Harrods, London’s famous luxury department store, is set to undergo the biggest revamp in its 180-year history as part of a £200 million investment aimed partly at attracting more overseas customers.
Managing director Michael Ward told the South China Morning Post the project is the most ambitious investment and store renovation Harrods has undertaken since it first opened in 1834.
The three-year capital investment plan includes ploughing more money into e-commerce to ensure Harrods remains a popular destination not only for western customers, but for affluent Asian, Hong Kong and Chinese shoppers.
“Our Chinese and Asian customers are extremely important to Harrods so are considered part of our redevelopment plans,” said Ward on Wednesday in an email interview with the Post.
He said the interior of the shop, which has 330 different sections covering a million square feet of retail space, will be “entirely redeveloped”. There will be no changes to the exterior.
The iconic store in London’s affluent Knightsbridge, often described as the most famous shop in the world, is owned by Qatar Holdings, the sovereign wealth fund of the Gulf country.
At present, the UK itself is the store’s largest single market, although sales to overseas customers are on the rise.
“We are seeing the biggest increase in sales from international markets, with both mainland China and Hong Kong performing extremely well,” said Ward, without revealing figures.
He said various options are being considered to attract more Chinese customers, including improved signage to help them navigate the store and more product information on food items – something specifically requested by Chinese customers.
The company will also invest in its official Weibo and WeChat accounts, two of mainland China’s most popular social media platforms.
Harrods introduced Alibaba’s Alipay digital payments system last year, and plans to follow that with Tencent’s WeChat Pay service next year.
Ward said the launch of Alipay has opened up the doors for conversation with Alibaba’s Tmall, but it has not yet been decided whether Harrods would consider selling products on the online shopping platform. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
“The growth of Chinese e-commerce platforms is very impressive and we watch their progress closely,” said Ward, who is in Hong Kong this week to launch the first edition of Harrods’ Asia edition magazine. “But it would need to be the right customer experience for us to seriously consider it.”
Ward said Hong Kong customers are very familiar with Harrods.
“Many of our customers from Hong Kong have second homes in London and may have children at boarding school in the UK. They spend a significant amount of time in London and at Harrods so we don’t see them as tourists, even if they do get to benefit from tax-free shopping,” he said.
This year the company opened a Harrods Tea Room at The British House in Beijing in a bid to introduce the brand to mainland Chinese customers. But it has no plan to open stores in China.
“There are no plans to recreate the Knightsbridge store anywhere around the world as we believe there is only one Harrods,” said Ward.
The Knightsbridge store, established in 1849 by Charles Henry Harrod, attracts about 15 million customers every year.
Read the full article here: http://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2121160/londons-famous-ha...