Tag Archives: singapore

TWG Tea leads the way in tea luxury

TWG is a luxury tea brand like no other.  It is a luxury concept that incorporates an international distribution network to professionals, unique and original retail outlets, exquisite tea rooms and tealeaves of every name for you to take home and enjoy too. The TWG stands for The Wellness Group and anyone who has been to one of their amazing outlets certainly feels good afterwards.

They have recently opened up several new premium and expensive tea rooms at the luxury Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands (Singapore’s premium version of a Las Vegas integrated resort and much more successful). There is no stopping their march to place tea at the heart of all that wealthy Asian residents aspire to. Visitors and wealthy residents alike queue for hours just to experience afternoon tea at TWG.

TWG offers over 800 single estate fine harvest teas and exclusive blends, as well as tea patisseries and other tea infused delicacies. Ironically England, the home of tea, has a long way to go to match the TWG experience. Fortnam and Mason don’t even come close. They have one boutique at Harrods but it’s really a Singaporean experience.

You name it, TWG have a tea called it!

TWG Tea combines the best of Asian and European traditions of elegance and beauty on which it is based and have some of the most amazing names that could possibly be imagined for their products. Drinking tea called Weekend in Casablanca tea or Silver Moon Tea, Christmas Lights tea or  Immortal Moment tea, Geisha Blossom tea or Valentine Breafast tea, Miracluous Mandarin tea or Happy Birthday tea is just so much more refined and exotic than PG Tips or Lipton!

via TWG Tea leads the way in tea luxury | Chris Reed on Partnership Marketing | Brand Republic blogs.

Coffee and tea drinking habits in Asia: when culture matters.

Evening drinking habits differ from country to country, and this is very important when creating customer-centric food Retail concepts, as our DESITA and ECOFFEE projects are. In Singapore, for example it’s not unusual to see coffee shops packed at 11pm/12 midnight every night of the week including weekends. This experience is replicated across many countries in the region from India to Malaysia, Vietnam to Indonesia.

The culture of drinking in Asia is not about alcohol it’s about coffee and tea. It’s still about friends but it’s sober conversation as oppose to drunken ones. There are more coffee shops in Singapore than bars. Coffee shops are growing at a faster rate in India than any other form of F&B outlet. This appears to be down to more affluence, a desire to eat and drink out and a predominantly non-drinking culture. Of course there are a mass of bars in Singapore and across Asia but these tend to be filled with expats and Chinese and focused on certain areas and linked to Karaoke.

Religiously Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists – the main religions across the region – actively prescribe non-drinking of alcohol to their followers. Singaporean’s are just not brought up to get drunk in the way their English and American counterpart’s inparticular are. This in turn leads to a more civilized society, there are no drink related injuries for hospitals to deal with and society to pay for. There is not the violence that happens every weekend in most towns in the UK, no alcohol means that it just doesn’t happen, it’s just not accepted and not desired.

From a marketing point of view it means that if you want to target these people you have to think in a more sophisticated and creative way. Starbucks may be much maligned but they, Costa and other Western brands are growing in Asia at a rate of knots and along with the monster Asia coffee brands like Gloria Jean’s,Café Coffee Day and Coffee Bean are more effective at reaching many Asians than marketing through bars and alcohol. (Source: BrandRepublic; Picture: 4theloveoffood).

Business Retail: a global view

Retail is big, but how big it is and is it equally distributed worldwide or are there countries where retail is at its best?  

The last CB Richard Ellis Survey  about the business of Retail, reveals how fluctuating this market is, measuring how the most important 323 retailers changed their strategies in 73 countries during the last year.

The survey findings are very interesting, showing us that Dubai is the most favorite city for both American (61%) and European (63%) retailers, while only 23% of retailers from the Asia-Pacific area are present in that city – not because of lack of interest, but just because the Asia-Pacific consumer market is the fastest growing, therefore retailers from those countries do not need to branch out abroad.

Retail expansion rate saw a decrease during 2010, only a 2%, compared with 4% in 2009 and 12% in 2008, with new target countries being India (8 new retailers) and Turkey (7). United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, Ireland, Romania, and Belgium all attracted six new retailers.

Online retail is becoming more and more important for retailers: 82% of the brands in the survey do have an online catalogue, even though only a smaller percentage (46%) offers to consumers the chance to purchase goods online, with Value&Denim being the most active (43%) followed by mid-range fashion  (26%) and Luxury & Business Fashion (32%). To have an online retail shop is the favored choice by those brands who already have a physical store (46%), while in more advanced market such as the U.S.A., there is a slight percentage of online seller (24%) who do not have a physical store, and that are using online sales platform to test the market before opening a physical point of sale.