FAO Schwarz is expanding after making its comeback late last year. With its expansion in China, it hopes to apply its new vision of offering the customers a place to make memories instead of just being a common "toy shop."
FAO Schwarz, the oldest toy store in America, is opening stores in Beijing, China. The 150-year-old company is planning to build its largest store in the said country to introduce the brand to the Chinese people and offer them the "experiential" shopping that cannot be experienced in any other toy stores.
As noted in Toy Book, FAO Schwarz, the company with over a century of history in the toy retailing business will introduce its brand in China by building its first Asian shop in Beijing. It is hoping to maintain what it is known for - as a store that provides interactive experience - a kind of enjoyable shopping that can leave good memories to the shoppers.
"FAO Schwarz is focused on creating a theatrical experience where there will be many demonstrators to interact with children and parents in the store," Sherman Hung, an executive at The Kidsland, China's largest toy retailer that signed an agreement with FAO. "This is part of our exploration into providing new experiences for customers."
The store in China is a major move because FAO Schwarz already closed its business three years ago. It returned last year and vowed to rebuild its reputation and conquer the market once again.
"We thought that FAO Schwarz can be a global kids lifestyle brand," DigiDay quoted David Conn, CEO of FAO Schwarz's parent company Three-Sixty Brands, as saying. "We always believed it had a story to tell and authenticity; we always felt it could be much bigger than toys."
According to the South China Morning Post, FAO Schwarz will be built inside the China World Trade Center mall in Beijing. An area of 28,000 square feet has been offered to the American toy retailer for its storage space. It was stated that this size is bigger by 40 percent compared to its existing outlet that can be found at the Rockefeller Center in New York.
Finally, it was revealed that the company is also planning to build its second Asian store in Shanghai and in the next five years, it is hoping to have at least 30 smaller outlets throughout China.
