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Sasa Coming Back to S’pore After Closing all Stores in 2020

2023-03-29 , 7:25 pm

When talking about stores that were hit hard by the pandemic, makeup chain Sasa is definitely a name that comes to mind.

However, even though Sasa closed all 22 stores in Singapore back in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic began, it seems like we’ll be seeing more of the makeup chain soon.

Recently, Sa Sa International Holdings revealed that the company intends to open stores in Singapore once again.

When speaking to Bloomberg, the company’s Chief Financial Officer, Mr Danny Ho, announced that Sasa is looking to open one to two stores in Singapore over the upcoming years.

Here’s everything else you need to know about Sasa’s plans for their future stores.

Company Has a “Cautious Outlook”

Regarding the company’s outlook, it was revealed that it has been adopting a “cautious outlook”.

This is particularly due to how Hong Kong’s rate of economic recovery has been slow after the easing of COVID-19 measures.

In particular, Mr Ho believes that Sasa’s sales will only return to pre-pandemic levels in 2026 and that revenue contributed by tourists might decrease from 60% to 70%.

When talking about tourists, Mr Ho revealed that Sasa is “quite conservative” regarding how many tourists they expect to return and that the company does not predict that they will bounce back to their “previous highs”.

Looking to Open More Stores in Other Countries As Well

Apart from Singapore, other areas such as Malaysia, mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau may see the emergence of new Sasa stores as well.

Firstly, the company hopes to benefit from the post-COVID-19 tourism boom in Malaysia by opening more stores there.

Currently, there are 71 Sasa stores in Malaysia.

According to Mr Ho, the boom will likely cause the company’s sales to surpass that of 2019 over the next few months.

On the other hand, more stores might be set up in China as well.

However, Sasa is still more focused on profiting from the 38 stores they currently have in China after closing down half of their stores during the pandemic.

As for Hong Kong and Macau, the company is looking at setting up five to seven new stores.

There are around 80 Sasa stores right now in those two areas, and this number was recorded after one-third of stores were shut down due to the zero-COVID policy in China preventing tourists from visiting.

Other Issues that Sasa is Facing

Besides the slow economic recovery in Hong Kong, Sasa is also a member of the Hong Kong Retailment Association.

As such, it is currently still involved in conversations with the authorities in Hainan to speed up the registration for its beauty products.

This process could take up to a year.

Apart from that, another long-term challenge faced by Sasa and Hong Kong as a whole is that they have to try and attract consumers who have more attractive choices nowadays.

For example, Chinese consumers have turned to online shopping, visiting new shopping hubs in Macau and travelling to Hainan for duty-free shopping as these choices are more enticing.

Hong Kong and Macau Still Trying to Get Tourism Numbers Back Up

On a larger scale, Hong Kong is still trying to boost its tourism rates.

This February, 1.5 million tourists visited Hong Kong.

For comparison, that’s 74% fewer tourists than the number of tourists who visited Hong Kong in February 2019.

As for Macau, 1.6 million tourist visits in February this year were recorded, 55% less than the tourism rate in 2019.

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Sasa Changing Focus While Tourists Return Slowly

With the current situation regarding tourism, Sasa has also changed its company’s focus for now.

In particular, it has started to cater more to local consumers.

According to Mr Ho, Sasa has done so through the sale of personal care products such as shampoo and shower gel since locals are more inclined towards purchasing those items.

However, the stores still sell makeup and skincare products, which are more popular amongst tourists, so the makeup gurus among us don’t need to worry at all.

Beyond that, Sasa has also begun employing the use of social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

More live streams and communication with customers through applications such as WeChat and WhatsApp are also part of Sasa’s efforts to attract more local customers.