Retailers eye online distribution channels

Phattaraporn Phenpraphat, vice-president for marketing and public relations at Central Food Retail, which operates Tops Super, Tops Market and Top Daily, said the company would officially launch its “Top Shop Online” division next year. Its |e-division is already in operation on a trial basis and has received good customer feedback.
Under this new marketing strategy, Phattaraporn said the company would also launch mobile applications for this service next year and believes these channels will help the firm achieve significant growth.
However, last month the Tops online shop was badly affected by a disruption in transport.
Chamnarn Maytaprechakul, senior chief marketing officer at The Mall Group, agreed that the flooding had an adverse impact on his group’s online business.
“During the floods, online shoppers were concerned about our distribution ability, especially for products from our supermarkets – Gourmet Market and Home Fresh Mart,” Chamnarn said. “Consumers who purchased products online were not quite sure if we could deliver the products at the promised time, as many routes, especially in Bangkok and its suburbs, were impassable.”
Meanwhile, The Mall Group has put Tiger Distribution & Logistics in charge of the |distribution of its online |merchandise.
Apart from these leading retailers, Pawoot Pongvitaya-panu, founder and managing director of online shopping website TARAD.com, said that during the flooding, the company saw a 20-to-30-per-cent increase in the sale of essential goods, including instant food items, flood-protection products and plastic boats. Despite disruptions in transport, online shop owners had a flexible plan when it came to delivery.
For instance, some owners had the goods delivered by their own messengers, or if a post office could not deliver orders because of flooding, customers would be told where they could pick up their orders.
He added that there were 230,000 online shop owners registered at his website and at least 50 per cent of 2 million end-consumers were active members of the site.
The company expects to see impressive growth from last year’s revenue of Bt5.1 billion, while the overall Bt60 billion online shopping market is estimated to see eightfold growth.