Mango in Toronto!
OMG!!!
Finally Mango is here in Toronto… Nono… I should say Mango WILL BE here in Toronto.

During the long weekend (although it’s not looong at all, just one more day off), went downtown Eaton Center and surprise surprise… just like the way it surprised me when I saw Sephora was coming to town last year.

My love for Mango started when it first came to Hong Kong and started up a store at Festival Walk in Kowloon Tong. I like its style and cutting, especially the pants. The price is reasonable and the quality is pretty good. (note: In China, Mango is now branded as MNG because the name Mango has already been registered there.)

I’ve been looking for Mango since I came back to Toronto in 01, unfortunately Mango just didn’t exist in the Canadian market. Now this Barcelona-based company is going to open five stores in Toronto and Montreal in the first half of 2005 and plans to open a further 25 stores across Canada in the next five years. Another thing is that Mango is not in the US market yet (which is a bit out of my expectation).

For more info about Mango in Canada, click here.

Around 1-2 years ago, Zara, a Spanish brand owned by Inditex, came to Toronto and offered an alternative to us. ( good news to many ladies =p). To me, Zara and Mango do have some similarities… They both offer pretty good quality clothings for a reasonable price (middle price range), and they are both Spanish. To certain extent, these two companies are very close substitutions - i.e. competitors.

Now Mango and Zara is coming to Canada. I can feel the competition is heaten up… which is a good thing to us.

From experience, there’re usually some product line differences for different countries even under the same brand. Plus, they are outsourcing more production to China and other countries with lower production costs. Hopefully this Mango will still be the same Mango that I liked…