Thailand Department Store Queen Zheng Jinli Talks About The Way Of Shang Tai

In Thailand, where shopping occupies the center of society, Zheng Jinli (Yuwadee Chirathivat) leads.

(Central Department Store) is ahead.

As a mother of three children, she became president of Shang Tai Department in 1996, 15 years after joining the family business.

65 years ago, her grandfather founded Shang Tai, which was only a grocery store. Now, the Shang Tai Group has three store brands. Zheng Jinli runs the same name department store and has fashionable style.

Chain.

In 2010, she led the Shang Tai Department Store overseas and opened the first store in China (now a total of three), and plans to expand more in China and Asia.

Compared with the competitors, Shang Tai is in a leading position.

Our history and good retail experience are obvious advantages.

Although we are a family business, we have the right professionals to do the right job.

Of course, family business means a strong continuity.

The real estate department, our sister company Central Pattana Public, is also an advantage because we can find good locations and build our businesses in these lots.

Most of our competitors are renting land.

Our shops are mainly on our own land.

However, our greatest strength is our customer base, which has been accumulated over a long period of time.

We have a group of very loyal customers, about 2 million member cards [The One Card] members.

More than 80% of sales came from these members.

Thailand has been hit by political upheavals and natural disasters.

Shang Tai Department Store grew by 3.5% in 2011 and 17% in the same store.

We can see that we are growing.

The figures are worth mentioning, too, because the Zen department store was closed for a year (in 2010 after a street riot caused a fire), and

Central Ladprao has been closed for six months (due to large-scale renovation).

Indeed, political turmoil and natural disasters will affect us, but we are continuing to work hard to maintain our sales targets.

Growth opportunity

Besides Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Hat Yai, Pattaya (Pattaya) and Phuket Island also have stores in Shang Tai.

We believe that the north, the northeast and the south are areas of good growth.

There will be more stores in these areas in the next five years.

We plan to open 25000 square meters of stores to provide all Thai services.

In 2008, we decided to enter China and opened the first store in China in 2010.

Now we have three stores in China: there is a Shang Tai Department store and a Zen store in Shenyang, and there is a Shang Tai Department Store in Hangzhou.

Opening a store in China is not so easy, but we are determined to succeed in China.

We will stick to the Chinese market for a long time.

We planned to be more radical and felt that maybe we could open three stores a year, but then we found that the market competition was very intense, so now we are more cautious.

We are looking at the first and second tier cities, maybe one or two stores in a year.

But we will continue to expand in China, and we are also looking at other countries, especially in Southeast Asia, such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam.

In the Asian business community, women are now playing the role.

For me, business women, wherever they develop and operate, live a very tense life.

I admire so many women that they can balance their roles in family and career.

This may sound like the collective cry of the successful business women, but indeed, no matter what kind of work we do, we have very little identity.

We are usually part of a company director, wife, mother and daughter.

Suggestion

Do what you really love.

When you have passion and enthusiasm, you can do things well.

No job in the world is insulated from problems and contradictions.

However, there are always solutions.

You must concentrate, persevere and never give up.