Au Bon Pain shifts to woo local customers

       The decline in foreign tourists and the H1N1 flu have forced the Au Bon Pain sandwich and coffee chain to revise its business strategy.
       The local franchise operator has adjusted products, pricing, store expansion and store management as well as backoffice operations, said Wipa Boonpalit,general manager of ABP Cafe (Thailand).
       "Our new strategy will focus on local customers, particularly office workers who are coffee lovers as a potential market to offset the missing foreign customers," she said.
       Currently, foreign customers at Au Bon Pain make up half of its total.
       The company introduced a new coffee menu to meet local tastes last month.Based on its research, local customers like creamy and sweet coffee while foreigners require less sweet coffee. The new drinks cost 45 baht, cheaper than the 65-70 baht charged for other coffee drinks.
       The price cuts should encourage more local visits and lift the proportion of local customers to 60%, said Ms Wipa.
       This year, the company has invested tens of millions of baht to construct a new factory to serve business expansion.The output will be exported to its foreign network, including outlets in Malaysia and India, which are scheduled to be opened in the near future.
       ABP Cafe operates 40 outlets nationwide and aims to add about 10 per year to eventually reach 100. The new store size swill be scaled down to 100 square metres from between 120 and 200 sq m previously, aimed at speeding up outlet expansion.
       In the second half of this year, the company will open three to four outlets costing 3-5 million baht each.