The 4th Watsons Experience Store in Asia Drives into Huaihai Road

The front of the retail store Sephora has just fallen to the right of the Snow Leopard Mall on Huaihai Middle Road. Watson’s rear foot will enter the left side of the mall. Yesterday, Watson's acting public relations firm in the Mainland confirmed to the "Daily Economic News" that by the end of June, the first Watsons "experience store" in East China will be opened in Shanghai.

Watsons said that “Experience Store” is a 4th-generation concept store of Watsons. Unlike the traditional Watsons retail store, the type of products it sells will tend to be cosmetic, and the environment and decoration style of the store will be different from other stores, for example, The shelf is lowered to facilitate female consumers. Currently only one is set up in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Guangzhou. The “Experience Store” to be opened at Snow Leopard Mall on Huaihai Middle Road will be the fourth in Asia. However, Watsons had already opened three stores along Huaihai Zhong Road.

Insiders pointed out that the area of ​​this side of Snow Leopard Mall is not large, Watsons here to open a concept shop for female consumers, to a certain extent, must compete with Sephora. There are also industry sources, Watson's arrival is not due to Sephora. In fact, the shops on both sides of the Snow Leopard Mall had been rented by Sephora and Watson at the same time. It was because the previous shop rented by Watsons had not been moved out, resulting in Watsons being unable to enter the decoration.

In this regard, Sephora’s public relations department said in an interview that Sephora’s positioning was far behind Watson’s. It alleged that Sephora was positioned high-end, emphasizing the business philosophy of not winning with discounts and low prices. There are significant differences between Sephora, Watsons, and Salsa in terms of product categories, brands, and services.

However, analysts pointed out that although Sephora stores such as Givenchy, Kristin Dior, Estee Lauder and other large brands gathered, but the center of its store sales area is left to Sephora's own brand, although this part of its own brand Imported from abroad, but most of the prices range from RMB 60 to RMB 150, which is very popular. This is consistent with Watsons's "hostileness" with its own brand and mass cosmetics as its "sales weapon." The analyst pointed out that although Watson’s is currently unable to compete with Sephora in the high-end cosmetics sector, competition between the two adjacent stores will be unavoidable in the cosmetics field and private brands.