ParknShop

PARKnSHOP

Type	Supermarket
Industry	Retailing
Founded	1973
Headquarters	Hong Kong
Number of locations	237 stores (2010)
Area served	Hong Kong, mainland China, Macau
Parent	Hutchison Whampoa Limited
Website	http://www.parknshop.com/

PARKnSHOP (Chinese: 百佳; pinyin: Bǎijiā; Cantonese Yale: Baak Gāai) is one of the two largest supermarket chains in Hong Kong, the other being Wellcome. PARKnSHOP operates more than 260 outlets in Hong Kong, Macau, and Mainland China.

PARKnSHOP was acquired by Hutchison Whampoa in 1973 when Hutchison Whampoa was chaired by Douglas Clague. For a decade the store remained a local retailer until the mid-1980s when it began to expand outside Hong Kong. The PARKnSHOP concept mimics the larger supermarket layout found in North America. It sells both Chinese merchandise and imported goods. PARKnSHOP is a member of the A.S. Watson Group (ASW), a wholly owned subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa Limited.

Locations

A ParknShop Superstore in Tai Po Mega Mall

A ParknShop store in To Kwa Wan, Hong Kong

Hong Kong

PARKnSHOP has more than 200 stores and 9,000 employees in Hong Kong.^[1] PARKnSHOP opened the first Superstore^{[fn 1]} in Hong Kong in 1996 in Whampoa Garden^[2] Phase 12 with a floor space of 4 200 m². The first ParknShop Megastore^{[fn 2]} opened in 2002 in Metro City Tseung Kwan O with a floor space of 6 700 m².

A.S. Watson Group also operates a number of supermarkets under different brand names that target higher-income consumers. There is one Great supermarket located at Pacific Place, one Gourmet supermarket at Lee Gardens, and Taste supermarkets at Festival Walk (Kowloon Tong), Citygate (Tung Chung), Stanley Plaza (Stanley), Hopewell Centre (Wan Chai), East Point City (Hang Hau, Tseung Kwan O), Maritime Square (Tsing Yi), Olympian City 2 (Tai Kok Tsui), Metroplaza (Kwai Fong, Kwai Chung) and TMTplaza (Tuen Mun). In 2007, another brand, International by PARKnSHOP, was introduced at Happy Valley, Hong Lok Yuen, United Centre at Admiralty and Cyberport which specializes in organic foods.

PARKnSHOP's higher-income stores are billed as a "lifestyle" food stores and stock a large variety of imported goods, as well as fresh fruit and vegetables and many nonfood items. The upmarket stores were launched in November, 2004, when the existing 35,000-square-foot (3,300 m²) PARKnSHOP store located at Festival Walk in Kowloon Tong was rebranded as TASTE. It is open daily from 7:00 a.m. to midnight.

Mainland China

PARKnSHOP opened its first mainland China store in Shekou in 1984, making the chain the first foreign retailer to enter the mainland Chinese market. The chain's first mainland superstore opened in 2000 and its first mainland megastore followed in 2001 in the Tianhe district of Guangzhou. There are now more than 340 PARKnSHOP stores in northern and southern China, including locations in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Dongguan.

Generic products

PARKnSHOP sells products under generic brands, both what it calls "private label"^{[fn 3]} and "Best Buy"^{[fn 4]} branding.

Controversy

Labour outsourcing

The PARKnSHOP chain, including the rebranded TASTE superstore in Festival Walk, dismissed 525 employees in April 2005, when the company outsourced the labour for its fresh foods counter; most of the employees were dismissed just before the Chinese New Year in 2006. The aggrieved employees included many low-paid workers of longtime service. The employees' labor union complained that although 90% of the dismissed workers were rehired at the same position as before, their wages were lowered (some reportedly by as much as 44%), and their working hours were increased from 10 to 12 hours by the outsourcing subcontractor. The resulting average hourly rate was HK$18.^[3].

Mislabelling fiasco

In January 2007, PARKnSHOP was involved in a food scare in which the supermarket was accused of having mislabeled oilfish and sold it as the more expensive codfish. The scare broke out after the Centre for Food Safety of Hong Kong had received complaints from 14 people who fell ill after consuming oil fish said to have been wrongly labeled as codfish by, and sold at, PARKnSHOP as well as its rival Wellcome.

PARKnSHOP blamed the Indonesian authorities for its inconsistent translation among the Indonesian, English and scientific names of the product.^[4] The Indonesian consul in Hong Kong stated that oilfish caught in Indonesia is not destined for human consumption, but is exported only for use as an industrial lubricant to countries including Australia, Canada and Japan.^[5] A Consumer Council spokesman for the case said that "a professional buyer [should] know right away, based on the price and appearance of the fish, that something's wrong despite the erroneous translation".^[5]

Toilet roll rip-off

On 15 June 2009, PARKnSHOP's private label "Best Buy" toilet paper scored the lowest in terms of length and weight.^[6]

See also

• City'super
• Wellcome Supermarkets

Notes

1. ^ Chinese: 超級廣場; pinyin: Chāojí guǎngchǎng; Cantonese Yale: Chīukāp Gwóngchèuhng
2. ^ Chinese: 購物廣場; pinyin: Gòuwù guǎngchǎng; Cantonese Yale: Kaumaht Gwóngchèuhng
3. ^ Chinese: 百佳牌; pinyin: Bǎi Jiā pái; Cantonese Yale: Baak Gāai páai
4. ^ Chinese: 超值牌; pinyin: Chāo zhí pái; Cantonese Yale: Chīu jihk páai

Sources

1. ^ "Company Overview". http://www1.parknshop.com/WebShop/CompanyOverview.do. Retrieved 2007-06-30. 
2. ^ PARKnSHOP milestones
3. ^ Wong, Ching (April 2006). "PARKnSHOP Outsourcing adds insult to injury". U-Beat magazine Chinese University of Hong Kong. http://www.com.cuhk.edu.hk/ubeat/060474/supermarket.html. Retrieved 2007-03-25.  (Chinese)
4. ^ Kim, Caroline (30 January 2007). "ParknShop says certificate wrongly named fish". The Standard. http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=11&art_id=37169&sid=11958222&con_type=1&d_str=20070130&sear_year=2007. Retrieved 2007-03-23. 
5. ^ ^{a b} Chung, Carol (29 January 2007). "Label mistake revealed in oilfish saga". The Standard. http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=11&art_id=37098&sid=11946643&con_type=1&d_str=20070129&sear_year=2007. Retrieved 2007-03-23. 
6. ^ Chui, Timothy (16 June 2009). "Watchdog tears into toilet roll rip-offs". The Standard. http://thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=4&art_id=83499&sid=24232911&con_type=1&d_str=20090616&fc=2. Retrieved 2009-06-16. 

External links

• Official site of ParknShop
• PARKnSHOP on A.S. Watson website