With a keen appetite for the local estimated 30-billion-yuan (US$3.6 billion) home decoration market, Taiwan's leading trading company, the Test-Rite Group, will open a HOLA mart in Shanghai next month, the Shanghai Morning Post reported.
This will be the group's first American-style DIY home decoration chain store on China's mainland.
In Shanghai, it already operates B&Q Store, a European-style DIY home repair store.
The 10,000-square-meter HOLA store, an investment totaling 25 million yuan (US$3 million), is in the west city's Hongqiao area.
Test-Rite plans to open a second store in the Wujiaochang area next year and will add six to eight more stores across the city in the following three years, according to Gu Yihua, general manager with Test-Rite's Shanghai branch.
She said her company also plans to expand the chain out of the city to the East China area.
In the face of IKEA's popular DIY home decoration mart from Norway, Gu seems confident about the success of the HOLA store, saying "we have no rival in the local market".
Unlike IKEA, which builds its own stores, HOLA rents, she noted, which will effectively control the cost.
Business space rentals have declined due to a surplus of shopping malls here, she explained.