What it takes for Retail Stores to SURVIVE 2026.
How come other brands are thriving, but big retail stores like R.O.X., which is located in the middle of BGC, are closing?
After almost 20 years in arguably the best spot in BGC, the doors of ROX Philippines will close for the last time this coming June 16, 2026.
ROX was the Philippines’ largest outdoor and adventure superstore selling premium gear.
ROX isn’t alone.
No Brand, the Korean grocery chain brought in by Robinsons Retail, is also closing all 11 of its Philippine stores by end of June 2026. That’s a multi-branch operation with the full backing of one of the biggest retail conglomerates in the country.
You can’t blame the retail market because currently it’s valued at $44.51 billion in 2026 and is projected to reach nearly $65 billion by 2031.
The money is still there. Consumers are still spending.
The ones surviving today are doing 3 things that most stores aren’t.
You can’t just pick 1, or 2.
You need to do 3 to survive.
True Branding (Not the ones gurus in tiktok talk about)
The first thing surviving brands have that dying ones don’t is a brand that stands for something beyond the products on the shelf.
Not just a logo.
Not just a color palette.
A cause. An identity. A tribe.
Take Hiraya Pilipina. Founder Cleo Loque built the brand from the ground up by fostering a deep connection with a growing community of 200,000 customers.
From statement tees to innerwear, your brand and products needs to adapt!
The important part is the vision”
Loque says “The core of the brand from the very start is about female empowerment.”
Hiraya Pilipina doesn’t just sell nipple pasties and silicone bras. It sells female confidence and being proud of your identity, and to top it all off ‘sisterhood’.
That’s why people come back.
That’s why they share it.
That’s why 60% of their sales come from TikTok Shop alone.
The community does the selling for them.
Then look at Skechers. When pickleball started taking off in the Philippines, Skechers didn’t just put pickleball shoes on a rack and hope for the best. They became the official footwear sponsor of the Philippine Pickleball Federation and co-presented the first-ever Philippine Pickleball National Championship 2025. They signed professional pickleball champions Sarah Jane Lim-Narvasa and Leander Lazaro as official Skechers athletes and showed up at every major event. Skechers didn’t just sell, became part of the community the helped build.
I’m not saying ROX didn’t have a brand. They had a brand. Outdoor. Adventure. Premium.
It’s just that the gear they sold was from other brands. Brands that are far more stronger than their own.
Brands like Columbia.
The North Face.
Salomon.
The loyalty customers felt wasn’t toward those brands not ROX.
If they had doubled down on owning the outdoor community instead of just selling to them, things could’ve changed.
Selling isn’t just enough. Brands need a message.
And the best way for a brand’s message to reach as many possible. Social Media.
Social Media THE RIGHT WAY
If branding is your message, social media is your megaphone.
And right now, that megaphone reaches more Filipinos than any billboard and TV commercial COMBINED!
Are these brands familiar to you? Love Bonito and SKIMS.
These brands flood your feed. Instagram. Facebook. TikTok.
Love Bonito built an entire Southeast Asian following by speaking directly to the modern Asian woman. Her lifestyle, her body, her confidence.
SKIMS turned Kim Kardashian’s personal brand into a billion-dollar shapewear empire by making every product drop feel like a cultural moment.
Both brands understood one thing early: social media isn’t just for awareness. It’s for conversion.
And the numbers back it up. Remember Hiraya Pilipina? Sixty percent of their sales from TikTok Shop alone. Not from a physical store. Not from a mall booth. From a phone screen.
But it’s not that easy! (especially now)
AI-generated content is everywhere. Every brand, big or small, can produce a hundred posts a week without breaking a sweat. Your feed is more saturated than ever. Attention is harder to earn.
The brands that are winning are ones creating content so good, so specific to their niche, that their audience stops scrolling.
STILL! Being active on social media is the bare minimum.
The brands that are actually growing are using social media to get people from online to offline.
The best way to do that is via EVENTS!
Events. Events. Event!
This is where the gap between surviving brands and dying ones becomes impossible to ignore.
ASICS Philippines runs a free weekly running club out of their Bonifacio High Street store. Nike does the same. On any given week in BGC, you’ll find runners gathering because that’s where their people are.
People are naturally social creatures. Use that!
That’s not an accident. ASICS’ entire brand strategy is built around the idea that movement transforms how the world feels. Their running clubs aren’t a marketing add-on. They are the marketing. Every runner who joins becomes a walking billboard. Every group photo posted on Instagram is free content. Every stranger who sees the group and asks “where do I sign up?” is a new customer who never saw a single paid ad.
Skechers did the same thing with pickleball. They didn’t wait for the sport to get big and then sponsor it. They got in early, helping grow pickleball from a casual weekend rally into a full national movement. Now when a Filipino picks up a paddle for the first time, Skechers is already the brand they associate with the sport.
And then there’s Toby’s Sports. Just like ROX, mostly JUST A RESELLER.
They launched Toby’s EVENTS, organizing fun runs, corporate sports fests, and wellness programs for companies like GCash and PhilamLife.
Loyalty trumps inflation every single time.
A customer who feels like they belong to your brand doesn’t leave when your prices go up. They don’t jump ship when a cheaper option shows up on Shopee. They stay because it’s a their community and their identity.
ROX had almost 20 years to build that.
But they didn’t.