“At its core, we are all family”: Discover the story behind the Caribbean’s top retailer, Excellent Stores 

Situated in the Caribbean Island of Trinidad and Tobago, Excellent Stores is a company that truly lives up to its name. Operating across four retail outlets – an online store and three brick-and-mortars – Excellent Stores has established itself as the country’s leading variety retailer, stocking over 30,000 SKUs across its own brands and the industry’s biggest names, including Black and Decker, Berlinger Haus, Danone, Lego, Nautica, Neutrogena, Samsonite, and Sterilite.  

Enriched in history, the business’ backstory is one defined by family, fervor and hard work. The journey began back over 60 years ago with a young Chinese immigrant named Siu Joy Chong – a man armed with a courageous spirit and a dream. In 1937, Siu Joy Chong embarked on a 10,000-mile journey across the world, leaving the rural village of Chung Shan in Guangdong, China, to seek new horizons in Trinidad and Tobago. Fast forward 21 years, Siu Joy Chong and his wife, Hong Ling, founded the very first Excellent store (registered as a sole proprietorship under ‘Excellent Trading Company’) in Port of Spain in 1958. Following the company’s acquisition of F.W. Woolworth & Co in the 1980s, Excellent Stores, now incorporated, has since grown into a retail powerhouse recognized for excellence, innovation and superior supply chain management.   

Today, the company is led by Chief Executive Officer Alex Siu Chong, the grandson of Siu Joy Chong, and the business continues to flourish. Retail Merchandiser recently sat down with Alex to learn more about Excellent Stores’ pursuit of greatness and find out what’s in store for the company’s future.  

“Innovation has always been at the core of the Group’s ethos,” Alex begins. “In the early 1990s, it pioneered warehouse membership shopping, introducing a revolutionary concept to the market. In 2014, it made waves by launching one of Trinidad and Tobago’s first e-commerce platforms, heralding a fully integrated omnichannel retail experience. Regional expansion ensued with the establishment of the Global Procurement office in 2016 under the entity Global Market Sourcing Limited and the opening of the first retail branch in St. Lucia in 2018. In 2021, the Group ventured into the Bonded Warehousing market, further diversifying its operations.  

“Throughout its illustrious history spanning 66 years, the Group weathered numerous challenges, including civil uprisings, devastating fires, economic downturns, and the most recent Covid pandemic. Yet, it demonstrated remarkable resilience, adapting its business models, enhancing technological capabilities, and making strategic decisions to ensure sustainability and profitability.”  

Live, Create and Do 

And that resilience has really paid off; today, Excellent Stores remains to be one of the oldest, largest CPG retailers across Trinidad and Tobago. Encompassing over 20 different product divisions in its portfolio – spanning across over 30,000 SKUs – its product range boasts everything from home furnishings to kitchenware, clothing to cosmetics, to food and healthcare. The company’s expertise also extends into its wholesale and distribution services, providing leading products and top-quality service to customers across the island and across the Caribbean region. 

“Our product offerings cater to a multigenerational customer base where we provide the tools, inspiration and time for our customers to Live, Create and Do, their best selves,” Alex explains. “Being a retailer ourselves helps to build credibility as a distributor because we understand what a retailer wants/needs, how to merchandise and the margins they need to make a profit.”  

Excellent Stores’ commitment to supply chain excellence is one of the qualities that sets the business apart. Embodying ‘superior supply chain management’ is a key ingredient in the company’s recipe for success. Alex elaborates: “A critical component of developing these skills is doing the work yourself in every area of the business. From walking the factory floor in Asia to working with global shipping lines, offloading container shipments, to working as a wholesale salesperson and on the retail shop floor, every family member and key management staff (who we would consider our extended family) has had to work at each ‘desk’. This builds an end-to-end expertise where you build competence and grit through doing the hard work yourself. Just as my grandparents and my parents did, I’ve walked the factory floor myself, hand-tested the quality of products and ensured I developed a personal relationship with each supplier.  

Leading by example

“We visit the factories or distributors’ locations and, whenever problems arise, we travel in person to address it, sit at the table, work through it and shake their hands after. No matter how much technology has evolved, nothing beats ‘old school’,” Alex continues. “We always do business above board, treat others as we would like to be treated, own mistakes even though it costs us. As my grandparents and parents believe, we are honest and fair in everything we do such that we are examples to others.” 

Looking to the future, it’s clear to see that Excellent Stores will continue to thrive as the retailer of choice across Trinidad and Tobago. Growth is on the horizon as the company sets to deepen its Caribbean distribution relationships and expand beyond the island – Barbados, Bahamas, Bermuda, Grenada, Guyana, and Jamaica, to name a few. In turn, the business is keen to incorporate more brands across its portfolio and widen its distribution base, and we can’t wait to see the next turn in Excellent Stores’ journey. As our conversation draws to a close, Alex reflects on Excellent Stores’ upcoming 70th anniversary and all the factors that contributed to the business’ success. 

“Honesty is the most important core value,” Alex reveals. “From every previous generation of family and employees to now, this is how we operate; we seek to be honorable in everything we do and every person we interact with. Partnering with our employees is fundamental to our success.  Business is not for the faint of heart. Developing grit, endurance and perseverance are the keys to an unwavering approach to navigating choppy waters and seeing initiatives through the hard times.” 

Above all else however, Alex is keen to share the business’ most important asset: “The most important collaboration the company has had is the collaboration with our employees. They deeply understand the vision and are THE main critical success factor in executing new initiatives and innovations and tweaking it ensure its success. Even though the company has evolved from a small variety shop to where it is now, at its core, we are all family.”  

www.myexcellentstores.com