RT-Mart (大潤發), the nation's second-largest hypermarket chain, has extended its business hours as consumers rush to purchase foodstuffs and other commodities in the final countdown to the Lunar New Year holiday.
"Most consumers nowadays are busy at work during the daytime and thus don't have enough time to buy the goods needed for the Lunar New Year without hurrying," said Conny Huang (
Huang said that starting from last Saturday until 6pm Wednesday, the company's 22 outlets nationwide would be open for 129 straight hours.
She expects sales to increase by more than 20 percent in this period from last year.
RT-Mart is offering customers a NT$200 discount for every purchase over NT$2,500 made between 1am and 7am each day during the selling marathon. It is also providing free meals for its late-night shoppers, Huang said.
The promotion appears to be paying off as a greater than expected number of consumers are shopping there for holiday-related commodities.
"The peak time appears to be between 1am and 3am," Huang said, "and we saw customer traffic of up to 3,800 [people] in our Neihu store early Saturday morning."
The Neihu outlet reported NT$35 million in sales on Saturday, an increase of 26 percent from a year ago, 15 percent of which came in the early morning hours.
"The promotion not only helps us boost sales of occasional commodities such as wine or mushroom gift sets, but also attracts a number of housewives [away] from traditional marketplaces to purchase fresh foodstuff here," Huang said.
In the last few years, hypermarkets have become the settings for family outings for Lunar New Year-related buying trips.
The first hypermarket to adopt the 24-hour opening strategy in the run up to the Lunar New Year holidays was Far Eastern Geant (
"We actually were the first hypermarket to initiate such a promotion last year," said a Geant official who declined to be named. "In light of consumers' warm response, we decided to repeat [the promotion] this year."
Geant said its 13 outlets would be open for business for a consecutive 100 hours till 6pm Wednes-day. The company is offering 253 types of gift sets at half-price as part of the promotion, including wines, fruits, snack and even mahjong sets.
Tesco Stores Co Taiwan is offering discounts to customers using its competitors' vouchers.
"Besides our own NT$100 discount for each NT$1,000 spent, consumers can enjoy an extra NT$200 discount by showing RT-Mart's coupons under the same conditions as RT-Mart's," said Sarah Wu (吳明君), Tesco's corporate affairs manager.
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