Upscale American casualwear retailer Abercrombie & Fitch will re-enter the Hong Kong market within the next six months with a fresh concept store.
It will be Abercrombie & Fitch’s first overseas outing for its new retail concept, which is boutique in style. It will be modelled after the prototype, launched at the Polaris Fashion Mall in Columbus, Ohio.
Covering about 6800 sqft (631.7 sqm), the Harbour City store will offer brand engagement and encourage product trial.
A spokeswoman says the store is “significantly smaller” than the one the company vacated this year on Pedder Street in Central, which opened in 2011 with three floors and a basement.
Learning from its Polaris test site, the company has increased the number of fitting rooms for its Hong Kong site. It will have four gender-neutral fitting rooms plus two spaces each with two individual capsules that are part of a private suite. That format allows for sharing looks with a friend or family member, and each suite has controls for lighting and music, as well as a phone-charging dock.
A feature of the store is a window in the Harbour View Room where customers can look out over Victoria Harbour.
As part of a seamless shopping experience, store associates can help shoppers place and pick up online orders at the store. Cash wraps are also scattered throughout the store to enable a quicker and more accessible checkout experience.
“In this new space we expect to deliver greater productivity on a significantly smaller footprint than our previous Hong Kong store,” says CEO Fran Horowitz.
