Hong Kong Television Network (HKTV) chairman Ricky Wong Wai-kay has opened a store aimed solely at boosting the firm’s online shopping business.
As well as avoiding high property costs, the HKTV store is pitched as an effort to reinvent the city’s retail industry.
In a North Point space of just 200 sqft (18.5 sqm), the shop is being manned by four or five salespeople who help customers shop for items on HKTVmall.com using one of 50 tablets in-store.
“We want to reach out to people who do not have online shopping experience,” says Wong. “We are confident that many of them will become returning customers once they have their first experience with us.”

He says HKTV’s competitors are not supermarkets, but the dominating property landlords who determine and dominate the price of goods in the city.
He hopes to reinvent the traditional retail industry with the concept, and would open more stores across the city soon.
Wong says the idea for the HKTV stores follow a five-fold increase in online sales to HK$67.46 million (US$8.69 million) during the first half of this year.
“The gloomy economic outlook and retail situation did not affect us,” he claims, saying the cost of running an online shopping platform is much lower than running supermarkets and convenience stores.
“Our products are cheaper because we don’t need to pay such high rent,” he says.
Starting out as a television station in 1992, the company has focussed on expanding its online shopping platform since its bid for a free television licence failed in 2013.