Lindt is Tempering Retail Expectations
Lindt is a giant in the premium chocolate space ...but only now opening its first China flagship.
The Shanghai store debuts Pick & Mix with 26 flavors, where customers build their own goodie bags. Also on offer: chocolate ice cream and in-store making classes that reportedly booked out immediately.
The Lindt retail approach is very similar to Venchi, who have been expanding across China and wider Asia since 2018.
Godiva and other's arrived much earlier and built larger retail footprints, but it's Venchi's experiential format that Lindt chose to echo. Godiva opened the category on a traditional gift-box model.
Venchi reformatted it around experience... pick-and-mix walls and build-your-own boxes/bags. The experiential, personalized approach of Venchi has the momentum.
China is already one of Lindt's strongest markets, and per-capita chocolate consumption there runs at roughly one-tenth of Europe/US levels... structural headroom, not marketing upside.
