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Ritzy markets go for fancy food
May 19, 2010, Wednesday
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ZHEJIANG Province is famous for wealthy extravagant people and luxuries are common. But three new high-end supermarkets are betting they now will spend on high-end daily goods, especially pricey imported foods and wines. Xu Wenwen checks out.
Since the 7,000-square-meter high-end Ole Supermarket opened last month, Hangzhou Tower and Intime Department Store, two major shopping malls, are planning their own upscale supermarkets.
Residents will soon be able to choose among three advanced supermarkets selling expensive red wines for several thousand yuan a bottle, exotic fruits priced at hundreds of yuan per kilogram and organic vegetables costing tens of yuan for one piece.
Can Hangzhou folks accustomed to good but ordinary supermarkets appreciate and afford these luxuries?
"I think Zhejiang Province people have plenty of potential to consume in the high-end market," says Zheng Qun, general manager of Ole Shanghai Co, which determined to open Ole(Spanish for "exciting")three years ago.
Ole integrates luxury shopping, catering and recreation for well-heeled consumers. It opened its first store in Shenzhen (Guangdong Province) in 2004, and later in Hong Kong, Beijing, Ningbo and Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province.
Most of the products are expensive foods, more than 70 percent of which are imported, and for now expats are the majority of customers.
Organic foods, pastries, fruits, wine and snacks are very popular.
The company says the first month of business was excellent, comparing with business in Shenzhen and Beijing.
Seeking a slice of the pie, Hangzhou Tower will soon combine and upgrade its two high-end supermarkets in A and D mansion into one at its C mansion as a showpiece of a first-class supermarket.
Meanwhile, City Life Supermarket co-run by Intime Xihu Store and Lianhua Supermarket Co is in the interior outfitting stage. The mall claims it adopts an "eco-friendly and healthy" lifestyle that even has zero-emission fridges.
"The market will not only offer consumers, mostly elites of the city, convenient and high-end lifestyle goods, but also meet their needs for a sustainable lifestyle," says Zhang Jingyi, general manager of Intime Xihu Store.
Zhejiang Province is well known for its wealthy residents, especially entrepreneurs, and for extravagant lifestyles.
Zheng from Ole believes the high-end supermarket will usher in a new style of consumption of fancy daily goods.
"Purchasing fancy bags and cars is the first step of high-end consumption, and it will move into and concentrate on products of health and quality, like organic vegetables and fine wines," he says.
Intime Department's Vice President Ma Qihua agrees.
"High-end supermarkets emerge as Hangzhou develops and consumers' living standards improve," he says, noting that the supermarket in Intime Xihu Store was under planning two years ago, "so it's not a hasty decision following Ole."
Meanwhile, another two Intime stores in Hangzhou have no plans to set up fancy supermarkets as there's no demand yet.
Hangzhou is no stranger to luxury imported foods and other lifestyle goods. Before Ole opened, some sections of Metro and Wal-Mart hypermarkets also offered imported foods with high prices, but they are not very large and the merchandise ranges in price.
Zheng says of Ole that since high-end supermarkets have fewer customers than others, they must be unique and cater to their clientele.
Ole features a 500-square-meter wine cellar, a kitchen offering courses in gourmet cooking and wine tasting and a candy area with more than 1,000 types of sweets imported from Europe. Music and magic performances are staged in the fruit sales area and wine cellar.
Similarly, Hangzhou Tower D mansion's current supermarket's advertising slogan is "following the food to tour the world." It features crab and beef from Japan, salmon from Norway, cheese from Europe and fruits from Southeast Asia.
Large supermarkets selling large stocks of expensive food stuffs must consider customer traffic and how to keep the right amount of stock fresh daily.
Economics Professor Shi Fang of Zhejiang University of Technology says it's quite risky to have three luxury supermarkets competing in Hangzhou.
"They may have to wait two to three years for customers' to develop sophisticated tastes and habits of shopping for expensive goods for daily living," he says.
Since the 7,000-square-meter high-end Ole Supermarket opened last month, Hangzhou Tower and Intime Department Store, two major shopping malls, are planning their own upscale supermarkets.
Residents will soon be able to choose among three advanced supermarkets selling expensive red wines for several thousand yuan a bottle, exotic fruits priced at hundreds of yuan per kilogram and organic vegetables costing tens of yuan for one piece.
Can Hangzhou folks accustomed to good but ordinary supermarkets appreciate and afford these luxuries?
"I think Zhejiang Province people have plenty of potential to consume in the high-end market," says Zheng Qun, general manager of Ole Shanghai Co, which determined to open Ole(Spanish for "exciting")three years ago.
Ole integrates luxury shopping, catering and recreation for well-heeled consumers. It opened its first store in Shenzhen (Guangdong Province) in 2004, and later in Hong Kong, Beijing, Ningbo and Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province.
Most of the products are expensive foods, more than 70 percent of which are imported, and for now expats are the majority of customers.
Organic foods, pastries, fruits, wine and snacks are very popular.
The company says the first month of business was excellent, comparing with business in Shenzhen and Beijing.
Seeking a slice of the pie, Hangzhou Tower will soon combine and upgrade its two high-end supermarkets in A and D mansion into one at its C mansion as a showpiece of a first-class supermarket.
Meanwhile, City Life Supermarket co-run by Intime Xihu Store and Lianhua Supermarket Co is in the interior outfitting stage. The mall claims it adopts an "eco-friendly and healthy" lifestyle that even has zero-emission fridges.
"The market will not only offer consumers, mostly elites of the city, convenient and high-end lifestyle goods, but also meet their needs for a sustainable lifestyle," says Zhang Jingyi, general manager of Intime Xihu Store.
Zhejiang Province is well known for its wealthy residents, especially entrepreneurs, and for extravagant lifestyles.
Zheng from Ole believes the high-end supermarket will usher in a new style of consumption of fancy daily goods.
"Purchasing fancy bags and cars is the first step of high-end consumption, and it will move into and concentrate on products of health and quality, like organic vegetables and fine wines," he says.
Intime Department's Vice President Ma Qihua agrees.
"High-end supermarkets emerge as Hangzhou develops and consumers' living standards improve," he says, noting that the supermarket in Intime Xihu Store was under planning two years ago, "so it's not a hasty decision following Ole."
Meanwhile, another two Intime stores in Hangzhou have no plans to set up fancy supermarkets as there's no demand yet.
Hangzhou is no stranger to luxury imported foods and other lifestyle goods. Before Ole opened, some sections of Metro and Wal-Mart hypermarkets also offered imported foods with high prices, but they are not very large and the merchandise ranges in price.
Zheng says of Ole that since high-end supermarkets have fewer customers than others, they must be unique and cater to their clientele.
Ole features a 500-square-meter wine cellar, a kitchen offering courses in gourmet cooking and wine tasting and a candy area with more than 1,000 types of sweets imported from Europe. Music and magic performances are staged in the fruit sales area and wine cellar.
Similarly, Hangzhou Tower D mansion's current supermarket's advertising slogan is "following the food to tour the world." It features crab and beef from Japan, salmon from Norway, cheese from Europe and fruits from Southeast Asia.
Large supermarkets selling large stocks of expensive food stuffs must consider customer traffic and how to keep the right amount of stock fresh daily.
Economics Professor Shi Fang of Zhejiang University of Technology says it's quite risky to have three luxury supermarkets competing in Hangzhou.
"They may have to wait two to three years for customers' to develop sophisticated tastes and habits of shopping for expensive goods for daily living," he says.
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