Home shopping firms find ways to maintain growth
DESPITE the sluggish economy, home-shopping businesses still hope to achieve revenue growth this year by offering discounts, running promotional campaigns and presenting unique selling points for their products.
Ongard Prapakamol, chief executive officer of True GS, operator of True Select home-shopping channel, said yesterday that the overall home-shopping business was continuing| to grow by at least 20 per cent year on year, partly because |of the growth of the digital |terrestrial TV business. True Select expects to follow suit, targeting revenue of Bt1.3 billion this year.
“Unique and exclusive products are our key strategy at this stage. Therefore, the company is putting more focus on product diversity by adding a total of 5,000 stock keeping units from 1,500 SKUs by end of this year,” Ongard said.
True Select offers both exclusive and non-exclusive products ranging from household items and kitchenware to home appliances, electronic products, cosmetics and products of brands owned by Thai celebrities.
True Select has a 20-per-cent share of the Bt8-billion home-shopping market. True GS was a joint venture firm of TrueVisions, CP All, The Mall Group and GS Home Shopping from South Korea under registered capital of Bt340 million.
Ongard said digital TV had opened more windows for home-shopping products and services to be seen by mass audiences.
“Not only does True Select focus on free-to-air satellite and terrestrial channels as primarily platforms to advertise products and services, but it also offers the same service on online platforms to help customers get easy access to products as well as making a purchase,” he said.
Within two years, sales via online channels are expected to hit 30 per cent of the company’s total revenue, from less than 10 per cent now.
However, it appears to be a different story for O Shopping channel.
Sung Nak-je, chief executive officer of O Shopping, told The Nation that his company acknowledged that like other businesses, his company had been affected by the economic slowdown.
“At the beginning of this year, O Shopping believed that it could achieve its original target of at least 30-per-cent growth. But when it came to reality following weak consumption, we have had to lower our target to 15 per cent,” Sung said.
To boost sales, the company has emphasised promotional campaigns and special deals.
O Shopping programmes are also carried to mass customers via GMM Grammy’s free-to-air digital TV network on top of satellite-TV channels.
Last year, O Shopping’s earnings were quite impressive, surging by 53 per cent to Bt1.73 billion.
O Shopping was established under a 51:49 joint venture between GMM Grammy and South Korean home-shopping empire CJ O Shopping with registered capital of Bt540 million.
