(Yicai Global) May 24 -- A large number of overseas brands, which have tapped into the Chinese market by opening their first stores in Shanghai, are looking forward to reviving their plans and resuming business after June, when the Chinese city hopes to exit its Covid-19 lockdown.

Most of them have not changed their shop opening plans, nor have they lost confidence in China’s huge consumer market, according to insiders.

As the first city in China to propose the concept of the ‘first-store economy,’ Shanghai has led in terms of the number of newly opened first outlets and their total number. And the first-store economy also has become a significant support for Shanghai in building itself into an international consumption center. Last year, the city welcomed 1,078 first shops of domestic and foreign brands, an annual increase of 18.6 percent.

Shanghai commerce authorities issued a statement late yesterday saying that shopping malls, department stores, and specialty outlets should prepare to resume offline business, following the easing of lockdown restrictions as the Covid-19 outbreak wanes.

The stores can resume offline operations in local areas where there is no virus risk in orderly batches before May 31, with total customer flow not to exceed half their maximum capacity, it added. They can resume full in-store business after June 1, with customer volume not exceeding 75 percent of capacity.

The resurgence of Covid-19 in March has had an inevitable impact on the first store in Shanghai of The Adventures of Tintin, a famed comic series created by Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi under the pseudonym Hergé, according to Wang Yue, the China representative of the Belgian copyright owner Moulinsart.

But staff have been preparing to get back to work and they are looking forward to a market rebound after Shanghai gradually resumes business next month, Wang told Yicai Global.

The first official flagship store of The Adventures of Tintin in China has been open for more than three years. Covid-19 outbreaks forced it to close and cancel its offline activities, but that has not stopped cartoonists from keeping in touch with and sharing with fans online.

“Many enthusiastic Tintin fans are still placing orders online, even if the goods cannot be delivered,” Wang said.

In February 2019, Tim Hortons, a North American coffee store brand, opened its first China outlet next to People’s Square in Shanghai. The city is the most important market for Tim Hortons in China, with nearly 200 outlets, Lu Yongchen, its China head told Yicai Global, adding that the brand still has a lot of potential to expand in the megacity.

The Toronto-based coffee and fast food chain will stick to its existing store-opening plans, namely to have almost 800 outlets in the Chinese market by the end of this year, and hopes to open at least 2,750 stores by the end of 2026, Lu revealed.

The first LaLaport located in Shanghai’s Pudong district officially opened last October. This is the first shopping center opened by Mitsui Fudosan outside of Japan. Since the suspension of offline business on March 28, the store has stayed closed.

Though the pandemic has greatly affected the shopping center’s second-quarter operations, LaLaport is expected to reopen and gradually return to normal after June, according to Ma Liang, director of the operations department at Shanghai Jingqiao Business Management.

With the government successively introducing various bailout policies, Ma believes that the company can exit Covid’s shadow as quickly as possible.

Editors: Liao Shumin, Peter Thomas