AUSTRIA. Austrian jewellery supplier M Frey Wille is extending its travel retail presence with a store in Munich airport terminal two opening next week.
The new 30sq m (323sq ft) outlet will be situated in the non-Schengen departures area. Later this year a second airport shop in Vienna will follow.
In the Middle East where the company is already present in all the major airport duty free malls, M Frey Wille also opened its own counter recently with Muscat Duty Free in Oman.
M Frey Wille business development manager Barbara Windisch told The Moodie Report: “In general, it is our strategy to aim at optimum presentation, and to establish M Frey Wille corners and counters with our personalised dark blue furniture, and optimum lighting, wherever possible.
“In addition to Bahrain and Doha, we have just succeeded to open brand corners in Abu Dhabi Duty Free and Beirut.”
The Contemporary Art collection, featured in the current advertising campaign, has been a big success, winning additional, new customers with its modern and white gold look.
In domestic markets, the Dubai store (opened in Deira City Centre in January 2002) continues from its successful start. Apart from excellent sales figures, M Frey Wille says this branch has an important role as flagship store supporting the brand image, also very much reflected in the world of duty free.
The latest Tokyo store (opened in the Ginza district in January 2003) is still in the early phase of growth and it did not have an easy start due to SARS. “But sales are getting better continuously and we expect it to be a locomotive for future duty free business in Asia, as Dubai is in the Middle East,” said Windisch. “It is important for us to operate in both [duty free and domestic] markets as any crisis in one can be compensated by the other.”
M Frey Wille sales for the first part of 2003 are currently running at the same level as 2002, but with company-owned shops showing growth of +5% and Middle East duty free showing a big plus of +30%. The company said it is very optimistic for the second part of the year.
