Wangfujing Duty Free pledges “a brand new shopping experience” for Hainan market

Wangfujing Group Vice President Qun Zeng (曾群) shared her insights on the future for Wangfujing Duty Free and its aim to create a new duty free retail experience, in conversation with Lu Tian Qin from Hainan Hinews Media Company* at the China International Consumer Products Expo (Hainan Expo). Beijing-based department store operator Wangfujing Group was granted a duty free licence by China’s Ministry of Tourism in June last year and created a dedicated duty free company one month later. Zeng underlined the Expo’s role in introducing high-end local brands to an international audience and its “extraordinary significance” for the development of domestic and international collaborations. She outlined Wangfujing Group’s diversity and strength in department store, shopping mall and supermarket management, its standing in cosmetics and other luxury categories and its online operation, which boasts over 30 million users. “With these advantages, Wangfujing Duty Free will bring the most considerate and professional services to the Hainan market,” she pledged. Zeng said opportunity and competition coexist to “create a different tax free retail experience”. “With the construction of the Hainan Free Trade Port, and the introduction of a series of preferential policies, many tax free business entities have seen the huge potential of the tax free market,” she said.

The increase in the number of retailers in Hainan will “inevitably intensify market competition”, Zeng added. She said Wangfujing, as a newcomer to the duty free sector, would “actively learn from the advanced experience of its peers”. “Wangfujing will continue to combine its 66 years of experience in the retail field, and give full play to the bargaining advantages of the group’s large-scale operations… and present a different Wangfujing Duty Free to the market and consumers,” Zeng said. Asked what style of travel retail Hainan needed, Zeng commented: “It is not just a store, nor a commodity; it should be more of a life scene, created for the Hainan market and for consumers, and it should provide an innovative lifestyle.” She said the advantages of Wangfujing’s travel retail products are reflected in the group’s development strategy, product services, and in its collaborations with brand partners. New innovations and developments are in the pipeline, Zeng added.

Wangfujing revealed the vision behind its Hai Ken Plaza project, located in the centre of the Haikou International Trade CBD, during the Hainan Expo. The development, which will offer a multi-category retail experience to combine shopping, entertainment and leisure services, is expected to open at the end of the year and “bring a brand new shopping experience to the Hainan market”. Zeng said Wangfujing has a vision to create a “different Wangfujing”; to offer a new travel retail experience not just for Hainan, but for all Chinese consumers. The company aims to offer a “more high-quality, convenient, rich and diversified international shopping experience” and to contribute to the future development of the retail industry. * The Moodie Davitt Report provided daily coverage of the event in dedicated column that can be accessed here. We have worked closely with our strategic partner in Hainan, Hainan Hinews Media Co, whose dedicated, dynamic and highly professional team were on site throughout the Expo providing reports, pictures and videos. As reported, The Moodie Davitt Report and Hainan Hinews Media Co have struck a far-reaching win/win strategic cooperation agreement to boost mutual coverage of Hainan’s booming offshore duty free sector and the Free Trade Port development.