Are RELX official store locations mainly concentrated in big cities?

Recently, many friends have been asking for the official RELX flagship store website. The online flagship store went offline after the "e-cigarette online sales ban" was issued last November. So, did RELX's physical stores open at the beginning of the year and gradually expand nationwide? Are RELX e-cigarette flagship stores only located in first-tier cities like Beijing and Shanghai? Can consumers in second and third-tier cities purchase RELX e-cigarette products?

The cancellation of online sales channels for e-cigarettes is a crisis for this industry, forcing many brands/stores to shift their focus to offline sales. For some smaller companies, it is difficult to achieve a nationwide or even global physical store layout in a short time, which creates inconvenience for consumers, and naturally, the sales volume of e-cigarette companies will be affected. So how is RELX responding?

On January 11, 2020, RELX's first flagship store opened on Wujiang Road Pedestrian Street in Shanghai, followed by the opening of a store in Beijing's 798 Art District. Is RELX's goal only first-tier cities? Looking at RELX's "361 plan," we can see that the answer is no. They plan to invest 600 million over three years to open 10,000 physical stores and gradually penetrate the market. The flagship stores will become the first front in RELX's continued exploration of smart retail to empower store owners and implement the "Guardian Plan," while the continuously developing offline stores will bring RELX a new marketing landscape.

In addition to physical stores, RELX is also gradually deploying retail terminals and an AI facial recognition system. RELX has invested thousands of retail terminal devices in dozens of cities across the country, equipped with facial recognition systems to prevent minors from purchasing e-cigarette products through terminal devices. This initiative not only expands RELX's sales range but also protects minors, achieving two goals at once.

In the first flagship store in Shanghai, RELX has set up the "Sunflower System," where cameras at the store entrance can determine the age of customers entering. If a suspected minor enters, staff can receive a prompt on their phone and then advise them to leave; when making a purchase, consumers must go through a three-step age verification process of "name + ID + face" to complete the purchase.

To find out the locations of RELX physical stores, we can search for the nearest stores or devices on our phones. RELX's offline layout is not just targeting first-tier cities.