By Zsarlene B. Chua
ONLINE FASHION RETAIL brand, Zalora, launched its second “click-and-mortar” store in Bonifacio Global City (BGC), aiming to get more converts to the online fashion scene.
Last year in June, the brand’s first pop-up store — a 235-square meter affair — opened in Shangri-La Plaza Mall in Mandaluyong City, a move that capitalized on the foot traffic from the commuters passing through the mall from the MRT-3 Shaw Blvd. Station. The first store was initially supposed to remain open only until that September but due to popular demand, they had to extend its stay at the mall until January 2016.
The pop-up store was a rousing success as many first-time Zalora buyers discovered the brand thanks to the physical store, said Anna Kristina Austria, Zalora Philippines’ head of business development during the launch of the second pop-up on July 26 in BGC.
The new 267-sq.m. pop-up store is located at the lower ground floor of the C3 building in Bonifacio High Street and it will also be open until January of next year.
“We don’t want the novelty to wear off,” said Paulo Campos III, Zalora PH CEO and cofounder, explaining why the pop-up store won’t be open for longer or even permanently.
Following the same mechanics of the first pop-up store, customers can go inside the shop, browse through the racks, and try on the clothes of their choice (they can even take a photo wearing the outfit as the store conveniently provided a catwalk for this purpose) — but they cannot buy and bring the clothing home. What they can do is scan the item’s barcode using the provided QR scanner in the Zalora mobile app or scan the barcode at the station to put the item in their “shopping cart” for purchase online. The purchased item will then be delivered to their residence.
“They cannot walk out of the store with their purchase,” Mr. Campos said.
There are also Zalora pop-up stores in other countries such as Malaysia and Singapore.
Currently, the store carries in-house Zalora brands including its eponymous brand and Something Borrowed but will soon feature other partner brands.
The stock in the shop will be changed every two weeks, focusing mainly on women’s apparel as females still dominate Zalora’s market at 70%. A section of the store will be a gaming lounge featuring Sony consoles for the beleaguered shoppers’ companions.
Mr. Campos has noted that there has been a shift in the shopping behavior of their customers.
“There has been a shift even in the share of our sales towards electronic forms of payment… two-thirds of our payments are still cash-on-delivery but the nice thing that we’re seeing in the behavior of our customers is that they switch to e-money [after the first purchase],” he said, saying that e-cash services like the GCash Mastercard and PayMaya are becoming an alternative to cash-on-delivery payments which is an expensive proposition for the company.
