Fortnum & Mason, the queen’s favourite grocer, picks Hong Kong as foothold of its first Asian expansion in three centuries
- The company will open a two-storey shop at the Victoria Dockside in Tsim Sha Tsui as part of the new high-end K11 MUSEA mall which opens in September
Fortnum & Mason, the upmarket London department store that counts the British royal family among its regular customers, has chosen Hong Kong for its first stand-alone shop in Asia since its first overseas outlet closed in Dubai in 2017.
Ewan Venters, chief executive of Fortnum & Mason, said the company has signed an eight-year lease to open a two-storey shop at the Victoria Dockside in Tsim Sha Tsui. The shop will open as part of the new high-end K11 MUSEA mall in September.
“We are coming to Hong Kong as it is a vibrant international city. In Hong Kong, we will be able to serve the local customers as well as the many tourists from Asia and other countries,” Venters said in an exclusive interview.
In Hong Kong, it has sold its biscuits, tea and food hampers at special counters in Lane Crawford for the past five years. Solid sales growth there helped the company decide to set up a shop in Hong Kong, Venters said. The store’s stockists can be found in scores of cities across 11 countries, according to its website.
“We found Hong Kong people really love our products,” he said.
One floor of the 7,000 square foot shop will be for retail, selling its famous teas, biscuits, jams and other products, while the other floor will host a 100-seat restaurant serving British cuisine as well as Fortnum and Mason’s world-famous high tea.
Built by New World Development, K11 MUSEA will be a new museum-retail complex situated in the heart of the US$2.6 billion Victoria Dockside.
“We decided to locate our shop at K11 MUSEA as it is not just a shopping mall, but a place where offering retail, an art gallery, cultural and fine dining experiences. This fits in with the history and culture of Fortnum and Mason,” said Venters.
“Both Hong Kong and London are expensive places to do retail business in terms of rent. We have the experience of how to operate to cope with the high rent while still making a profit,” he added, without disclosing the rental charge for the premises.
The company in November announced its sixth successive year of double-digit sales growth for the financial year ending in July. Sales grew by 12 per cent, and profits increased by an impressive 26 per cent.
The company has four stores in London, all rented – its flagship in Piccadilly and branches at The Royal Exchange, St Pancras and Heathrow airport.
The shop, established by Hugh Mason and William Fortnum more than three centuries ago, started out by selling the wax from the royal family’s used candles to earn gold to open its first shop selling food products and later expanding into restaurants.
Venters said the key to three centuries of success has been to meet the changing demands of customers including, in recent years, their desire to shop online. It now sells its products online and delivers them to 126 countries. Online sales represented a significant 37 per cent of total sales at Christmas.
“There has been an increasing popularity of online shopping. We consider online shopping can provide new business opportunities to us instead of challenges,” Venters said.
The growth of its online sales is not at odds with its plan to have a physical shop in Hong Kong.
“I believe the customers who like to shop online will also want to go to the physical shop to experience the tea-tasting, high tea and other classical cuisines we provide,” he said.
(Corrects story to say that Fortnum & Mason’s first overseas store was the Dubai outlet that opened in 2014, only to shut in 2017. Hong Kong is the first overseas store since the closure of the Dubai outlet.)
