FHKI 60th Anniversary Commemorative Album

One of the two major reasons why Renley keeps production lines in Hong Kong is that “Made in Hong Kong” provides confidence and quality assurance to consumers. The Q-Mark certification is one of the reputable certification schemes that assists them in selling watches in the Mainland market. For example, some Mainland consumers like more classic and traditional designs. We have to appropriately balance between meeting the market demand and keeping the brands’ identity and positioning,” said Mr Gary Lau. “We found that online shops such as Tmall and Jingdong are effective sales channels to tackle the vast geographic coverage of the Mainland market. We operate both online and offline retail shops; yet the pricing and sales strategies of the two are different. In physical retail shops our sale persons can promote products face-to-face to customers but in e-shops we have to rely on the design of the virtual shop to present the image of our products. Pricing is also important. We have to attract consumers by ‘value for money’ and stimulate their desire to purchase. However, online and offline shops are complementary. Consumers may take the best-selling items of e-shops as trendy indicators when they make buying decisions.” Another reason is the CEPA zero tariff allows Renley to achieve better cost control of watches exported to the Mainland. Renley started upgrading its business about 20 years ago as it was aware of the importance of building its own brands. However, establishing a brand is very different from running a factory. The essence of the former is to spend money wisely with the aim to let promotional messages effectively reach the target consumer groups. The latter is to save money by cutting costs without sacrificing quality. “When building brands, we have to decide on their positioning and the identified target consumer groups. We have set the main theme of our brands as “young and energetic” because we consider the younger consumers are important in new markets. Different market segments have different preference and demand which may deviate from the key theme of our brands. Mr Gary Lau is Executive Director of Renley Group Ltd. When the majority of Hong Kong watch makers relocated their production lines to the Mainland in the 1990s, Renley insisted on manufacturing and assembling watches in Hong Kong despite the higher costs. Gary Lau Federation of Hong Kong Industries 60 th Anniversary Commemorative Album 47