Ito Yokado to win customers with 'spiritual enjoyment'
Updated: 2013-06-13 14:06
By Li Yu and Peng Chao reported in Chengdu (chinadaily.com.cn)
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Japanese retailer Ito Yokado is set to try and win Chinese customers with "spiritual enjoyment", and believes that - despite the development of the online shopping - that the desire for shopping in physical stores will not disappear.
Tomihiro Saegusa, Ito Yokado's general representative in China, made the comments at the 2013 Fortune Global Forum in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, and also said that "the European market, which is mature, pays attention to customers' 'spiritual enjoyment'."
He predicted that the process of urbanization and improving living standards will mean that Chinese consumers will also require "spiritual enjoyment" as part of their shopping experience, and will not just focus on the prices.
"Customers can choose different ways do shopping tailored to different needs," Saegusa said. For example, young customers in Japan tend to shop online because of busy work, while the elderly people (above 60-year-old) that make up 35 to 40 percent of the whole population prefer the convenience stores. On weekends, customers at all ages would go shopping malls with family.
Saegusa said the proportion of each shopping pattern would change; what bothers him is how to win customers amid the change.
In fact, under the management of Saegusa, the Chengdu Ito Yokado Co has already won the favor of customers since 2005 by providing them with sense of worth and meeting their shopping demands.
Sales at the company's five stores in Chengdu hit 5 billion yuan ($800 million) in 2012, twice as much as the total revenue of the eight stores in Beijing.
In order to meet customers' demand for safe food, Saegusa said he has been working on signing contract with farmers who would provide agricultural products free of pesticides.