Chow Sang Sang looks to millennials and Gen Z to replace lost business from absent mainland Chinese tourists
- Hong Kong jewellery retailer ties up with London-based Victoria and Albert Museum to use iconic British designs as themes for its shops and jewellery line
- A focus on young Hong Kong buyers has led to a 20 per cent growth in sales in the past two years
Chow Sang Sang Holdings, one of Hong Kong’s largest jewellery retailers, saw half of its sales evaporate after tourists from the mainland disappeared, but things are looking up after shifting its focus to a younger and local clientele.
The jewellery retailer, which has about 700 stores in the Greater China region including Macau and Taiwan, has partnered with London-based Victoria and Albert Museum to use iconic British designs as themes for its shops and for a jewellery line inspired by art pieces in the museum.
The company’s move to introduce affordable daily wear jewellery items targeted at millennials and Gen-Z buyers has boosted sales by 20 per cent over the past two years, partly making up for the lack of tourists and improving the bottom line.
“At the start of 2019, tourists accounted for 50 per cent of our business, but with social unrest followed by Covid-19 for over two years now, 50 per cent of the business has gone,” said Winston Chow Wun-sing, director and deputy general manager at Chow Sang Sang.
In mid-2019 when the anti-government protests broke out, tourists started giving the city a wide berth, leading to a 14.2 per cent decline in arrivals to about 56 million for the year, according to government data.
This was compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, when Hong Kong virtually closed its borders to stem the spread of the disease, resulting in a 93.6 per cent drop in tourist numbers to 3.57 million. Last year, arrivals further declined by another 97.4 per cent to just 91,398.
