Special interviews
Written by: Kuang Yueting
2021-05-24 07:15
Last update date: 2021-05-24 07:15
The epidemic has been raging for more than a year, and the retail industry has been hit hard. Many retailers have closed stores or reduced the size of their stores. However, Lego, which produces and sells plastic building blocks, decided to open stores against the market.
Troy Taylor, the regional managing director of Lego Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, believes that the online store is a marketing tool for customers to check product inventory and find their favorites, while the physical store allows customers to "pick hands" to try out, learn about product details and interesting designs. To impress consumers, "Online stores and physical stores will coexist, and one will not replace the other."
He pointed out that although the unemployment rate in Hong Kong is high and people may be more cautious in spending, the company's business has risen instead of falling.
In addition, Hong Kong’s LEGO pricing is already one of the cheapest places in Asia, so I believe that no discount will not have much impact on sales.
Click on the image below to browse LEGO Hong Kong's best-selling products:
The epidemic raged around the world last year. Some countries even implemented lockdown measures to prevent the spread of the epidemic. Many people have to stay home to fight the epidemic. Building Lego has become a good way for them to kill time. In the end, Lego’s income rose by 13% year-on-year to 437 last year. 100 million Danish kroner (about 54.4 billion Hong Kong dollars), consumer sales increased by 21%.
Troy Taylor revealed that last year's Hong Kong sales recorded high double-digit growth, and online sales increased 3 times year-on-year. This trend continues this year, and the growth rate is even faster than last year.
Floral LEGO sells for a few weeks
Among the more popular products are Super Mario, Disney, Winnie the Pooh and Floral series.
"During the epidemic, many adults will build LEGO at home, and women prefer floral art. Therefore, we have launched a series of floral art products. These products can also decorate homes. Therefore, they are very popular with customers. A few weeks after launching, they have all sold out. , We will launch more home decoration products in the future!"
The main customers of LEGO are children, but there are still many adults who are supporters of the brand and even queue up to buy LEGO.
Troy Taylor said Kidult (child-like adults) is not the company’s main target customer group. Take Australia, New Zealand, the United States and the United Kingdom as examples. Most customers are children between 6 and 12 years old, but Hong Kong’s toy collection culture Popular, is the place with the most active LEGO fans in the world, and the sales growth rate for adult customers is also the highest.
These players tend to buy expensive series of products and generally buy 5 to 6 sets. "Although Hong Kong people live in a small place, this has not affected their purchase of LEGO. In recent years, they have bought an average of 3 to 4 sets to Buying 5 to 6 sets seems to be buying more and more!" However, the company will continue to focus on children customers, hoping to make them like the company's products since they were young, and they will still play LEGO after they become adults.
Following the launch of the Harry Potter Diagonal Alley building block set, LEGO launched a new series of "Hogwarts Moments" in November last year. The appearance of the product is a pop-up book, which can be opened to spell out the classroom scene.
(Photo by Zheng Zifeng)
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Combining products to turn crises into opportunities
The development of science and technology has changed the lives of the people, and the rise of computers and game consoles in the past has also had an impact on LEGO sales. In the end, the company turned crises into opportunities by launching joint products.
Troy Taylor believes that the joint product can attract more customers who have not been in contact with LEGO to buy the product, which will help the two brands to broaden the customer path. It is a cross-promotion sales model. Therefore, the company launched Harry Potter, Batman or Star Wars. Products. In the future, the company will maintain cooperative relations with Disney, Warner Bros., Nintendo, etc., and will enter daily products across sectors. For example, the company cooperates with UNIQLO to launch clothing, and adidas launches joint shoes with adidas, but the company does not have any at this stage. Consider launching blind box blocks with Bubble Mart (9992).
During the epidemic, some retailers decided to close physical stores and switch to online shopping. However, Troy Taylor pointed out that LEGO Hong Kong's online shopping business has indeed increased significantly during the severe epidemic. Only when the epidemic improves and the government relaxes social measures, citizens will return to the store. Shopping, hoping to experience and touch the products in person, Singapore also has a similar situation, this may be because Hong Kong and Singapore are more convenient for shopping, dining and entertainment, and foreign residents usually have to drive when they go out. After arriving at the destination, they have to find a place to park. Cars are more inconvenient, so they prefer to use online shopping.
In view of this, the company will develop online shopping and physical store business in a dual track, so that customers can search for the products they want to buy in the online store in advance, and then go to the store to see the details and uniqueness of the product.
The Hong Kong Legoland Discovery Center, located at K11 MUSEA in Tsim Sha Tsui, opened in March. It is the largest parent-child theme indoor playground in Hong Kong.
(Profile picture)
Tend to be stationed in the livelihood area
At present, LEGO has 5 branches and 1 indoor playground in Hong Kong. Lego Discovery Center Hong Kong. Troy Taylor revealed that since entering the Hong Kong market, the company has been exploring more store opening opportunities, hoping to choose a larger store location with enough traffic. Wang, will not open more branches just because of a temporary drop in rents, but instead make long-term plans for the next 4 to 6 years.
"Our strategy is to open a store in the tourist area in the first year, and then open a store in the Minsheng District."
He continued that the Sha Tin New Town Plaza branch is the smallest store in Hong Kong, but it has a total area of 2,000 square feet. In the future, the company will not open stores smaller than this store in order to maintain a certain quality of customer experience.
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