NEW TARGET MARKET: Everrise recently celebrated the grand reopening of its 4th Mile store on June 29 to capture this new target market featuring young parents, in particular young executives in their early 30’s to 40’s with children.
Jeffry Sia
KUCHING: Local retail player Everrise Group of Companies (Everrise) is evolving into an upscale retail departmental store due to its efforts made in effective rebranding, customer relationship management and targetting of newer markets.
Having been around since 1993, the Everrise Group has been expanding on a double digit scale on the back of its aim of having a total of 20 stores by the end of the year.
According to group executive director Jeffrey Sia in an interview with The Borneo Post yesterday, Everrise’s supermarket and departmental stores remained its core business, which comprised two thirds of its total revenue.
Sia further explained that, “We are a traditional-based departmental store, where most of the shoppers are housewives and people aged 40 and above. We serve over one million transactions per month for the Everrise Departmental Store.”
He also mentioned that the store was currently expanding its target market to include the likes of young parents, in particular young executives in their early 30’s to 40’s with children.
This target market, he added, especially with young children, are statistically big spenders.
“They are very particular about convenience, time and ease of shopping as well as quality of products due to being better educated,” said Sia.
Thus, Everrise recently celebrated the grand reopening of its 4th Mile store on June 29 to capture this new target market.
The RM5 million upgrade was carried out from February to May this year and the resulting outcome featured new attractions such as the Street Market, Freshmart and a new corporate logo.
“The past two years have been our consolidating period in which we are improving our management strength and operational efficiencies before our next phase of expansion,” said Sia.
Following the recent reopening of its 4th Mile flagship store, Everrise would also be opening an outlet in Plaza Merdeka Shopping Mall by November this year.
Situated in the heart of Kuching city centre, the supermarket would occupy a space of 22,000 square feet (sq ft) in the mall and would be repositioned to be another flagship store with a little twist.
This store will be the anchor tenant of the mall, together with the 120,000 sq ft flagship Parkso and a 5-star designer hotel suite operated by the successful 360 Hotel Group.
“Following that, we will also be opening another flagship store in the long established King Centre commercial hub next year,” Sia further revealed. “The 120,000 square feet store will soon be Everrise’s largest yet store and is situated in the centre of Kuching neighborhood along main trunk roads.
“Learning from the responses of our new 4th Mile store, our King Centre store will feature an improved shopping concept to maintain relevant to our targeted clientele,” he explained.
Commenting on the retail market in Sarawak, he said that the local chains current growth was limited by overall market size, population growth rate and consumption dilution from various players. These, he said, were the macroeconomic factors.
“While one cannot stop the competition from entering our local markets, one can either retain existing customer base or find new ones. Our upcoming Plaza Merdeka store will be one example that would enlarge our existing catchment and casting a different net,” said Sia.
This, as he explained, avoids cannibalisation to its existing store and adds excitement to the Everrise branding.
“We would also like to take that opportunity to challenge ourselves, to continue questioning the conventional and to think outside the box so as to give us that extra edge,” he opinedf.
“Stepping outside of convention requires patience and desire. This is an area we will strengthen ourselves in the road ahead.”
Everrise saw the advantage and potential to continue anchoring in Sarawak, particularly in Kuching. Sia said there were still pockets of population currently outside of its coverage.
“As for plans to expand outside of the state, we have not put ink on paper, but there have been cautious planning. Having said so, Sarawak will continue to be our main focus,” he added.
Regarding the future, Sia anticipated that market consolidation would occur in the near future as cunsumers become more segmented and grocery retailers become more specialised in their chosen areas.
“Shoppers loyalty will require greater efforts. This is the future of the market trend,” concluded Sia.