O2O (Online to Offline) Retail Strategy in Hong Kong

Hong Kong has always been a vibrant market. Its location makes it a nice place to live, a city of trade and a touristic destination. For many years it was the door to access China’s production capacities. Nowadays, it is a place of fashion trends, luxury goods, art, technology and tourism.

On October 22nd, we hosted a presentation on O2O in Hong Kong, with Nanomatrix, Openbravo’s partner in Hong Kong. There was a great interest in multi-channel strategies, as retailers and brands want to take advantage of the new opportunities O2O offers. In a city built vertically like Hong Kong, Retailers are always limited by space to serve their customers. Online channels make it possible for them to extend and improve customer experience beyond the physical retail space.
Attendees were also very interested in selling more to mainland China tourists, using China’s main e-commerce platforms Chinese tourism accounts for 25% of luxury goods purchase worldwide, in front of USA at 20%. The proximity of Hong Kong, Visa waiver and the possibility to pay in Chinese currency makes it a very attractive marketplace. Chinese tourists are estimated to account for 28% of total retail sales in Hong Kong.

The integration of mobile payments is critical to attract Chinese tourism, as Aliwallet and Tencentpay are getting tremendous momentum. For the local Hong Kong market, the Octopus card (Hong Kong subway system payment method) is a must for every retailer. It is supported by Coffee Shops, cosmetics shops, vending machines, convenience stores and, of course, the MRT (Hong Kong subway system).
Finally, attendees were interested in understanding how the Openbravo Commerce Platform can help them run their business, support their traditional retail strategy, expand in Asia Pacific and open new channels, while keeping control of their Operations. A data driven approach, based on Analytics, to continuously monitor and improve each channel, as well as cross-channel conversions, convinced many that the Openbravo Commerce Platform can and will indeed support the success of agile retailers.