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Watsons, Asia's health and beauty retailer giant, is marking its 20th anniversary in the Philippines this 2023 with an equally astonishing milestone — opening its 1,000th store in the country.
Located at The Block, SM City North Edsa in Quezon City, the new flagship store joins 8,000 Watsons stores across 15 markets in Asia and Eastern Europe.
“This new flagship store is important in the nation-wide expansion in this beautiful country as it's a clear demonstration of Watsons' determination to strengthen our connection with customers via seamless O+O platforms. O+O platform strategy is at the core of our business to create an integrated experience, to better serve customers anytime, anywhere,” said Dominic Lai, Group Managing Director of A.S. Watson Group, at the store opening on February 3.
“Besides celebrating the 1,000th store opening, today marks Watsons' 20 years of commitment to serving our customers in the Philippines. Over the years, we've been working to deliver our purpose to help customers Look Good, Do Good, Feel Great,” he added.
Meanwhile, Teresita Sy-Coson, co-chairman of SM Investments, congratulated Watsons on the double celebrations, “Our long-term partnership with Watsons has realized our promise of bringing the best-in-class health & beauty products to all Filipinos. It's our pleasure to celebrate this remarkable milestone with Watsons and we will continue to work closely to raise the standard in health and beauty in the Philippines.”
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Quick look back
At the event's sidelines, Viki Herrera-Encarnacion, Watsons PR & Sustainability Director, recalled how the brand came to the country in 2003.
“We started actually in 2002 when Watsons decided to come here to the Philippines from Hong Kong. We found the perfect joint venture partner in SM. We have the same outlook, attitude, beliefs, values as SM,” Encarnacion, who has been with the brand for 14 years, shared.
“We opened two branches right away — in SM Megamall and they walked to Podium on the same day to open the second store.”
The partnership helped Watsons expand as they opened health and beauty branches in all SM properties, pharmacies in SM groceries and beauty sections in SM Department Stores.
“And then we expanded to all the major malls across the country and quiet recently, a few years back, we decided to bring our brand closer to communities and neighborhoods, which are the Watsons Pharmacies.”
A vision for the future
Spanning almost 1,000 square meters, the new flagship store in SM City North Edsa showcases the most comprehensive array of health and beauty products in an engaging way that will take the shopping experience to the next level.
“The good thing about this new store is first, we had to understand our customers because everything we do is rooted to how they shop and who they are,” said Jared de Guzman, Watsons Customer Director.
To respond to the customers' needs, de Guzman cited how Watsons' new flagship store is not only designed to offer a modern and stylish shopping environment, but also create an immersive and interactive O+O experience for its customers.
Leveraging on an extensive store network in Philippines, Online Express delivery service is available so that customers can have their products delivered to doorsteps in three hours or choose to pick up orders at store within 30 minutes via Click & Collect Express.
The new Watsons store is a model for the future of beauty shopping with special discovery areas. There's a Skinfie Lab, a skin analysis tool that creates personalized skincare recommendations based on selfies. The tool, which is also housed in the Watsons app, is able to detect a range of facial attributes from a customer's selfie, including acne, fine lines, pigmentation and overall skin condition. Meanwhile, makeup lovers can use #ColourMe Virtual Makeup try-on, to experience hundreds of lipsticks, mascara, eyeshadow, brow products, and foundation.
To help customers Look Good, Do Good, Feel Great, Watsons has its first state-of-the-art clinic powered by The Medical City that features virtual consultation and remote physical examination. Vaccination services for flu, HPV, and pneumonia will be available at the clinic soon.
Watsons Supplement Finder is also available to support the pharmacy service and help customers get personalized recommendations on the best vitamins and supplements for them.
“Looking ahead, we're committed to continuing our expansion in the Philippines, as well as the rest of the world. Besides bringing pleasurable O+O shopping experience to our customers, we want to engage our customers to do good to the community and the planet with us through our sustainability programs,” Dominic Lai concluded.
To inspire its customers to live a sustainable lifestyle, Watsons offers over 1,500 Sustainable Choices products under Clean beauty, refill packs, better packaging and better ingredients for customers so that they can contribute to create a better world.
Watsons has also mobilized its customers to create a bigger impact with community programs such as sponsorship of free corrective surgeries for cleft children under Give-a-Smile is targeted to empower 3,300 families in the Philippines by 2030, and the Alagang Pangkalusugan community medical outreach program will likewise be supporting 20,000 people with free medicines in the coming years.
The celebration activities will continue throughout the year as Watsons show appreciation to customers, partners and colleagues through the #WeLoveYou1000Ways campaign. There will be member-exclusive benefits and special offers, both offline and online to show the brand's appreciation to loyal customers of Watsons Club.
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Credit belongs to : www.manilatimes.net
