4 future franchising trends in PH

MANILA, Philippines – With the increasing number of international franchised goods and services entering the Philippine retail scene, Philippine Franchise Association chairman emeritus Samie Lim said it pays to know what’s coming next. 

In his presenation at the Franchise Asia conference on Wednesday, July 17, Lim shared 4 brand trends emerging in the region that may come to the Philippines in the near future:

1. Food brands extend beyond ASEAN concepts

According to Lim, the Philippines will soon be at the receiving end of a regional phenomenon in the food business: brands are branching out to specialize in international cuisines.

Those from Singapore range from a quick-service to casual sit-down to high-end model. Within that, there’s a Hong Kong café concept, a German beer bar and a famous tea salon.

There are Western coffee shops, Italian restaurants and Frech bakeries that are actually Korean franchised brands.

“In the next two years there will be more Asian and ASEAN food franchises that will quietly come in. This will make our food franchise industry more vibrant but this is also something that people in the food business should prepare for,” said Lim.

2. More European fashion brands

Lim said we can expect to see more European fashion brands come into the market.

“It’s the Europeans who are coming in one after the other, some of the most notable are from the UK, Netherlands and Spain. We also saw several French shoe brands come in.”

“For many years, the Europeans have always shown some hesitation about the Philippines. So finally they are now starting to respect the Philippine market, particularly the growing middle class segment,” said Lim.

3. Healthy eating on the rise

Brands advocating healthy food have been on the rise across the world. One brand, Healthy Café, has grown to have franchises across 9 US states, Canada, Australia, Lebanon, India, Singapore, soon Morocco, Dubai, and most recently, the Philippines.

In Indonesia there has been an increase in casual dining healthy restaurants that use organic ingredients and no monosodium glutamate or MSG.

In Malaysia there is an ice cream franchise called ‘Just like it,’ which has 0% fat, additive sugar and coloring. According to Lim, they’re looking for a franchise in the Philippines.

4. Technology and retail

While this concept can be expected to arrive in the future in the more distant future, technology has already been infiltrating retail concepts across the world.

In London, there is a restaurant that uses an E-table, the world’s first interactive food ordering system with an overhead projection technology to give customer complete control over their dining experience, according to Lim.

In Bangkok, there is a restaurant where you are able to order through a touch screen and be served by a robot. In China even the cooking is done by the robot.

In the US, Bloomingdale’s Nordstrom and a number of other clothing stores installed a booth called Meality, which is a 3D scanner that measures your body and determines what brand size and style will fit you best in 10 seconds. You don’t even have to take off your clothes to fit something.

In South Korea, TESCO opened the world’s first virtual supermarket or ‘e-grocery’ pictures of products posted in the subway with QR codes that customers can just scan what products they want. 

With the franchise market expected ot increase by 20% this year and 30% in 2014, we can expect exciting things ahead for the Philipine retail industry. – Rappler.com

Red Dress, Wine Glass, Salad, Digital Tablet images from Shutterstock