great potential
for growth. Crucially, e-commerce is no longer merely a tool to
target new markets and boost sales. Today it is a sophisticated
mechanism to directly engage customers, proactively meet
and exceed their needs, and foster customer loyalty.
