If it looks like retailers can't sell their wares fast enough these days, it may be because they really can't.
Despite the throngs of mainland tourists arriving each weekend and the expectation of surging arrivals when Disneyland opens on September 12, an increasing number of retailers in Hong Kong's shopping hubs are getting squeezed.
At Causeway Bay's ground zero, across from Sogo, is the Giordano store on Jardine's Crescent. Yesterday afternoon, customers just inside the entrance gathered around the main attraction: a large display of colourful Disney-themed T-shirts. The $80 price seemed high. The coloured T-shirts at the back of the store (sans Mickey, Minnie or Goofy) are four for $100. But the Mouse blesses the mark-up. The merchandise moves.
But things are far from magic in Hong Kong's retail kingdom. Giordano this week announced that despite double-digit growth in worldwide interim profits and a 7.3 per cent increase on Hong Kong turnover, the company might be forced to close four of its 97 stores in the territory this year.
'Even in prime locations, you can see a few vacant shops now because no retailers can afford to pay the rocketing rental fees,' said chairman Peter Lau Kwok-kuen, voicing an increasingly common complaint. 'We will not renew those leases if the landlords ask for exceptionally high rents.'
The rises are a speeding bullet that not even Superman Li Ka-shing has managed to dodge. Market sources yesterday said that Watsons, Mr Li's health and beauty chain, is being forced to move out of a prime spot in Central's Entertainment Building after landlord Hysan Development lured in fashion retailer Joyce Boutique Holdings and doubled the rent.