Watsons Turkey opens 400th store as Offline Plus Online strategy focuses on evolving needs of customers

Watsons Turkey reports a milestone of opening its 400th store, located at the Hilltown Shopping Mall in Istanbul.

According to a LinkedIn post: “The new store features a spacious, innovative, and modern layout designed to cater to the evolving needs of its customers with a variety of O+O (Offline Plus Online) services.”

“Watsons Turkey will continue its expansion by planning to open 45 new stores and upgrade 50 locations in 2024, committed to offering seamless and engaging shopping experience to its over 11 million loyalty members.”

Asia

Watsons, the flagship health and beauty brand of A.S. Watson Group, opened over 1,400 new stores across Asia amidst the Covid-19 pandemic and during June Watsons Malaysia went live with its 700th store in the market.

Dominic Lai, Group Managing Director at A.S. Watson Group, said: “The pandemic has been very challenging for us and retailers around the world.”

“The passion and dedication in our 130,000 employees around the world to continue to care for our customers made a difference to enable us weather the storm and transform the crisis into opportunities.”

“We didn’t stop our network expansion during challenging times because we have a solid O+O strategy which is relevant to customers’ needs. We continue to identify strategic locations across Asia and opened over 1,400 new stores in the last three years.”

He added: “We are delighted to announce the opening of Watsons’ 700th store in Malaysia, one of our fastest growing markets in Asia. Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, Watsons Malaysia has grown from 535 stores in 2019 to 700 stores now.”

“Loyalty members have also risen from 5.7 million in 2019 to 7.2 million members to date, signalling 1.5 million new members in a short period of time. So far this year, Watsons Malaysia also experienced high double digit sales growth, continuing to be the market leader.”

Watsons Malaysia’s 700th store is located at the KSL Esplanade Mall.

It is the largest Watsons store in the prime district of Klang, spanning over 4,000 square feet and offers such services as StyleMe, an augmented reality powered virtual makeup try-on equipment, a W table for experiential testing for new and exclusive products, while professional makeup artists will be available to provide customers with personalised recommendations.

2024 RTIH INNOVATION AWARDS

Physical stores are a key focus area for the sixth edition of the RTIH Innovation Awards, which is now open for entries.

The awards, sponsored by CADS, 3D Cloud, Retail Technology Show 2025, and Business France, celebrate global tech innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.

It’s free to enter and you can do so across multiple categories.

Key 2024 dates

Friday, 25th October: Award entry deadline 

Tuesday, 29th October: 2024 shortlist revealed

30th October-6th November: Judging days

Thursday, 21st November: Winners announced at the 2024 RTIH Innovation Awards ceremony, to be held at RIBA’s 66 Portland Place HQ in Central London.