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Category: General

Retail News Asia is committed to providing both local and global retailers with the latest General Retail news throughout the Asian market. This on a daily base.

  • Vicinity Centres names new CFO

    Vicinity Centres names new CFO

    Retail landlord Vicinity Centres has appointed Spark Infrastructure executive Nicholas Schiffer as its new chief financial officer.

    Schiffer, who will take on the role in September, has been Spark’s CFO since July 2017. He will report toVicinity CEO and managing director Grant Kelley when he joins the property firm’s executive committee.

    Kelley said the company was delighted to have secured someone of Schiffer’s calibre, following an extensive domestic and international executive search, to join its team and lead the finance department.

    As Vicinity’s CFO, Schiffer’s responsibilities will include leading the finance, investment management, treasury and capital transactions functions, in addition to Vicinity’s wholesale funds and strategic partnerships business.

    Kelley said the company’s board and executive team look forward to welcoming Schiffer at a time when the business is rolling out a new strategy of creating a core portfolio of market-leading destinations, realising mixed-use opportunities across the group’s portfolio and expanding its wholesale funds platform.

    “Nick’s broad finance, banking and industry advisory experience, together with his background in wholesale funds formation, will be a great complement to, and further strengthen, Vicinity’s executive team capability,” Kelley said.

    Schiffer previously served as managing director at Credit Suisse for 17 years with responsibility for investment banking within the energy, transport and general infrastructure sectors across Australia and New Zealand.

    Kelley said Schiffer’s knowledge and experience in infrastructure are widely relevant to the property industry and would bring some additional diversity of thought to the leadership team.

    “With Nick’s appointment, I am confident that we are building up significant bench-strength in our executive team, which reflects the specialist and diverse capability we have across our organisation,” he said.

    Kah Wong, currently Vicinity’s acting CFO, will return to the role of general manager of treasury, when Schiffer joins Vicinity in September.

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  • AirAsia among top 5 most downloaded airline apps

    AirAsia among top 5 most downloaded airline apps

    Budget airline AirAsia was among the top five most downloaded airline apps worldwide in the first quarter of 2019, according to a new report from mobile app intelligence firm Sensor Tower.

    The most downloaded airline app worldwide for Q1 2019 was Irish low-cost airline Ryanair with more than 2.4 million installs, which represented a 10 percent increase from Q1 2018, said the report.

    American Airlines was the second most installed airline app worldwide last year with more than 1.8 million installs, which represented a 30 percent increase from Q1 2018.

    United Airlines, Southwest and AirAsia rounded out the top five most installed airline apps worldwide for the quarter, Julia Chan, Mobile Insights Analyst, Sensor Tower, wrote in a blog on Monday.

    When it came to downloads from Google Play Store, AirAsia came second after Ryanair.

    At the ninth position, Indigo also featured among the top 10 most downloaded apps from Google Play Store in the first quarter of this year.

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  • Priceline expands partnership with IRI

    Priceline expands partnership with IRI

    Market research company IRI announced a significant expansion to its partnership with Priceline on Monday morning which will help the pharmacy deliver an improved range for customers.Priceline will use IRI technology to support category management and improve planning and collaboration with supplier partners, which will ultimately lead to the improved range, convenience and price for Priceline customers.

    “I am very pleased that we are able to announce our expanded partnership with IRI,” David Ginsberg, head of buying for Priceline said in a statement.

    “We already have a good understanding of our Priceline customer, however joining forces with a global leader in big data and analytics will allow us to further strengthen our knowledge and, more importantly, improve their experience when shopping in our stores.”

    Paul Hinds, managing director Asia Pacific for IRI, said the partnership will find new ways to “delight and engage” Priceline customers.

    “This partnership will augment our knowledge and result in better and faster decision making,” Hinds said.

    “Together with our supplier partners, we will have a more holistic view of our customers and be able to better anticipate and cover their current and future needs.”

    “Fifth straight year of growth”

    The partnership comes alongside Roy Morgan research which notes 23.3 percent of Australian women purchase cosmetics from Priceline – almost double the figure from four years ago.

    In fact, Priceline is beaten only by Supermarkets for market share in the beauty category, which holds 24.9 percent of the market.

    “The cosmetics industry is a very competitive one with pharmacies and chemists, supermarkets, department stores, and discount department stores all vying to increase their share of the market and looking for an edge to retain existing customers and draw in new ones,” Roy Morgan chief executive Michele Levine said.Adtech Ad

    “Meanwhile, Priceline is enjoying its fifth straight year of growth in the market, fueled by a hardcore base of 18-24-year-olds and successful use of the growing online channel.”

    This age category is Pricelines bread and butter, according to Levine, who notes that almost half (41.5 percent) of 18-24-year-old women who purchased cosmetics in an average six month period did so at Priceline.

    “No other retailers are seeing even close to this level of market power over a particular age group,” Levine said.

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  • Thailand’s Siam Piwat scoops honours at the World Retail Congress

    Thailand’s Siam Piwat scoops honours at the World Retail Congress

    Thai shopping centre operator receives accolades at World Retail Congress.

    Thai retail developer Siam Piwat has scooped two retail industry awards at the World Retail Congress recently held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

    Siam Piwat is the owner and operator of several successful Thai retail developments, including Siam Paragon, Siam Center, and Siam Discovery, as well as the joint venture partner of IconSiam – the US$1.7 billion riverside landmark destination that opened in Bangkok last November.

    Siam Piwat Group CEO Chadatip Chutrakul was inducted into the World Retail Hall of Fame by the World Retail Congress as one of the four new members selected in 2019.

    The inductees were selected because their “ideas have shaped retailing through the businesses and brands they have created, or by their skills in running the retail industry’s giants, demonstrated clear vision, courage and determination to make their dreams a reality”.

    The World Retail Hall of Fame was established in 2007 to honour the retail industry’s most innovative and influential representatives.

    The World Retail Congress also awarded IconSiam, in which Siam Piwat Group is a joint venture partner, the top prize of Store Design of the Year 2019 as part of the annual World Retail Awards.

    The Grand Jury of the World Retail Awards said IconSiam is “breathtaking in its scope and scale and takes retail design into the future”.

    “Throughout 60 years, Siam Piwat has been a thought leader creating new prototypes and bringing new formats that have advanced the retail development sector in Thailand,” said Chutrakul. IconSiam shows that bricks and mortar still have a crucial part to play in successful retailing, and they are assets only waiting to be differently leveraged within a new paradigm. That new paradigm involves leveraging a very wide group of stakeholders by creating shared value for them all.”

    According to Chutrakul, IconSiam, with a gross floor area of 750,000sqm made the creation of shared value into a “business sustainability” strategy to help the success of such a large-scale initiative that requires the collaboration of many different groups.

    “Our achievements were made possible because of the collaboration and co-creation of our tenants and retailers,” she said. “The benefits created by IconSiam also go beyond our tenant partners to many different stakeholders at many different levels of society including artists, craftsmen, performers, small enterprises, the surrounding communities and even the city of Bangkok, too.

    “For small businesses and artisans, we help them flourish and prosper by creating for them opportunities for new linkages, locally and globally; we help artisans, craftsmen or performers have a place on a globally visible stage to enhance the sustainability of their livelihoods, and we act as a platform that makes Thai values and all that is great about Thailand visible to the world.

    “Also, in the SookSiam zone at IconSiam, you can see how it brings together hundreds of small, mom-and-pop operations from Thailand’s 77 provinces – people who have mostly never operated out of their hometowns but are now selling on a global platform.”

    Chutrakul noted that “IconSiam has also had a transformative effect on the Chao Phraya River. We acted as a catalyst for a multi-stakeholder collaboration that embraced riverside communities, hoteliers, river-transport operators, sites of historical and cultural importance, and government agencies, which is already helping to revitalise many districts around IconSiam.”

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  • AirAsia Philippines adds flights to Taiwan in August

    AirAsia Philippines adds flights to Taiwan in August

    Air Asia Philippines will start adding new routes to link the Philippines with southern Taiwan by August. The low-cost carrier said in a statement it will open flights from Clark and Cebu to Kaohsiung, Taiwan by Aug. 1, making it the first local airline to offer direct flights between the cities.

    “The Philippines continues to be one of the top holiday destinations for Taiwanese. As the only Philippine airline to connect Cebu and Clark directly to Kaohsiung, we are pleased to be able to contribute to Philippine tourism and bring Cebuanos and Kapampangans closer to southern Taiwan as well,” AirAsia Philippines President and Chief Executive Officer Dexter M. Comendador was quoted as saying.

    AirAsia will have thrice weekly flights for both the Clark-Kaohsiung route and the Cebu-Kaohsiung, and thrice weekly returning flights to the same local hubs, all available every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

    The carrier said Kaohsiung will be the 10th international destination it is opening in 2019, boosting its growing flight network from Cebu and Clark.

    Excluding Kaohsiung, AirAsia flies from Cebu to 12 domestic and international destinations, namely: Manila, Clark, Davao, Cagayan De Oro, Puerto Princesa, Caticlan, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Seoul, Shenzhen, Macau and Taipei.

    From Clark, it also flies to nine domestic and international destinations, namely: Cagayan de Oro, Tacloban, Puerto Princesa, Cebu, Davao, Iloilo, Caticlan, Seoul and Taipei.

    Its operator Philippines AirAsia, Inc. reported a 12% growth in profit after tax to P424.5 million during the first quarter, driven by a 27% increase in revenues at P6.68 billion.

    The carrier saw a 23% jump in passengers during the January to March period at 1.97 million, and its load factor inch up to 91% from 87% last year.

    Philippines AirAsia will be adding three new aircraft this year as part of a group-wide fleet expansion program that aims to grow its fleet to 535 aircraft by 2028 across the six countries where AirAsia Group Berhad operates.

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  • AirAsia to Expand E-Commerce Beyond Selling Plane Tickets

    AirAsia to Expand E-Commerce Beyond Selling Plane Tickets

    AirAsia Group, Southeast Asia’s largest budget carrier, wants to sell more than cheap flight tickets. AirAsia is talking to potential partners to build an e-commerce app that it wants to see overtake the size of its airline business, Group Deputy Chief Executive Aireen Omar said in an interview. The carrier, which is seen getting about 1 billion ringgit ($240 million) revenue a year from its AirAsia.com website, expects to earn 20 times more as it expands into an app that will offer lifestyle goods and services.

    “This will be bigger than the airline itself,” Aireen said at her office at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. “There’s a lot you can do in just one app and that’s what we are trying to do with our travel and lifestyle app.”

    The budget airline, which carries 100 million passengers annually, is bolstering its digital capability to tap a regional e-commerce market that’s set to increase threefold to $240 billion by 2025, CEO and Founder Tony Fernandes said last month. Premium carriers Singapore Airlines Ltd. and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. are already turning to onboard duty-free sales to boost revenue, while AirAsia’s app will also offer everything from hotel bookings to beauty products and dinner vouchers.

    AirAsia, which announced a special dividend of 90 sen a share Wednesday, climbed 8% as of 4:14 p.m. in Kuala Lumpur. The shares rose as much as 16% earlier, the steepest gain since 2004.

    The digital business is likely to be spun off in the near future, Aireen said, without giving details.

    Fernandes has slowly but surely prepared the company to focus on this digital drive. AirAsia has sold aircraft parked in leasing companies and disposed a stake in its ground-handling operations. He also restructured the company to have an investment holding group as its publicly listed entity and separated the Malaysian airline business.

    The moves come as the budget carrier grapples with rising risks to its airline business, from the closing of holiday destination Boracay island and natural disasters in Indonesia last year, as well as Malaysia’s clampdown on price surges during high season.

    Meanwhile, Brent has gained almost 30% this year, increasing costs for airlines from Singapore Air to Deutsche Lufthansa AG, which posted lower first-quarter profit partly due to higher oil prices. AirAsia’s net income slipped 92% in the three months through March from a year earlier, it said in a filing on Wednesday.

    The company realized about three years ago that it’s rich with consumer data that a lot of people would want access to, Aireen said. It plans to use the data to market goods and services in a targeted way and provide Internet connection on all its planes to sell products to passengers during the flight.

    The new app will eventually consolidate its current AirAsia BIG Loyalty program, which already partners with vendors from Nike Inc. to Sephora to give special offers and discounts.

  • Google just says no to marijuana apps

    Google just says no to marijuana apps

    While more states are passing laws legalizing marijuana, Google is trying to make it harder for smokers to connect with sellers. Earlier this week, the company announced that it will no longer allow apps in the Google Play Store that “facilitate the sale of marijuana or marijuana products regardless of legality.” In other words, even in states where weed is legal, Google will ban these apps.

    This new policy is now listed in the Google Play Store Developer Center website and gives three examples of violations. These include allowing users to order marijuana through an in-app shopping cart feature; assisting users in arranging the delivery or pick up of marijuana; and facilitating the sale of products containing THC. Before Google updated the page, there was no policy specifically related to marijuana apps.

    “These apps simply need to move the shopping cart flow outside of the app itself to be compliant with this new policy. We’ve been in contact with many of the developers and are working with them to answer any technical questions and help them implement the changes without customer disruption.”-Google

    At the same time, Google promised to make the Google Play Store safer for children and families. In a blog post made Wednesday, the company wrote “At Google Play, we’re committed to providing a positive, safe environment for children and families. Over the last few years, we’ve helped parents find family-friendly content through the Designed for Families program and empowered them to set digital ground rules for their families with Family Link parental controls.” And that apparently means making the Play Store weed-free.

    Back in 2015, we told you the names of some of the apps that smartphone owners could use to find the nearest dispensary. But thanks to Google’s new policy, that has all gone up in smoke.

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  • Singapore launches the Smart Nation Innovations Week

    Singapore launches the Smart Nation Innovations Week

    The Smart Nation Innovations Week 2019 kicks off today in Singapore, where local and international attendees will share and learn about the impact of technology and innovation on business, economy, government and society.

    The Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) and Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), together with Smart Nation and Digital Government Office (SNDGO), GovTech and in partnership with Unbound, will host the Smart Nation Innovations Week (SNI Week) from 24-28 June 2019. The event will see more than 15,000 global government and industry leaders convene in Singapore to discuss challenges and opportunities in a digital age.

    Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is the Guest of Honour at The Smart Nation Summit, an annual by-invitation only forum aimed at facilitating impactful conversations among senior leaders and stakeholders from governments and businesses on the policies, strategies, technologies and mindsets needed as the global digital economy accelerates its growth. PM Lee will participate at the closing dialogue of the Summit and Minister for Communications and Information, Mr S Iswaran will speak at the opening of the Summit.

    Themed “Digital as Usual”, the Smart Nation Summit is a constituent event of SNI Week and will bring together a thousand delegates from around the world, including industry leaders and ministers, to discuss thought-provoking topics that interrogate the intersections across sectors (economy-government-society), geographies (East-West though Southeast Asia) and time (future-present) in this digital age. The Summit will shine the spotlight on Asia’s transformation, tensions between technology, security and trust – how they all come to bear in the services sector, and call for new leadership in a digital-as-usual age. SNI Week also includes events such as the Straits Digital Exchange (SDE) and the Digital Government Exchange (DGX).

    Following the Smart Nation Summit on 26 June, the Innovfest Unbound festival returns to Singapore for its fifth and largest-ever edition as the anchor event of SNI Week on 27-28 June 2019. As one of Singapore’s key event platforms connecting technology entrepreneurs, brands, investors, businesses and thought leaders for growth and partnership opportunities, this year’s conference will attract more than 15,000 participants, feature over 350 exhibitors, and more than 400 speakers. Minister for Communications and Information Mr S Iswaran will be the Guest of Honour at Innovfest Unbound and deliver the opening speech.

    IMDA will also be presenting two new panel discussions – Services 4.0 and Trusted AI. A high level panel will convene on 28 June 2019 to discuss topics on building trusted AI ecosystems, with Senior Minister of State Mr Janil Puthucheary delivering the welcome address for the day. A select list of promising local digital companies will be featured at IMDA’s Tech Alley and booths as well.

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  • Philippines, Vietnam lead FMCG sales growth in Asia

    Philippines, Vietnam lead FMCG sales growth in Asia

    The Philippines and Vietnam led Southeast Asian FMCG sales growth last year, according to a report by market research company Nielsen.

    In What’s Next for Southeast Asia, Nielsen reported that Vietnam’s FMCG sales growth reached 5.2 per cent, second in Southeast Asia behind the Philippines’ 8.7 per cent.

    Global FMCG sales growth was only 3.4 per cent, but Asian markets benefited from buoyant economic factors and strong consumer confidence.

    In Vietnam, consumers are making more frequent shopping trips for everyday needs, with Nielsen’s data showing the average shopper visited a convenience store 4.5 times per month last year – that’s three times the frequency of 2010.

    “We’ve been seeing solid growth in the convenience and mini-market channels across Southeast Asia for some time now, but over the past year or so that growth has really hit fever pitch,” said Vaughan Ryan, Nielsen’s MD Southeast Asia.

    “Consumers throughout the region are living increasingly fast-paced lives, and this lifestyle shift is driving increasing demand for on-the-go offerings.”

    Vietnam’s local retailers are taking advantage of the trend. Vingroup has launched the first virtual store chain in the country, which allows users to shop by scanning QR codes on large banners in public areas as well as printed catalogues.

    Subsidiary VinCommerce, which owns the VinMart+ convenience store chain, recently acquired a rival c-store chain Shop&Go,which it plans to convert to its own banner. Vietnam retail is forecast to record double-digit growth from this year to 2024.

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  • Museum of Modern Art Hong Kong store planned to Open

    Museum of Modern Art Hong Kong store planned to Open

    New York’s Museum of Modern Art will open a Design Store in Hong Kong.

    The Museum of Modern Art Hong Kong store will open in the new K11 Musea art mall. It will be the largest in Asia following two locations in Japan.

    The 6000sqft retail store, which celebrates innovative design in products from around the world and serves as a platform for emerging artists and designers, will showcase works from leading Hong Kong artists such as Kaws and Yayoi Kusama. Every product at the store is exclusive and undergoes a series of eight criteria filters to ensure a strong fit with Moma’s vision of good design.

    K11 Group founder Adrian Cheng, who was recently named the first Council of Fashion Designers of America global ambassador, is a board member of Moma and led the introduction of the store in Hong Kong.

    The Museum of Modern Art Hong Kong store will open in August.

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  • HMV stock to be Sold

    HMV stock to be Sold

    The liquidator of collapsed music chain HMV has backed away from a retail sale of the company’s inventory. Liquidator Wong Sun-keung, a partner at accounting firm Vision AS, said the administrative costs of launching such a sale – especially the rent – would take too large a chunk out of the takings.

    While the inventory of the collapsed chain has a ticket value of HK$9 million, a ‘fire sale’ of stock would realise as little as $1 million – before rent and staff costs were taken into account.

    A creditors committee decided at a meeting last week to call tenders for the complete sale of the stock – an estimated 100,000 CDs, DVDs and vinyl records retrieved from stores shut last December and currently stored in shipping containers.

    “We will sell all the remaining stocks in one go,” Wong said.

    “Only if the tender offers were too low would we consider a liquidation sale. But now we prefer to use a tender to sell the remaining stock, because it’s simpler and we believe we can get a better price,” Wong said.

    A liquidation sale of stock became inevitable after two white knight investors walked away last month due to legal issues relating to the continued use of the HMV brand in any new entity.

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  • CAE signs new deal with AirAsia in the Philippines

    CAE signs new deal with AirAsia in the Philippines

    CAE has signed a new five-year training agreement for AirAsia’s A320 pilots in the Philippines, extending the use of the CAE Rise training system to a third AirAsia affiliate.

    Through the new agreement, announced at the International Air Transport Association (IATA) Annual General Meeting (AGM), CAE will continue to provide initial training for the airline’s pilots and will soon undertake recurrent training at CAE Clark – Philippine Academy for Aviation Training (PAAT) in the Philippines, starting in July 2019.

    “AirAsia has embarked on a mission to digitise every aspect of their business and by implementing the CAE Rise™ training system they are better able to train and develop their pilots using real-time insights alongside a new level of training data analytics,” said Nick Leontidis, CAE’s Group president, Civil Aviation Training Solutions. “Just recently AirAsia extended the use of the CAE Rise™ training system on the Airbus A330 platform and it’s an honor to see them extend this training system on the Airbus A320 platform with a third airline affiliate.”

    Earlier this year CAE announced the signing of a five-year training agreement for AirAsia’s long-haul pilots, extending the use of the CAE Rise training system to AirAsia’s long-haul affiliate, AirAsia X on the Airbus A330 platform.

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  • Hong Kong retail sales felt Last Month

    Hong Kong retail sales felt Last Month

    Hong Kong retail sales fell by 4.5 per cent in April, contributing to a 2 per cent decrease in year to date.

    Worse, the Census and Statistics Department said that after netting out the effect of price changes year on year, Hong Kong retail sales fell 5 per cent year on year, following a 0.8 per cent fall in March and contributing to a 2.3 per cent decline year to date.

    “The larger year-on-year decrease recorded in April reflected the still-cautious consumption sentiment amid external uncertainties, but was also partly due to the late arrival of the Labour Day holidays in the Mainland (which fell in early May this year but straddled between April and May last year), which has led to a notable deceleration in the growth rate of visitor arrivals,” a government spokesman said, commenting on the data.

    He said that in the near term, consumption sentiment will continue to be affected by various external uncertainties, though the sustained expansion in inbound tourism and the largely stable local labour market should provide support to retail sales business. In other words: it may be too soon to start panicking.

    Predictably, the jewellery, watches and luxury goods sector performed the worst, sales down 11.4 per cent in April. Apparel, the second greatest contributor to the figures, slipped by a more modest 2.2 per cent, with cosmetics down 6 per cent, department-store sales down 4.3 per cent and electrical goods by 13.7 per cent. Sales of footwear and accessories fell 5.4 per cent, furniture by 0.4 per cent; books, newspapers, stationery and gifts by 7.5 per cent; Chinese drugs and herbs by 5.7 per cent, and optical shops by 7.8 per cent.

    On the positive side, supermarket sales rose by 1.1 per cent; food, alcohol and tobacco by 0.8 per cent and fuels by 3.3 per cent.

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  • King Power Bangkok airport retail monopoly to stretch longer

    King Power Bangkok airport retail monopoly to stretch longer

    Hopes of opening up the duty-free and retail monopoly at Bangkok Suvarnabhumi airport have been dashed after Airports of Thailand (AOT) announced the incumbent operator had lodged the highest bid to retain the business.

    While still subject to final ratification by the AOT board, King Power has effectively bought a monopoly on duty-free business at the airport for another decade.

    King Power Duty Free has held the rights since the airport opened in 2006, and was competing to continue when the current contract expires next year through until 2031.

    “The company that scored the highest is King Power Duty Free Company and the winner offered the highest return than what AOT has received before and higher than AOT estimate (sic),” said Wichai Bunyu, senior executive VP at AOT, in a statement.

    Two rival bidders were hoping for a share of the action in what is a lucrative monopoly with prices unmonitored or regulated. The losing bidders were a joint venture between Bangkok Airways and South Korea’s Lotte, and another involving Royal Orchid Hotel Thailand, Empire Asia Group and a subsidiary of World Duty Free Group.

    Leading Thai retail business Central Group and Minor International did not submit bids before the deadline.

    Having selected the winning bidder, the appointment process is a mere formality, subject to ratification of AOT’s remuneration committee next week. According to Reuters, that will decide the technical score and revenue King Power would share with AOT before the board of directors officially approves the winner on June 19.

    The Thai government had ordered a review of duty-free auction period amid monopoly concerns after more than a decade of dominance by King Power. But that apparently had no effect.

    The winning bidders to operate duty-free shops at Chang Mai, Hat Yai and Phuket airports were expected to be released today (June 3) with King Power almost certain to win those contracts as well.

  • Lush Tokyo store marks beauty brand’s largest In South East Asia

    Lush Tokyo store marks beauty brand’s largest In South East Asia

    The new Lush Tokyo store opened on Saturday is its largest yet in Asia, a three-storey, 1240sqm flagship. Billed as “a global destination, with a curation of the best of Lush as you know it,” the Lush Shinjuku store is housed in the southeast wing of Shinjuku Station, the world’s busiest railway hub. From the outside, it is hard to miss: a towering four-storey 1024cm x 352cm LED screen dominates the street frontage (the building’s fourth floor will house back-office functions for now).

    Inside, Lush Tokyo promises an “experiential, imaginative retail space showcasing Lush’s innovation in technology, with exclusive product drops, and new ways to shop”.

    Digital screens feature throughout the retail space, as well as projection installations, positioned to communicate key messages through visual content and designed to overcome language barriers.

    Coinciding with the store’s opening is the release of an upgraded Lush Labs app for Android and iOS featuring English, Korean, Japanese and Simplified Chinese. Visitors can use the app’s scan function to browse product information while in store, at home and even in the store’s digital ‘shoppable window’ which will be active 24 hours a day for customers and passers-by to scan and shop curated collections and product drops.

    Lush says using lens technology, via the app, to demonstrate products and product information is a step towards minimising packaging and reducing water wastage by showcasing products through videos.

    The content placed in windows and on the giant screen “will reflect the mood of Shinjuku at that time and aims to capture the attention of passers-by and commuters”. It will showcase Lush’s values, campaigns and creativity.

    Lush says the ambience of the new store aims to change the customer’s mood, whether it is a skin consultation, spa treatment or something sensory to speed you up or slow you down.

    “Products, treatments and experiences with benefits beyond the body exist here and build in intensity as customers move through the floors. Each floor offers an uplifting, interactive and playful space that promotes exploration and creativity with benefits beyond the body through different materials, lighting, products, content and merchandising to set the tone and spark joy.”

    The second floor offers what Lush describes as “a surreal sensory experience using colour therapy and generative art inspired by bath art to create an interactive digital mood”.

    “Innovative use of technology heightens the senses and plays with mood, data from sensors that map customer position and movement will be used to activate sounds from within the displays. This is just one way the shop can respond to individual customers, creating targeted experiences filled with surreal moments.”

    The new Lush Tokyo store opened its doors on Saturday, June 1. A spa planned for the third floor will open within the next few months and the company says it is evaluating using some of the fourth-floor space for customer engagement as well.

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