[natasha2206]

hello,
I'm thinking of setting up an Old-Fashioned Sweet Shop in Hong Kong, specialising in old, imported sweets - mainly from the UK, and the US. i will presents them around the store in large containers and sell by the weight, in paper bags.

i was wondering if anyone knew of any other places like this in Hong Kong so i can research my competitors, and if anyone had any input or ideas??

thanks

[KnowItAll]

There used to be one in Repulse Bay - mostly american candy / sweets. Not sure how much business they did (or if they're still around) as the location was in my opinion, not that good.

By the way, I hope you meant "old" as in old fashioned and not old as in expired.

[mjk]

Is that so different from Aji Ichiban, which you can find all over town? They sell lot's of preserved fruits and stuff like that, but also have a substantial assortment of sweets, sold from containers by weight. Many of them are imported from Europe (not sure about US).

If you want your shop to survive in HK, I guess you need to hit it off with the locals and can not survive on expats who miss their sweets from "home". I always found that Asian have a total different understanding of sweets (lot's of sweets corn, red beans, preserved fruits, etc).

[natasha2206]

thank you for the replies, and yes - 'Old' as in old fashioned..specialising in sweets such as bonbons, cola bottles, strawberry laces, pear drops, army & navy, cough drops, rhubarb & custartds etc.

so as you can see, this is not alike aji ichiban, as they sell more asian-type confectionary, and mine is western, as i won't be selling items such as preserved fruits and red beans.

[hello_there]

There are shops/ carts in lots of the malls and shopping centers both HK and Kowloon side that sell candies (including all sorts of "western" gummies and hard candies, etc.). Suppose you could compete if you can keep your costs down, but the idea doesn't seem unique or particularly suited for locals. Also, I can't see any of my expat friends or co-workers trapsing around to go to a particular candy store (or sucking on candy for that matter), so location and finding the right customers would be important if expats are your target market.

[mjk]

I was just thinking that Aji is selling both Asian and Western sweets, whereby you are focussing on Western only. I am pretty sure that Aji also has bonbons, cola bottles, etc. Maybe not to the extend you are planning it for your shop, but enough to grab a share of the "Western Sweets" market.
I as a Westerner would love a shop like yours, but I am not sure if you can survive without getting locals into your shop. In the end, it depends a lot on your location of course.
Good Luck and let me know when its open, I will be your first customer

[jimbo]

The main problem is storing them properly due to the sheer humidity of hk, nothing worse than a bunch of boiled sweets stuck together.

Check out your online competitors such as a quarter of.com etc and see if they will ship globally and of course see if you can be more competitive than them if they do.

Also don't restrict yourself to just sweets, Other western goods which are hard to find or ridiculously priced in HK would be good, i.e jams and preserves and maybe western magazines such as heat etc which I'm sure there will be a demand for.

[Lammarite]

Aji Ichiban sells oranges and I think the OP wants to sell apples.

Don't forget to stock Razzle for Jimbo as well as Heat.

[jimbo]

Originally Posted by Lammarite

Don't forget to stock Razzle for Jimbo as well as Heat.

Oi watch it you! I'm an FHM singapore edition man myself!