Retailer looks for capital gain

Growing demand convinces Lane Crawford to open Beijing store

As living standards continue to rise, the demand for high-quality products is greater than ever in the mainland. High-end fashion retailer Lane Crawford Joyce Group will open a new store in Beijing next month to meet this thirst for quality items.

The new store will employ 300 staff, ranging from cashiers to store managers.

After two rounds of recruitment fairs in July and August in Beijing, more than 200 people have been employed.

Most of the vacancies for cashiers and stock room assistants were filled, but the store is still looking for 10 more management staff.

Franz Kraatz, Lane Crawford's senior vice-president of sales and operations, said: 'For managerial staff such as store manager and department manager we are looking for people with at least seven to 10 years of experience in international fashion retail. People like this are hard to find in the mainland, so we are going to recruit them from Hong Kong and overseas.'

Mr Kraatz said they were looking for people who were able to adapt to new trends quickly, had fashion sense and a customer-oriented attitude.

Since Lane Crawford's target customers came from all over the world, being able to speak foreign languages such as French and Japanese would be a plus. Mr Kraatz believed that recruitment difficulties in China stemmed from the lack of international exposure and limited English. To tackle this problem, the company would provide staff training.

'For example mainland employees will have to take up a 16-hour English speaking course,' he said.

'Hong Kong staff or staff from overseas will take classes to sharpen up their Putonghua.

'New staff, regardless of position and experience, will receive six weeks of training to let them build up the 'Lane Crawford DNA'.'

Employees would benefit from basic training and the chance to meet with designers and vendors to learn about fashion and stay up-to-date on the latest industry trends.

'This is a unique policy among fashion retailers,' Mr Kraatz said.

Lane Crawford provided staff with great career opportunities and freedom, Mr Kraatz said. 'Staff can ask to be transferred to other departments to learn more about how the company works.

'They can also move to sister companies of the Lane Crawford Joyce Group to widen [their] horizons,' he said.

Mr Kraatz said he hoped that a manager who had experience working in Hong Kong and the mainland would be able to reduce friction.

For example, the general manager of the Beijing store is Chinese and has many years of experience working in the mainland, Hong Kong and overseas. Mr Kraatz said he saw huge potential in the mainland market and in five to seven years, he predicted that China would surpass Japan as the world's biggest consumer of luxury goods.

'We are confident with the mainland market with its gigantic population and increasing spending power.

'Although we do not have a time frame yet, more Lane Crawford stores will open in Beijing and other cities in China in the years to come. We are looking at Hong Kong, which is the base of our company, as a model for Beijing,' he said.

However, earlier this year Lane Crawford closed down its stores in Shanghai, Hangzhou and Harbin because they did not have all six Lane Crawford business units and were not spacious enough.

The new store in Beijing covers 80,000 sq ft and consists of all six business units - cosmetics, womenswear, menswear, jewellery, homing and style, ladies' shoes and accessories.

The category of products sold would be the same as the flagship store at the International Finance Centre shopping mall in Hong Kong.

Lane Crawford planned to open a store in Macau in 2009. There were also plans to extend the business to Taiwan and South Korea and other parts of Asia.

Mr Kraatz said he did not think high-end fashion brands such as Gucci and Louis Vuitton would give Lane Crawford tough competition because they operated on a different business model.

'They are single brand stores and we sell more than 600 brands in our stores, so we are very different from each other. I really think competition is positive for business,' he said.

Logistics

More than 600 brands will be sold and more than half are making their debut in the mainland

Located at Seasons Place Mall in Beijing Financial Street, it has three storeys and covers 80,000 square feet

Looking for 10 management staff with at least seven to 10 years of experience in international retailing

Staff will undergo six weeks of training to learn about the company, languages and how to operate in Beijing

Candidates who can speak French and Japanese or Chinese dialects will have an advantage