I just came back from a few days in Zürich, Switzerland. It’s a very pretty, historical city in a rich country, a European financial capital and one of the most expensive urban areas in the world; with a high density of rich individuals and minimal unemployment. The city centre is packed with luxury stores, property prices are unbelievable high and consumer goods, food and cosmetics are expensive. But there are some cool museums and galleries. Continue reading
Category Archives: Travel
Travels in Zürich (1/2): Vintage design, Inuit sculptures and contemporary art
Filed under Design, Exhibitions, Industry News, Retail, Travel
Asian colourants: Liese, Schwarzkopf & Beautylabo
I came back to Berlin from my travels in Asia with some 45 kilos of luggage. An additional 5 kilos (mainly face masks, teas and dried flowers, together with plastic Daiso odds and ends) are still in transit via surface mail from Singapore and should arrive in about two months or so. And about 15 kilos of the luggage consisted of cosmetics – including three really cool hair colourants which I bought in Thailand. Continue reading
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Filed under Industry News, Retail, Travel, Trends
Retail notes from Bangkok: Niche beauty from Thailand
I just came back from a short trip to Bangkok where I did some sightseeing, met up with friends and ate as much papaya salad as I could. And of course I also went shopping! Bangkok has some jaw-dropping malls, like gigantic Centralworld (which includes the rather cool Zen department store – this is the store that was damaged by fire together with a part of Centralworld during the riots of 2010 and on my last trip to Bangkok, 2011, it was still being renovated). Continue reading
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Filed under Industry News, Retail, Travel, Trends
Retail notes from Singapore: [Company Profile] The Daiso empire
Ever so slightly off topic (since Daiso’s not a Singaporean company) but what the heck, it’s my blog and I can write whatever I like!
So now you’ll be hearing about one of my favourite Asian retail chains ever: Japanese household goods discounter chain Daiso. I discovered Daiso during my first trip to Japan (well, my first trip to Japan as an adult) and immediately became a fan. Continue reading
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Filed under Brand Profiles, Retail, Travel, Trends
Retail notes from Singapore: 7-11 travel-sized C&T
The 7-11 convenience store chain over here has introduced a very attractive way of presenting travel sized cosmetics – slim towers of small cardboard boxes filled with cosmetics from a wide range of brands. Continue reading
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Filed under Industry News, Retail, Travel, Trends
Retail notes from Singapore: Masked beauty
One of my favourite Asian product categories is face masks and more precisely, foldable cloth masks. It is by far the popular mask format over here and virtually all the brands on sale are from Taiwan, Korea or Japan. Continue reading
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Filed under Industry News, Retail, Travel, Trends
Retail notes from Singapore: Essence is in town!
For the last six years I’ve been regularly visiting Singapore. I go there once a year, usually for a month, staying with a friend of mine and taking brief side-trips into the other countries in the region. No matter which country I go to I always spend a lot of time in stores and shopping malls to check out retail trends (also, all of SEA is hot and humid and I like aircon!), and to simply enjoy the Asian mall experience. Continue reading
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Filed under Industry News, Retail, Travel, Trends
Retail notes from Prague: Beauty retail in the Czech capital
I just returned from four days in Prague, it was very cold and snowy but beautiful. This was my first visit to the city since a school trip back in 1992. Besides sightseeing, shopping and eating I also spent a lot of time checking out the local cosmetics stores. Continue reading
TRENDS. TRAVELS. AND BERLIN 