Olight, an East Asia-based lighting company that sells high-quality flashlights, recently debuted its first-ever brick-and-mortar store in the U.S. at the Fashion Show mall, directly on the Las Vegas Strip.
Vegas Inc. sat down with Mavis Xiao, chief marketing officer at Olight, to talk about why the company chose Southern Nevada for its inaugural stateside store, what it has to offer customers and how it hopes to continue to grow its footprint.
Can you give us an overview of Olight?
Our business model (from) 2007 to 2015 was more like a B2B (business to business) model, working with different distributors and dealers in the United States. Since 2016, we have been focusing on the consumers directly.
So, I want to use four keywords to summarize our products. The first one is innovative. Our products are really one of the finest in the industry. [They are] different from traditional, regular flashlights. The second one I want to use is high-tech, because we have a lot of high-tech things in the flashlights. The flashlights have multiple different functions, rather than just white light. And [the] third one, we are very pioneering, because the design of our flashlights is different. And then the last word we want to use, our flashlights are cool. Some of our products are mobile items you can carry with you every day in your pocket. And we want to make our customers proud of having our flashlights with them.
Why launch your first brick-and-mortar store in Las Vegas?
The first reason is that we did a lot of market research and surveys and found out that there are a lot of outdoor enthusiasts here in Vegas. We also have a big customer base here. There are a lot of great places for outdoor activities around Las Vegas. The [other] reason is that Las Vegas is a very international or globalized city … so I think it’s a great choice for showcasing our brand to the global customer and global fans when they come to Vegas for a visit.
What excites you most about opening a Las Vegas store?
Our store is the very first experience store in the flashlight industry, which makes me excited. We did a lot of preparation for the opening. We spent more than half the year in the preparation process. Having a physical or on-site party with our fans once a year makes me excited, because we can talk to our customers and fans face-to-face, get to know their needs, their requirements, and build the relationship. I think it’s a great opportunity. In terms of the decor of this first experience store, we incorporated a lot of cultural and geographical elements of Las Vegas into the design of the store. For example, in the center of the store, there is an island on which there is a desert decoration with sand which is local to Las Vegas, and the cactuses on the sand, which mimics the landscape of the city.
What feedback have you heard from Las Vegas residents about the store’s opening?
We have received a lot of customers who will walk into the store, just to maybe say hi and check out the products on site, experience the products in their hands, and they will even … take a photo within the store or with our staff and post it on social media like Facebook groups. I was working there, I supported the store opening myself and I’ve seen a lot of the customers walking into the store like kids in a candy store. So really, I feel like our customers are happy about it.
How are you hoping to grow Olight going forward, and do you envision more brick-and-mortar sites in the U.S.?
This first experience store is … a way for us to explore possibilities and get experience. It’s like a pilot program. So it’s for us to gather data in terms of customer feedback. It will guide us on which city, which location we’re going to explore next. We are thinking about opening more stores, but we’re still using this first store’s experience to help guide us in the future.
Is there anything you want to add?
As I have said, from 2016 until now, our main presence was online, but since this year, we’re trying to incorporate our work more in our physical stores. The reason why we want to move from the online presence to a more face-to-face presence with the customers is to better serve our customers, understand their needs better, to help solve their problems and build the relationship with the public.
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This story originally appeared in Las Vegas Weekly.