The first Hisap Brookstone store upgraded to V4.0 was given a grand opening in Nanjing on New Year’s Day this year. Since then, the overall transformation and national strategy of Hisap has begun. On 9 June, the first day of the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, Hisap Brookstone had its grand opening in Xujiahui, Shanghai. It is the first store to open outside of Nanjing, and besides bringing delightful surprises to customers, Hisap Brookstone’s Shanghai Xujiahui Store achieved earnings of RMB 12 million on the first day of opening. There was no doubt that this reflects recognition for the overall transformation of Hisap.

Hisap Brookstone made RMB 12 million on its first day in Shanghai

In the morning of 9 June, Shanghai’s Xujiahui district was thronged with people. Many trendy young people had gathered outside Hisap Brookstone store before it had opened. .

It is different from traditional 3C product sales stores. Besides novelties from the USA, the store provides random experiences and interactions at any given time. There are many places to relax and enjoy yourself, such as the sand paste world, massage experience, and the home life zone. There is also a robot battle zone for young people and children to have fun in, where they and their parents alike fixed eyes on a group of small dancing robots.

As the first station of national strategy, Hisap Shanghai Xujiahui Store was extremely popular on its opening day. Its two floors (covering a total area of 1,500 m2) were filled with customers. The experience areas for hot products such as cat ear headphones, sleeping aid devices, and automatic wine aerators were crowded with admiring customers. The much-loved and very safe colourful sand paste for children was soon sold out.

It is worth noting that Hisap Brookstone’s Shanghai Xujiahui Store was a first in many aspects: the first VR experience store, the first transformed and upgraded Hisap store, the first Brookstone flagship store in Shanghai, the first channel store of DJI UAV, the first TOP brand experience store for robots, the first “Xiu Hao Le (All Fixed)” experience store in Shanghai, the first sales experience store of 10000DT in Shanghai, and the first Apple store for reception and repair.

It is well known that Brookstone has a history of more than 50 years, during which it has been a synonym for novelty in Americans’ minds. In 2014, Sanpower Group jointly acquired Brookstone with Sailing Capital and GE Capital and brought the USA’s novelty and brand business to China, where they promoted the transformation to V4.0—Hisap Brookstone of domestic retail enterprise Hisap.

On 1 January 2016, the first Hisap Brookstone store was opened grandly in Aqua City, Nanjing. The sales topped 9 million on the opening day. The success of this built a good reputation, which with the Hisap Brookestone’s Wanda Store in Jiangning (Nanjing) built upon, and furthered the influence of the Hisap Brookstone’s chain expansion.

It is said that the two Hisap Brookstone stores have been the benchmark for transformation in the physical retail industry. It also created anticipation for the opening of a Hisap Brookstone store in Shanghai’s Xujiahui. Good news came on the evening of 9 June that Hisap Brookstone’s Xujiahui Store made RMB 12 million on its first day.

Hiteker’s plans to raise funds to promote Hisap Brookstone’s national strategy

The opening of Hisap was only the beginning of the national expansion of Hisap Brookstone. As a wholly-owned subsidiary of the listed company Hiteker, its expansion has been listed in the fundraising plan of listed companies.

In April this year, Hiteker released a plan to issue shares to acquire Council International and raise supporting funds. It also planned to raise supporting funds of not more than RMB 1.5 billion from Liu Yiqian and Yuan Yafei, the actual controllers of Hiteker, in which RMB 520 million was used for store expansion. According to the plan, the company will be guided by novelties and will fully implement the transformation strategy. It planned to develop 100 chain stores in the first and second tier cities of five major zones of the eastern, northern, south-western, central and southern areas of China. It was estimated that the total area of new chain stores was 60,000 m2.

“After entering Shanghai, stores will gradually enter core cities such as Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Brookstone will have different kinds of stores, such as boutiques, flagship stores, and airport and high-speed rail stores in the future.” The President of Hisap, Xin Kexia, revealed that he planned to carry out transformations to existing Hisap stores on a national scale within 2-3 years, cornering customers of the post-1980 and post-1985 generations for Brookstone novelties.

“Since its opening, the Hisap Brookstone’s Aqua City Store has been popular and sales have created many new peaks.” Xin Kexia revealed that three months after Hisap Brookstone’s Aqua City Store was opened, new data surprised the industry: 75% customers were those who born in the 1980s; the overall user repurchase rate was 12% and the rate of the third time purchase was 4%. “It means that our transformation thinking is correct. Scene experience type consumption is the direction to head for the transformation of the physical retail industry.” Xin Kexia’s plan accounts for customers of the post-1980 and post-1985 generations, which will bring Hisap at least a decade of growth.

The successful transformation of Hisap also created strong expectations for Hiteker’s performance growth in the capital market. A stockbroking analyst noted that as one of Hiteker’s main revenue sources, Hisap’s successful transformation will open imaginary space for the performance growth of listed companies.