Page 26 - Sphere No.29 (Jun 2011)

24 Sphere 29
The Canton Dispensary, the
forerunner of A S Watson,
opens in Guangzhou, China.
The Hong Kong Dispensary
is traded under the name
A S Watson & Company.
Re ta i l
A beautiful
growth story
1828 1841 1871
Operations extend to Hong Kong,
where the company founds the
Hong Kong Dispensary.
Modest beginnings
It is hard to imagine now, but when Watsons became a wholly-owned Hutchison subsidiary back in 1981,
there were fewer than 10 Watsons stores in Hong Kong. Known as “Watson’s The Chemist”, a description
harking back to the firm’s 19th century prominence as a colonial dispensary, they catered strongly to
Western residents, visitors and tastes. In other words, English was heard everywhere on the shop floor, there
were vitamins galore but Chinese medicine was rare.
The Watsons of that era placed a particular emphasis on cosmetics. “At that time, there were no
stand-alone stores for the big cosmetics brands and just a limited number of department stores in Hong
Kong,” recalled Celia “Mayling” Mounger, who joined Watsons in 1970 as Assistant to the Purchasing
Manager of the A S Watson Group’s Manufacturing Division, and is now the Group’s Project Director,
International Buying. “Watsons offered convenience and trust for beauty-conscious consumers. Another big
category was toys, before computers became popular with kids.”
Indeed, with their huge product range, the Watsons shops of 30 years ago closely resembled variety
stores in the US. “Even then, we had fashion accessories, stationery, magazines, greeting cards and so
on,” Ms Mounger remembered. For the average Hong Kong consumer unused to ready access to so much
choice, a visit to Watsons was like entering Aladdin’s cave.
By the early 80s – some 20 years after Hutchison had acquired its initial controlling interest in Watsons –
Hong Kong was a city in transition. Factories were relocating to newly accessible southern China and Hong