Cosway unveils first Experience Centre

KUALA LUMPUR: Homegrown network marketing company Cosway (M) Sdn Bhd, which has opened its first Experience Centre in Berjaya Times Square here, plans to gradually change the style of its existing 500 Cosway stores in Malaysia to be more experience-based for customers as part of its effort to strengthen both its physical and online presence.
Cosway CEO Liang Sook Sook said the company plans to open five Experience Centres in Malaysia in the next two years, such as in Sabah, Sarawak, Johor and Penang, as well as one Experience Centre each in Hong Kong and Taiwan this year.
The flagship Cosway Experience Centre in Berjaya Times Square showcases its extensive range of health and wellness, home care and living, beauty, food and beverage, and kitchen products in eight lifestyle-themed experiential zones. These zones are equipped with interactive guides, demonstration units and diagnosis machines to engage customers and provide functional based information on Cosway’s products.
The Experience Centre will also serve as an online purchase collection point.
Liang said Cosway stores are present in most part of Malaysia, while its online platform cosway.com.my allows customers to shop online and use the Cosway stores to pick up their purchases or to enable delivery of products by store.
“We’re not opening more Cosway stores, we just want to maintain it as a store to provide services and as pick-up centres. In the future, we’re going to establish more virtual centres,” she told SunBiz.
Virtual centres will be managed by qualified members who operate a virtual store, without the need for holding any physical stock. They will assist to place online orders for members and provide service and assistance for other online matters such as redemptions.
“Offline still makes up 90% of our sales. Online sales are still small as we haven’t kicked off the virtual centres, which will start earliest in November. We aim for online sales to hit 30% in two years,” said Liang.
Cosway has about 500,000 members in Malaysia and over one million members in the region.
It started its rebranding exercise last year to appeal to the younger generation. To reach out to these new “smart consumers”, it has overhauled its online presence by creating new websites, adding many features for members’ online office, and introduced online registrations and purchases. It has actively entered the social media such as WeChat, WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram.
“We want to focus on attracting the younger generation to be interested in our products and our business so that we can have a bigger sales force. With the younger generation coming in, we will also modernise our assortment,” said Liang.
She added that Cosway is targeting a 10% sales growth next year, driven by the rebranding exercise that aims to capture a new demographic of millennials.
In June 2016, Cosway improved its marketing plan to enable it to pay out more bonuses to more members. The impact was immediate, and the total number of Cosway members who received bonuses increased by 136% compared to 2015.
The number of members receiving bonuses up to June of 2017 has already exceeded the total of members receiving bonuses for the entire year of 2016.