Big C eyes 30% boost in online shopping

Big C Supercenter aims to grow its online business by 20-30 per cent this year. 

Sarintip Satitsatian, vice president for new business and innovation, said Big C’s online business had grown strongly every year since 2010. 

“Our positioning is as a ‘click-and-mortar’ company. We utilise our existing resources, especially the offline infrastructure, including warehouses, to provide e-commerce services to people nationwide,” she said.

Big C offers online shopping via its website and a mobile application, now available on iOS and Android, making available more than 25,000 stock-keeping units. Offline, it has between 80,000 and 120,000 SKUs per outlet, depending on the size of the store.

“Currently, customers can enjoy shopping at Big C’s online store more easily via mobile devices. More than 25,000 SKUs across a wide range of products, including fashion and kids’ [clothes], food and beverages, health, beauty and personal care, household items, IT and electronics, and home and office decoration, are available now,” Sarintip said.

She added that this year, Big C would increase the number of product items available from its online store, especially fresh goods and food products. 

The online store currently has more than 120,000 customers. 

She said the key strategy for the success of Big C’s online store was integration with its offline channels, especially Big C Hyper Marts, to stock and instantly deliver goods to customers after they make their online purchases.

“We also offer customers flexibility to pick up and pay for goods at our offline channels, at Big C Hyper Mart’s 119 outlets nationwide, apart from home-delivery service,” Sarintip said.

To establish a seamless online shopping service, Big C invested in technology to integrate all of its product and customer databases, to ensure same-day delivery if customers order in the morning. 

It also set up a call centre and social-media team to get feedback and to provide consultant services to online customers. 

“We are not a purely online business; we utilise the strength of our offline infrastructure to offer online commerce for customers,” Sarintip said. “For example, we offer a ‘virtual market’ via QR [quick response] codes that allow customers to access our online store by capturing our QR codes on our advertisements. 

“Our website and mobile app are not just to provide information, but play a role as an online supermarket. We always look forward to getting the latest innovation into our services.”