Asian health and beauty retailer Watsons is fast expanding across the GCC as it recently opened its first store in Qatar at Doha Festival City. This follows the retailer’s recent entry into other regional markets, namely Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In addition to the new Qatar store, Watsons now has stores in Mall of Dhahran in the Kingdom, and Dubai Mall, Dubai Festival City, Mall of the Emirates and Al-Wahda Mall in the UAE.
Jonathan Watts, general manager of Watsons GCC at Al-Futtaim, said: “Al-Futtaim signed a franchise agreement with Watsons in early 2020 with the vision to bring fashionable and affordable beauty and lifestyle products to customers in the GCC region. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic interruption, these stores were opened in less than 24 months.
“Qatar is a truly vibrant and unique market. While customers are getting more and more sophisticated about beauty and personal care, Watsons as the skin expert is delighted to bring our customers exclusive international brands. The excitement is overwhelming as customers have been eagerly waiting for Watsons to expand across the GCC via our O+O (offline plus online) retail model, allowing beauty lovers of all generations to shop offline and online.”
With the purpose of inspiring customers to “Look good, do good, feel great,” Watsons is bringing more than 200 brands from around the world, offering makeup, skincare, haircare to personal care. Close to half of its products are exclusive at Watsons, including brands from the UK, France, Japan, and Korea. Some of the top brands include Deweytree, Holika Holika, Leaders, Superdrug, Target Pro by Watsons, and more.
Now in Qatar, customers have the chance to explore the nearly 3,000-square-foot store with designated zones like Natural and Clean Beauty, which features the Sustainable Choices products, and an open makeup area so that customers can try out different looks and play around with a wide range of latest cosmetics.
Watsons currently operates more than 8,000 stores and over 1,500 pharmacies in 16 Asian and European markets.
