Watsons to continue new store openings

Watsons has invested about Bt460 million in marketing and store expansion.

“We will open between 15 and 20 new stores in the fourth quarter of this year, and by the end of 2011, we will
have opened 43 new stores” this year, Anderson said.

“The location ratio is Bangkok 50 per cent and upcountry 50 per cent. Currently, the coverage of Watsons stores is more than 50 provinces – the highest number compared with other health and beauty retailers in Thailand.”

Watsons will celebrate the opening of its 200th store in Thailand this month. Anderson said the company would invest more than Bt300 million on store expansion next year, opening a similar number of stores as it did this year, depending on the opportunities that arise.

“About 2,000 people are employed currently by Watsons and with new store expansion, we will add another 400 staff for next year,” Anderson said.

He said the company’s accelerated plan for opening new Watsons stores in Thailand had been driven by many factors, including the company’s positive business performance, its good training programme, and improving market opportunities.

“We have achieved a growing market share in the local health and beauty market with 9.3 per cent year-on-year growth over the past 12 months, according to an ACNielsen survey. The overall health and beauty market grew only 5.9 per cent year on year over the period.

“Watsons has enjoyed high brand equity of beauty stores in the Thai market. The key for us is that we have a good training programme, which has produced many international staff for Watsons every year,” he said.

Commenting on the massive flooding that has hit many provinces, Anderson said the company had planned ahead and was well prepared to cope. So far, only one Watsons store has been affected by the current flooding, in Lop Buri province. Anderson said the global economic recession would create both positive and negative impacts for the business.

“On the negative side, Thailand is an export-oriented country. The recession that has occurred both in Europe and the US will impact Thailand’s export sector as well as the country’s overall economy. “However, the global recession will cause prices of many products such as oil, commodity goods, plastic, and construction materials to go down.

That will have a positive effect on spending power of consumers.” He added that while the global recession had resulted in a lower number of travellers from the US and Europe coming to Thailand, the company had seen more visitors from Asia.

“We have to watch carefully what will happen regarding the global economic situation and whether it will have any impact on Thailand. We will react to all major economic challenges in the country,” he said.

Anderson said Watsons had conducted research with more than 1,500 customers at its stores in Bangkok to better understand how Thai customers shop, and to identify new opportunities. The results show that the top three segments in Watsons stores are skincare, hair care and cosmetics. Watsons has therefore made these areas easy to access and appealing, with the cosmetics zone featuring wide aisles.

The research also showed that 15 per cent of Watsons shoppers tend to test and apply skincare and cosmetics before they buy, prompting the company to provide adequate testers and ensure the products on the shelves are available all the time.