Hong Kong health and beauty retail giant AS Watson accelerates launch of Watsons GO touchless payments system, plans fewer stores amid pandemic

AS Watson Group, the world’s largest health and beauty retailer, said the coronavirus pandemic had accelerated the launch of its touchless payments system, even as it dented the Hong Kong company’s plans of opening new stores globally.

The company, which is owned by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing’s CK Hutchison Holdings, has spent HK$1 billion (US$129 million) between 2012 and this year on technology, as part of a digital transformation. It launched the Watsons GO touchless payment system – originally scheduled for release at the end of the year – in Hong Kong recently.

“Covid-19 has led to the growth of online and e-commerce platforms around the world, and this has accelerated our digital transformation,” Malina Ngai Man-lin, the company’s chief operating officer, said in an interview. “We decided to accelerate the launch of Watsons GO by half a year so our customers wouldn’t need to queue, and to make shopping here more convenient for them.”

Watsons GO allows customers to scan the bar code of any product with the Watsons mobile app and then pay for it directly through Alipay HK, the digital payments application owned by Ant Financial, an affiliate of South China Morning Post parent Alibaba Group Holding. It will start accepting credit cards from next month.

The service was launched at a Watsons store in the Olympian City shopping centre in Kowloon last week. It will also be rolled out in Cityplaza in Taikoo and in Kowloon Tong later this month. Watsons GO will also be launched in Singapore at the end of the month.

Ngai, also the chief executive of the group’s Asia and Europe regions, said the company will review feedback from customers before introducing the system to other stores in Hong Kong.