(22 November 2016 – Hong Kong) New World Department Store China Limited (“NWDS” or the “Company”; Hong Kong stock code: 825), one of the largest owners and operators of department stores in Mainland China, is pleased to announce the outstanding performance of the annual Double 11 shopping festival. Seizing the opportunities from the heated consumption sentiment of the festival, NWDS launched nationwide sales promotions and also joined up with Chow Tai Fook, Maichang, ffan.com, UnionPay, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (“ICBC”) and companies from various industries on cross-industry collaborations. The approach successfully generated impressive increase of 138% and 167% in foot traffic and sales compared to last year respectively, over the weekend of 11-13 November 2016. Sales revenue doubled in more than 10 stores during the period. 

The Double 11 shopping festival has become one of the most popular shopping occasions in China in the past few years. Seeing its vast potential, NWDS focused its efforts on rolling out a series of heavy-weighted sales promotions in all its stores around 11 November. It also collaborated with a list of merchants, mobile applications, banks and telecommunications service providers to launch sales promotions in order to drive sales by riding on the industrial advantages of the partners, effectively extending the breadth and depth of the promotional initiatives. As a result, both foot traffic and sales surged greatly. A collection of Double 11 cross-industry collaborations was held this year. All NWDS stores jointly organized a mega sales activity with Chow Tai Fook through the “NWDS Flash Sales” WeChat channel, featuring thousands of selected jewelry items at the same price as at TMALL simultaneously. Also, all NWDS stores joined hands with UnionPay, ICBC, Agricultural Bank of China, China Merchants Bank and other banking and telecommunications companies to provide their VIP users with special discounts and gifts upon spending a certain amount. Sixteen stores worked with the mobile application ffan.com and launched the “New World & ffan.com Eleven-days Shopping Festival”, drawing over 100,000 users to purchase group coupons for spending at NWDS stores. “Ba Li Chun Tian” branded stores in Shanghai, on the other hand, co-organized a campaign with shopping applications mplife.com and rongyi.com, providing limited offers that synchronized with the physical stores on their platforms – more than 10,000 items were sold within a few hours after the sale commenced. 

On top of the provision of shopping discounts, NWDS also attaches much importance to creating happy shopping experience for its customers through continuously enhancing stores’ themed interior design, optimizing payment methods and strengthening its interaction with customers and etc. During the Double 11 period, the cultural and art themed “New Territories 88” in Nanjing New World Department Store, the craftsmanship themed “No. 7 Temple Street” at Zhengzhou New World Department Store and the “Cat Street” dedicated for cat lovers at Beijing New World Department Store commenced operations to tie with young consumers. A unified smart POS payment method is going to be introduced in all stores to streamline the payment process in order to shorten customers’ check-out time. Following the interactive game held on WeChat that gave away 10,000 tickets of the movie I Am Not Madame Bovary to newly registered members or qualified customers with purchase, the Company partnered with the music application Maichang, which has 30 million registered users, to organized an match-making activity “Sing Your Love Out”. Other than singing duets over the application, the finalists staged performances at NWDS stores at Beijing, Shanghai and Wuhan to create a happy experience for customers.

During this golden sales period, members from NWDS management have become the spokespersons for the activity. The endorsements did not only empower the promotions, but also motivated its staff to pursue sales excellence. Mr. David Niu, Chief Executive Officer of NWDS said, “What seemingly the worst is in fact the best time to get hold of what customers really want. We have come to the realization that there will be a bright future for the retail industry only if we can earn genuine recognition from consumers. Not only us but everybody from different sectors have come to this consensus, aspiring us to join up and act in unison. NWDS is innovating and leading such a transformation. Through innovative initiatives in sales and marketing, product portfolio and business mix, we are determined to actualize a new era of retail transformation driven by NWDS. Along this journey, we will walk side by side with more and more companies who share the same philosophy.” 

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