In the pink
Category manager Chillie Por tells Deborah Sidey why Nuance-Watson's new P&C stores at Singapore Changi T3 will entice and delight fragrance-loving travellers
Officially opened on January 9, Nuance-Watson (Singapore)’s new perfume and cosmetics outlets at Changi Airport Terminal 3 are the retailer’s latest havens for beauty-loving travellers. From the centrally located 618sqm Mega store to the compact 50sqm landside check-in outlet, the six new shops – which also include two arrivals and two departures stores – offer a dizzying array of fragrance, skincare and cosmetics brands, set out in the lightest and glossiest of retail environments. Creative store design combined with cutting-edge technology and unrivalled customer service has ensured that there is enough wow-factor to woo even the most seasoned of travellers.
Nuance-Watson, of course, is no stranger to beauty retailing at this Asian hub – it has been operating the perfumes and cosmetics concession at Changi for the past six years – but with these new stores the retailer has brought a fresh and exciting appeal to the category. Building on its previous experience at the airport, and once again employing the design skills of Australia-based David Rooke Design Studio – the company behind the successful T2 Mega store at Changi – the Nuance-Watson team has pushed the boundaries of creativity with this new project. The pristine white décor of the stores has been highlighted with splashes of the retailer’s signature pink while the glossy black and white furnishings deliver an atmosphere of contemporary luxury. Meanwhile, ‘bling’ factor lighting and a proliferation of LCD screens placed strategically within the stores create a sense of movement and excitement inside.
As one might expect in this region of the world, skincare and colour cosmetics play a strong role in the new store layouts, but this certainly does not mean that the fragrance category has taken a back seat. According to category manager of perfumes and cosmetics, Chillie Por, the new stores carry more than 100 international beauty brands, with over 80 of them offering fragrances. “Our buying team has worked hard at developing a strong fragrance business that exceeds many other Asian airports,” she tells Frontier, adding that in the majority of Nuance-Watson’s 24 P&C outlets at Changi, fragrance now accounts for 50% of overall business.
Even in the new T3 Mega outlet, where 70% of the retail space has been devoted to skincare and cosmetics, clever segmentation of the shop floor has ensured that fragrance plays a starring role. “We made sure that the fragrance offer was located right up front in the store,” explains Por, “and we have given our top five beauty houses – Chanel, Estée Lauder, Dior, Lancôme and Clinique – shop-in-shop space in order that they can present themselves in a larger-than-life manner.” The in-store perfume offer is further enlivened by a celebrity fragrance wall, aptly named Star Scents, which highlights the latest celebrity creations and should have appeal for the youth market, believes Por.
Technological first
The Mega store also boasts a technological first in the Singaporean perfume market, an online fragrance search encyclopaedia, the ‘Michael Edwards Fragrance Finder’. A winner of the FiFi Award for Technical Innovation, the Finder has been designed to help users understand the component parts of their favourite scent, and as a result aid them in their selection of a new fragrance for themselves or to find a gift for a loved one. Listing more than 5,500 fragrances, and regularly updated, the Finder can also provide information such as year of launch, country of launch and an image of the bottle at a glance.
“It’s a great educational tool for our customers and beauty advisors to interact with,” enthuses Por. “And it definitely delivers a more holistic experience when customers are choosing a fragrance.” The application will also be available at the retailer’s 183sqm South Gate departures store, she reports.
Fragrance also had a key role to play in the retailer’s store launch programme, explains Por. The buying team negotiated the exclusive launch of two of the most hotly anticipated new fragrances of the year, Gucci by Gucci and Elle by YSL, ahead of other airports in the region. And with the Gucci fragrance still not available in downtown department stores at the time of writing, Nuance-Watson has well and truly set itself apart from the competitive domestic market. Other tempting offers include the exclusive availability of several niche beauty brands, including Badgley Mischka, Amouage Fragrances and Victoria’s Secret Beauty.
The T3 arrivals stores have proved to be ideal showcases for these exclusive fragrance offers, believes Por, while the South Gate departures store has been stocked with a wider range of premium brands to target the higher profile customers using the Singapore Airlines First and Business Class Lounge and a separate VIP immigration check-point located nearby. “We have upped the service factor at this South Gate store and at the central Mega store by adding a beauty concierge counter, which provides additional services such as gift-wrapping, beauty tips and even personal shopping,” explains Por.
To celebrate the opening of the third terminal and further increase perfume spend, the Nuance-Watson team also devised an in-store promotion which ran throughout January. Playing on the key number ‘3’, every customer spending a minimum of S$300 in-store was presented with a S$30 voucher which could be used against any subsequent fragrance purchase. The promotion has definitely had a positive impact, Por believes.
“So far, our P&C sales have increased by double digits,” she tells Frontier, adding that “T3 sales have been on a par with T2 since the opening, but with a higher ATV.” Fragrances certainly appear to be moving faster in the new terminal, she confirms, partly as a result of the promotion but also because T3’s customer profile has a higher concentration of Caucasian travellers.
“We know that only being competitive on pricing is not good enough,” Por concludes. “We have worked very closely with our perfume and cosmetics suppliers to ensure that we are ahead of the Singapore domestic market in launching new products, and hopefully we have provided plenty in this new terminal to excite and motivate our customers to part with their cash.”
Top ten fragrance brands in T3
Bvlgari
Calvin Klein
Chanel
Dior
Estée Lauder
Giorgio Armani
Hugo Boss
Lancôme
Ralph Lauren
YSL
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