AFFLUENT CHINESE shoppers eager to snap up expensive luxury brands now outspend American consumers at upmarket Dublin department store Brown Thomas.
In an interview with The Irish Timesthis week, Brown Thomas managing director Stephen Sealey said Chinese customers, tourists and people living in Ireland sending goods home, spend about €2 million a year with the company, which has its flagship store on Grafton Street.
That represents about 1 per cent of its sales and is a figure he would like to increase to 2 or 3 per cent in the next few years.
Brown Thomas recently began accepting the China UnionPay credit card to facilitate high-spending Chinese customers and also employs Mandarin speakers.
“This year we’ve done more business with Chinese than with Americans,” Mr Sealey said. “They have an enormous appetite for luxury goods and the prices in Ireland and Europe would be substantially below those in Asia. We’re very much on their lists.”
Mr Sealey said Brown Thomas, which is owned by wealthy Canadian businessman Galen Weston, would increasingly be looking to “reach out” to Chinese consumers in its marketing activity.
“Business in Ireland is tough at the moment so if we can recruit additional customers from abroad it’s a way to achieve growth.”
Latest accounts for Brown Thomas, which have been provided to The Irish Times,show its sales were flat at €206 million in the year to the end of January 2011.
However, tight stock control and reduced operating costs enabled Carlow Investment Company, the entity that operates the Brown Thomas group, to double its operating profit to €5.38 million last year.
This covers the Brown Thomas stores in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Limerick and BT2 outlets, aimed at younger shoppers.
In relation to current trading, Mr Sealey said: “Business is very tough out there and we’re having to work hard just to stay level . I would expect our profit to be in line with last year but there are a lot of cost pressures in the business and it will all depend on how Christmas [trading] unfolds.”
Mr Sealey was also critical of the condition of Grafton Street, where its flagship 120,000sq ft department store is located.
“The paving is absolutely knackered,” he said. “I need people to want to come to town. That means a clean and safe environment and that people who are begging on the street aggressively are controlled. That’s where Dundrum [shopping centre] is attractive [to shoppers].”
Mr Sealey said it is experiencing growth in sales of “luxury accessories” such as shoes, jewellery and watches. “What we’re actually selling less of is clothes,” he added.
