Retail News CRM

Tag: Retailers

  • Parkson Retail to open store above Chinese railway station

    Parkson Retail to open store above Chinese railway station

    Parkson Retail Group is preparing to occupy a complex above Nanjing Railway Station in Chinese Jiangxi.

    The group, a Hong Kong-listed firm controlled by Malaysian Parkson Holdings Bhd, won its US$6.1 million bid for the tenancy of buildings above the Bayi Guan Station of the Nanchang Rail Transit Line 1 in the city.

    The 12-year tenancy will allow a 42,903sqm retail space for the firm, although no formal agreement on the tenancy has been signed as of yet.

    A statement from the firm read: “The tenancy, if materialised, may constitute a discloseable transaction for PRGL,” given its alignment with the firm’s development strategy for the province.

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  • Zara’s local profit after E-commerce Launch

    Zara’s local profit after E-commerce Launch

    Inditex Group’s Australian business, Group Zara Australia, posted a 35 percent increase in net profit for the year ending January 31, 2019, lifting the figure from $8.9 million to $12 million, according to documents lodged with the Australian Securities & Investments Commission.

    This came off the back of strong sales growth, with Zara’s full-year revenue in Australia grew 10.5 percent to $311.7 million, up from $282 million in the previous corresponding period.

    This is due in part to the launch of Zara’s local e-commerce site in Australia and New Zealand in 2018, which opened up a new sales channel for the business and gave more customers the ability to shop with the fashion brand.

    Zara’s parent company Inditex launched online stores in a further 106 markets in November last year, which led to a group-wide online sales increase of 27 percent to $5.19 billion (€3.2 billion) – contributing 12 percent of group net sales for the year.

    Zara had 21 stores in Australia on January 31, 2019, including 19 Zara and two Zara Home stores.

    In a statement about its full-year earnings, Inditex highlighted the growing risk fast fashion brands face of being perceived by stakeholders, including customers, employees, shareholders, suppliers and society in general, as unsustainable.

    The retail giant noted that it was ranked as the ‘most sustainable company in the global retailing industry’ by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for the third straight year based on the progress it has made in its environmental strategic plan and laid out various initiatives it is undertaking to lessen its impact on the planet.

    These include gaining greater control over the materials used in the creation of its products, reducing the amount of water used in its supply chain and using energy efficiently.

    Additionally, in September of last year, Inditex piloted an at-home pick-up service for recycled garments in China, an initiative that is already operating in Spain, though has yet to make it to Australian shores.

    Inditex is far from the only fashion retailer tackling the issue of sustainability. The Iconic recently launching Considered, an initiative that allows customers to more easily filter products based on their own personal values, such as sustainable materials, eco-production, fair production, animal-friendly, and community engagement.

    Swedish fashion retailer H&M has also committed to add more information to its website to allow customers to understand where its products come from – a move to create greater product transparency.

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  • Turning data into information in the age of IoT

    Turning data into information in the age of IoT

    If you think about what your home was like even just a few years ago, life was very different.

    Think about what grocery shopping was like. You’d open your fridge door to check out what’s missing, scribble down on a notebook a shopping list of what you need, turn off the aircon and switch on the alarm before you left the house and leave.

    Now, your smart fridge automatically knows when you’re running low on milk and will order the specific brand and size that you prefer and have it delivered to your front door. Left home and forgot to switch the aircon or alarm on or off? Simply view the app on your smartphone and tap your appliances on or off.

    Known as the Internet of Things (IoT), people are consuming information from more connected devices and as a result, marketing practices are rapidly changing. Retailers need to learn how to speak to customers through more channels than before.

    As IRI’s product solution director Adam Fisher explains, while more devices are creating more communication, marketers are getting blocked where they weren’t before. What happens when your fridge starts ordering groceries for you? Where a marketer could previously capture customers at the shelf in a grocery store, they now need to work out how to get your attention when the fridge automatically orders milk to your doorstep.

    “From a marketer’s standpoint, there are so many devices vying for people’s attention —How do you get the right person’s attention at the right time?” Fisher says.

    According to Fisher, one of the biggest challenges for retailers is knowing how to turn all the data into actionable information.

    “It’s knowing how do I bring [the information] in, how do I make sense of it, but on top of that, how do I know when I need to do something when it’s signalling something?” he points out.

    Marketing automation can give brands more insights and data into how people are responding to these different channels and how they should be approached, suggests Fisher. It’s one of the biggest trends in retail today

    and can help businesses engage with their customers by programmatically finding the optimal marketing and promotional activities for defined customer segments.

    A major benefit of IoT is the fact that based on all this new information from devices, brands and retailers are able to bring products to market faster, allowing them to keep up with the ever-changing retail landscape.

    However, it is vital that businesses have the right infrastructure in place in order to deliver real business growth.

    Fisher says: “It is important that they have the technology and right partner in place. In order to do this, brands and retailers will have to combine mobile and cloud technology infrastructure and go entirely digital to build a new business model by connecting people, things, processes, and data to keep up with technological innovation. That is the essence of what we do at IRI, is connecting the dots to help make faster and stronger business decisions.”

  • Singapore retail sales lags last Month

    Singapore retail sales lags last Month

    Singapore retail sales slid by 1.5 percent in March, after excluding motor vehicle sales from the data. According to Statistics Singapore, most retail categories recorded lower sales for the month compared with the same period last year. Sales of optical goods and books fell by 6.4 percent and of computers and telecommunications equipment by 4.9 percent.

    Food retailers, watch and jewelry retailers, and department stores reported sales declines of between 4.6 percent and 5.7 percent.

    In contrast, sales of medical goods and toiletries rose by 2.8 percent, due in part to higher demand for cosmetics. Supermarkets and hypermarkets registered sales growth of 0.9 percent.

    Month on month, Singapore retail sales were essentially stable.

    The total market for March was estimated at $3.8 billion, with online sales comprising about 5.3 per cent.

    Year-on-year sales of food and beverage services in Singapore rose by 0.7 percent in March.

    On a seasonally adjusted basis, sales of food and beverage services increased 1.3 percent month on month.

    Total sales value for the sector was $868 million, compared to $863 million in March last year.

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  • Hong Kong online retailers ‘ignoring’ Gen Z consumer needs

    Hong Kong online retailers ‘ignoring’ Gen Z consumer needs

    Hong Kong online retailers are ignoring Gen Z consumers, according to a new report on the local payments market by unified commerce platform Tofugear and financial technology firm Wirecard.

    The research found that the territory’s e-commerce sites are not catering to Gen Z consumers when it comes to the payment options they offer.

    In contrast to older millennial and Gen X consumers, credit-card ownership rates among this demographic – those born between 1997 and 2012 – are low. As a result, one in three Gen Z consumers (35 percent) prefer to make online purchases via a cash-on-delivery option.

    The Digital Payments Landscape in Hong Kong 2019 report finds that while Hong Kong online retailers such as Zalora are already catering to this trend, they are in the minority as only around 5 percent of all retailers in the territory offer a cash-on-delivery option for online purchases.

    “Retailers should ignore Gen Z at their own peril,” says Tiffany Lung, retail analyst at Tofugear.  “Much focus has been on millennials, but the consumer behaviors of Gen Z are radically different – particularly when it comes to payment preferences. They think traditional payment methods are as lame as Facebook.”

    Digital wallets such as AlipayHK are also an important means of transaction for this young demographic, with 86 percent using this payment method – typically for purchases of less than HK$500.

    “Rather than passively waiting for years to qualify for a credit card like millennials have done, Gen Z has been much more proactive,” says Lung. “They have turned to digital wallets to solve the barriers they face when it comes to in-store and online payments. I believe this habit will stay with them as they come of age.”

    Based on a survey of 1000 Hongkongers, the report compares the payment habits of Gen Z, millennial and Gen X consumers and finds that while many perceive Hong Kong to be a laggard when it comes to smart payments, there is a genuine willingness to adopt new payment methods such as digital wallets – regardless of the consumer’s age.

    “After years of complacency, the payments ecosystem in Hong Kong is finally waking up to the fact that cash might be knocked off its throne – or at least see its dominance challenged by a plethora of new payment methods,” says Lung.

    Alongside the consumer survey, key players in Hong Kong’s digital payment industry were interviewed including Google Pay, Octopus Card, TNG FinTech Group, BBPOS Merchant Services, as well as online retailers such as Zalora and SkyMart.

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  • Singapore retail sales slipped last Month

    Singapore retail sales slipped last Month

    Singapore retail sales slid by 1.5 percent in March, after excluding motor vehicle sales from the data.

    According to Statistics Singapore, most retail categories recorded lower sales for the month compared with the same period last year.

    Sales of optical goods and books fell by 6.4 percent and of computers and telecommunications equipment by 4.9 percent.

    Food retailers, watch and jewelry retailers, and department stores reported sales declines of between 4.6 percent and 5.7 percent.

    In contrast, sales of medical goods and toiletries rose by 2.8 percent, due in part to higher demand for cosmetics. Supermarkets and hypermarkets registered sales growth of 0.9 percent.

    Month on month, Singapore retail sales were essentially stable.

    The total market for March was estimated at $3.8 billion, with online sales comprising about 5.3 percent.

    Year-on-year sales of food and beverage services in Singapore rose by 0.7 percent in March.

    On a seasonally adjusted basis, sales of food and beverage services increased 1.3 percent month on month.

    Total sales value for the sector was $868 million, compared to $863 million in March last year.

  • Boomtime ahead for chatbots in E-commerce

    Boomtime ahead for chatbots in E-commerce

    New data from Juniper Research predicts consumer interaction with chatbots in retail will reach 22 billion by 2023.

    The figure represents a sharp increase over an estimated 2.6 billion interactions this year.

    According to the new research report “AI in Retail: Segment Analysis, Vendor Positioning & Market Forecasts 2019-2023”, chatbots in retail will enable effectively automated customer interactions for both online and offline vendors.

    A crucial enabler of this development will be improvements in NLP (Natural Language Processing), which will dramatically reduce the failure rate of chatbot interactions, by making them more natural and valuable for customers.

    Juniper anticipates that retailers who do not adopt chatbots will face strong challenges from more technologically-adept disruptors, who will use chatbots as an extension to the crucial omnichannel retail experience.

    The research also found that chatbots used for customer service have a strong potential to reduce costs; with deployments realizing annual savings for retailers of US$439 million globally by 2023, up from just $7 million this year.

    These potential savings will act as a key “pull” factor, given the margin pressure that many retailers are presently feeling.

    “By embracing automated customer service with chatbots, retailers can act in a more flexible and efficient way,” explained research author Nick Maynard. “The wider retail market means that chatbots are no longer a luxury, they are essential.”

    Meanwhile, sales resulting from interaction with chatbots in retail will reach $112 billion by 2023, up from $7.3 billion this year; representing an annual growth rate of 98 percent.

    The research found these sales will largely be a result of migration from other channels, rather than a new revenue stream. Accordingly, the research emphasized that while retailers must adopt chatbots for ease of use (and to reduce consumer churn), their return on investment will come from efficiencies, rather than new income.

  • SM Retail Achieves Small Profit Boost

    SM Retail Achieves Small Profit Boost

    SM Retail has achieved a first-quarter profit increase of 5 percent to P2.7 billion (US$51.7 million).

    Retail revenues in the first three months rose by 13 percent year-on-year to P79 billion, while sales from specialty retail stores grew by the same percentage to P19.6 billion.

    As at the end of March, SM Retail had 2385 stores, comprising 63 department stores, 1388 specialty retail stores, 57 SM Supermarkets, 53 SM Hypermarkets, 194 Savemore, 52 WalterMart, and 578 Alfamart stores.

    The figures were included in the quarterly report of SM Investments, which boosted its profit by 26 percent to PHP10.7 billion (US$205 million).

    The gains reflected improved sales from the retail business as well as its property and banking activities.

    Consolidated revenues during the period were up 15 percent year-on-year to PHP109 billion ($2.1 billion).

    “We continued to deliver double-digit growth to both our top and bottom line in the first quarter,” said SMIC president Frederic DyBuncio. “Performance was strong across our businesses, particularly for our banks.”

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  • South Korean retail sales surged during Holidays

    South Korean retail sales surged during Holidays

    The unprecedented extension of the Japanese Golden Week holiday to 10 days has seen a surge in tourists visiting South Korea.

    The holiday was extended to mark the enthronement of Crown Prince Naruhito from the usual April 29 to May 5 period.

    Duty free businesses saw big jumps in sales during the period compared to the previous year. Lotte Duty Free in Sogong-dong saw a 45 per cent sales increase, while Shinsegae Duty Free in Myeongdong saw an 80 per cent year-on-year increase.

    Hotels in the main commercial districts of Seoul also saw double-digit occupancy boosts during the period above Golden Week figures for last year.

    Tourism from China was also up 25 per cent during the period, although this rise was lower than in the first four months of this year.

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  • JD.com Closes Australian branch Store

    JD.com Closes Australian branch Store

    Chinese online marketplace JD.com has closed its local branch after only 15 months in the market.

    The e-commerce giant launched its Australian office in Melbourne in February 2018, after its competitor Alibaba opened an office in Melbourne in 2017.

    At the time, the opening was seen as a way for JD.com to work more closely with the Australian and New Zealand brands on its platform, and to pitch its business to new brands looking to expand into China.

    A JD.com spokesperson confirmed that the online marketplace is integrating its Australian office into the business in China. The spokesperson said the move didn’t reflect the business’s performance in Australia, nor the region’s importance.

    The retailer’s head of Australian operations Patrick Nestrel is no longer with the business, likely in an effort to ensure management in China is able to fully integrate Australian operations.

    The online retailer is set to report its first-quarter sales results on May 10. It has had a difficult few months recently after founder Richard Liu was arrested in September 2018 in the US for sexual misconduct. He was not charged.

    In April, the Chinese university student who accused Liu of misconduct filed a civil lawsuit against him.

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  • Retailers trust Mobile Device Data for Retail Network planning

    Retailers trust Mobile Device Data for Retail Network planning

    Retailers have found a new way to conquer the challenge of limited data availability in many Asian markets by using Mobile Device Data.

    Yes, location-powered Mobile Device Data is the latest and most powerful tool for analyzing customer origins and movement patterns.

    With both population growth and growing disposable incomes, as well as an appetite for many retail formats, numerous Asian countries are becoming increasingly attractive for global retailers. But the Asian market is both enormous and very diverse, so customer profiling is essential for any retailer wanting to target its growth strategy to the most lucrative opportunities.

    Enter Mobile Device Data – the new frontier in the trade area, customer analysis and retail network planning.

    Mobile Device Data as a technology can be used to cost-effectively deliver a range of network planning functions, including:

    1. Understanding population densities and movements at a small area level, for both daytime and evening populations
    2. Identifying gaps for new business opportunities
    3. Forecasting trade area overlaps and sales cannibalization
    4. Creating targeted local store marketing and advertising opportunities.

    Increasingly retailers are moving to cloud-based mapping tools like GapMaps to help them make the best possible decisions in a data-driven, cost-effective manner. Instead of running customer origin surveys, which can incur huge costs and chew up lots of time for data entry, fieldwork and analysis, retailers are now looking for location intelligence platforms which are dynamic, global, flexible and cost-effective. Most importantly, Mobile Device Data can also generate more accurate results, drawing on massive volumes of customer data collected over years, rather than a small sample survey conducted over a few weeks.

    That’s exactly what GapMaps offers. GapMaps is a global platform which is leading the way in Mobile Device Data analysis. The platform has successfully integrated device data as a new layer on its network mapping platform, providing deep insights into customer visitation patterns and movements during both daytime and evening. The GapMaps technology has been successfully used in many countries by a number of leading global retailers in quick service restaurants, fast food, cafes, petrol retailing, health and fitness, child care and many other sectors. The platform is also widely used by many developers in these various sectors.

    Where can you use GapMaps Mobile Device Data?

    GapMaps can help any client analyse Mobile Device Data for any location in the world where mobile phones are extensively used.

    Many GapMaps clients in India, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan are already using Mobile Device Data to define trade areas. The following example shows the mobile device density during the day in New Delhi, India.

    The data can be used for any location that attracts significant numbers of visitors, be it an individual retail store or shopping centre, quick service restaurant, gymnasium, sports arena, museum, entertainment venue or tourism precinct.

    Real-time, large scale, and cost-effective Mobile Device Data

    Harnessing GPS information based on mobile phone activity at and around any selected location, the data are collected from mobile phones (devices) via one or more of hundreds of popular apps. These apps collect the data and feed it back to a central collection point.

    GapMaps founder and managing director, Anthony Villanti says: “Mobile Device Data is a game changer in terms of how retailers can substantiate network planning decisions and model their catchment areas. Mobile devices observed in specific locations, such as a retail store, can be linked with their common evening and daytime locations, such as ‘home’ or ‘work’, for example. When the data is visualized in the GapMaps platform, it’s a really effective tool.”

    Mobile Device Data offers the powerful combination of being real-time, Big Data, continual, flexible, easily replicable across locations or time periods, and cost-effective, because

    1. The observations are time stamped and therefore any period of analysis can be selected.
    2. The analysis can be easily repeated for multiple time periods and multiple locations. There are no limits.
    3. Any site or location can be analyzed, including any competitor sites – no permissions are required.

    The data is easily deployed via the user-friendly GapMaps platform, enabling insightful analysis (both tabular and pictorial) to be conducted and presented by any user – no technical expertise is necessary.

    Combining such Mobile Device Data with demographic, government and industry statistics in India, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and other countries throughout Asia, GapMaps can be used to inform and guide network strategy. It is already being used by hundreds of companies across a wide range of industries – from childcare and fast food to fitness, cafes, aged care, fashion retailing, entertainment destinations, financial services and more.

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  • Retail sales rise at slower Pace Last Month

    Retail sales rise at slower Pace Last Month

    Retail spending rose 0.3 percent in March in seasonally adjusted terms, according to the latest trade figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), beating market expectations of 0.2 percent growth.

    This is a slowdown from February’s upwardly-revised increase in retail sales of 0.9 percent month on month, but March spending was still up 3.5 percent compared to the same time last year, representing the fastest year-on-year increase since October 2018.

    Monthly sales growth was driven by spending at cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services (up 1.4 percent in seasonally adjusted terms) and clothing, footwear and accessories stores (up 1.2 percent in seasonally adjusted terms).

    Spending on food retailing, including supermarkets, was up 0.4 percent and spending on households goods was up 0.2 percent in seasonally adjusted terms, while spending on department stores was down 1.5 percent and spending on other retailing, including pharmacies and newsagents, was down 0.4 percent in seasonally adjusted terms.

    By state and territory, spending was up across the board in March, excluding Western Australia, where retail sales fell 0.7 percent in seasonally adjusted terms. Victoria and the Northern Territory each saw a 0.7 percent increase, Queensland saw 0.6 percent increase, followed by Tasmania, up 0.4 percent, New South Wales, up 0.2 percent, and South Australia, up 0.1 percent, in seasonally adjusted terms.

    Online retail sales were also up in the month, with NAB’s Online Retail Sales Index showing a 1.7 percent increase from February after the index recorded the sharpest ever drop in monthly online sales.

    NAB measures e-commerce sales as representing around 9 percent of total retail turnover in Australia, while the ABS pegs it at around 5.7 percent.

    Quarterly spending shrinks for the first time since 2012

    On a quarterly basis, however, retail turnover in the three months to March fell 0.1 percent in seasonally adjusted volume terms, following a flat December quarter. This represents the first quarter of negative growth since the September quarter of 2012.

    The fall was led by household goods retailing, according to the ABS, which fell 0.6 percent, and department stores, which fell 1.2 percent. The other categories all rose in seasonally adjusted volume terms for the quarter.

    According to Westpac analyst Matthew Hassan, the figures show that retail sales growth in the month was driven by price increases rather than volume.

    “The undershoot vs expectations was due to a stronger than expected rise in retail prices which rose, up +0.8%qtr vs +0.7%qtr in Q4,” he said.

    “The sub-category detail shows a particularly big rise in food prices (+1.4%qtr vs 1.2% in Q4). Non-food retail prices posted a 0.2%qtr gain.”

    According to Hassan, broader economic headwinds are still hampering consumer spending.

    “Overall the March retail report points to downside risks to the wider consumer spending estimates in the March quarter GDP, the headwinds that emerged in the second half of last year clearly carrying into 2019,” he said.

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  • Omnichannel startup CitiXsys Opening Offices

    Omnichannel startup CitiXsys Opening Offices

    Fresh from a US$20 million funding injection, omnichannel-solutions startup CitiXsys plans to open six offices across Asia, eyeing region-wide expansion. CitiXsys’ new offices will be located in Singapore, Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh City, Manila, Bangkok, and Kuala Lumpur.

    “Southeast Asia offers an ideal business climate today, with massive opportunity in this important region,” said Kamal Karmakar, CitiXsys CEO.

    “Purchasing a retail-management solution is one of the most important decisions a retailer can make since the future of the entire business hangs on its success.”

    Southeast Asia is the world’s fastest-growing internet region with the e-commerce market expected to reach US$53 billion by 2023.

    “By opening up more local offices and bringing on local product expertise we will be able to better support the needs of our fast-growing client, partner, and distributor base in Southeast Asia,” added Paula Da Silva, executive VP of global partnerships and alliances at CitiXsys.

    “Already this year, the CitiXsys channel partner ecosystem in this region has grown by 30 percent, signaling a need for solutions designed to complement the way retail works in Asia today.”

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  • Robinsons Retail plans 150 new stores in Philippines

    Robinsons Retail plans 150 new stores in Philippines

    Robinsons Retail Holdings will launch up to 150 new stores in the Philippines this year.

    The firm published a presentation online revealing plans to invest PHP3–5 billion (US$57.8–96.3 million) on the store openings, following expenditure of PHP4.41 billion ($85 million) on openings last year. As at December, it had 1910 stores, including supermarkets, department stores, do-it-yourself stores, specialty stores, drugstores, and convenience stores. The entire network covers a gross floor area of 1.48 million sqm.

    Robinson’s achieved a 5.9 percent same-store sales growth last year, with help from a 1.5 percent uptick in transaction count and a 6.1 percent increase in basket size in its supermarket business. The group is targeting a 2-4 percent same-store sales growth this year.

    The firm’s net income reached PHP5.11 billion ($98.5 million) last year, an increase of 2.6 percent on the year previous, with a 15.1 percent increase in net sales.

  • DBS Rolls Out Customer Center of the Future

    DBS Rolls Out Customer Center of the Future

    DBS has retrained its customer center employees to take on new roles as customers become more digitally savvy. Voice biometrics specialists, live chat agents, and customer experience designers are among the 13 new job roles that DBS Bank has introduced in recent years as it creates the customer center of the future, the bank said in a media statement on Thursday.

    As it creates the customer center of the future, the bank has upskilled and retrained over 500 customer center employees and eliminated common customer pain points such as long waiting times. «By investing in our people, we have been able to transform from a labor-intensive department with a high turnover rate to one that is technology-enabled where employees are more fulfilled and armed with future-forward skills,» said Geeta Sreeraman, DBS’ Head of Customer Centre, Singapore.

    Customer centers are traditionally labor-intensive departments. At DBS Singapore, its customer center processes over four million inbound customers’ calls every year. But with new digital initiatives and new roles created, call volumes have dropped 12 percent over the last year. Over the next three years, the bank predicts call volumes will drop by a further 20 percent.

    As customers become more digitally-savvy, DBS has expanded its service channels online and on social media to serve its customers. DBS’ customer center has also incorporated technologies such as voice biometrics, chatbots, and data analytics so that callers can experience shorter call waiting times and opt to resolve their banking queries independently via the bank’s website, on their mobile banking app or through the bank’s Facebook or Twitter channels.

    In 2017, DBS committed to investing S$20 million over five years to equip employees with digital skills to become a future-ready workforce. Since then, the bank has rolled out a company-led Professional Conversion Programme (PCP), an AI-based learning tool available 24/7 and scholarships that encourage peer-to-peer learning.

    The new roles in DBS’ Customer Center are:

    1. Social media relations manager
    2. ‘Live’ chat agent
    3. Customer experience designer
    4. Demand manager
    5. Mobile app developer
    6. Business intelligence lead
    7. Content creator
    8. Knowledge platform designer
    9. Voice biometrics specialist
    10. Natural language processing engineer
    11. Scrum master
    12. Digital evangelist
    13. VTM manager
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