AEON Stores (Hong Kong) Co., Limited has established a vast Japanese retail chain network in Hong Kong by the trade-name JUSCO for more than two decades. Specializing on a wide range of daily necessity merchandise broadly categorized into food, fashion, household items and electrical appliances, it constantly searches for new product sources for continuing business expansion.
With this marketing strategy made crystal clear to the sourcing team, broad and profitable product variety on shelves is not anything easy to attain however. To attract new streams of customers, AEON Stores eyes on the potential in expanding the number of fashion brands in its stores.
Mr Takizawa Shuichi, Buying Manager of AEON Stores' Fashion Department noted that the products which they mainly sourced from Japan tend to be more welcomed but the time-consuming and costly sourcing process often hinder them from achieving the most desirable results.
HKTDC recently has offered a handy alternative to the challenge. With its business matching service, AEON Stores met up with several Japanese brands of fashion items and accessories in January 2010, when those companies flew to Hong Kong to know about the local market and explore business opportunities. Fruitful discussions were generated in an afternoon's meeting time.
"Though we have designated staff who are sent for regular sourcing visits to Japan and a certain level of business connection with major Japanese suppliers has been established, through the business matching meetings we were able to further our reach to some small-and-medium-sized companies which provided genuine Japanese designs too," elaborated Mr Takizawa.
"Business Matching brought new discoveries to us. We are eager to further discuss with three of them which specialize in casual chic and modern ladies' wear for business cooperation," enthused Mr Takizawa.
It is the first time for us to enjoy the business m atching service, we are impressed by its effectiveness in connecting us with targeted business partners," concluded Mr Takizawa.
