Retailers try new strategies
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RETAIL OPERATORS have had to chart a new marketing course, including slashing prices on daily necessities, to sail through the softness in consumer spending.
“We have been working closely with the Commerce Ministry to deliver maximum savings to consumers nationwide throughout the year. We offer great low prices and savings on all product categories,” Robert Cissell, president and CEO of Big C Supercenter Plc, said last week.
While the government is expediting its public spending and investment and implementing measures to stimulate the economy, Big C will help out consumers by strengthening its leadership in price, convenience and product range.
“We are running strong promotions on packed rice (10-20 per cent off), fresh food (10-30 per cent off with additional 10 per cent off every Wednesday), dry food, household and home decoration items as well as electric appliances,” he said.
Big C has communicated its own promotions through both traditional media and online outlets such as Line, which already has 9.5 million subscribers to its official account.
“We consider it our duty to continue to do everything possible to lower the cost of living for all our customers,” he said.
Salinla Seehaphan, corporate affairs director of Tesco Lotus, said the hypermarket chain has seen a gradual improvement in customer spending since the last quarter of last year.
“However, market surveys show that customers are still concerned about the rising cost of living, so we are focusing on making prices of essential items cheaper, especially for fresh food.”
Tesco Lotus recently made a historic move by making deep cuts in fresh food prices.
“We are discounting fresh food prices by up to 50 per cent on over 100 product lines from every fresh food category, whether meat, seafood, vegetables, fruits or eggs.
“The offer started on March 19 and lasts for six weeks at every Tesco Lotus store nationwide,” she said.
“We’ve spent Bt600 million on this project to select fine quality fresh food products to be sold at record low prices.
“With the aim of making retail prices as cheap as wholesale prices, we have a dedicated team performing price checks every week, so our customers can be confident of the cheapest fresh products every day at Tesco Lotus,” she said.
Chadatip Chutrakul, CEO of Siam Piwat, operator of Siam Centre, Siam Discovery and Siam Paragon, said foreign tourists started coming back to Bangkok in November.
“Our shopping malls in downtown Bangkok have seen a 25-per-cent improvement in both traffic and sales year on year from November to March,” she said.
“If our country is defined as a human body, Thailand has suffered many diseases for a long time. As the people, we need to give a chance and enough time to the current government to clear up such problems,” she said.
Foreign shoppers now make up about 30 per cent of all visitors at the three complexes.
The company has conducted cross promotional activities with retailers and shopping malls in many destinations around the world, including South Korea, Japan, Dubai, Indonesia, Malaysia, the US and UK.
“At Siam Piwat, we have an internal unit called ‘Knowledge Hub’ with more than 10 staff in charge of networking activities and discussing with potential clients as well as trend consultants and consumer research agencies to learn shopping trends.
“All the information will be fed to management so that they can devise business plans and strategies,” she said.
Boonchai Chokwatana, chairman of Saha Pathanapibul Plc, the country’s leading trading and manufacturing conglomerate, said Thailand had been under political stress and unrest for a long time, and people got used to staying at home.
They are in no mood for any outside activities, including shopping. This all will lead to deflation in the economy.
The government has already launched many measures to spur the economy, but most of them have had no immediate effect in distributing money especially to the grassroots, such as farmers.
“What the government needs to do at this time to stimulate the economy is to distribute money to the system that actually reaches the hands of individual people,” he added.
