Major domestic department store operators yesterday said they are bullish about their upcoming pre-Mother’s Day promotion activities — the most important sales campaign for the industry during the first half of the year — after reporting strong sales in the first three months of the year.
Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store Co Ltd (新光三越百貨), the nation’s largest department-store chain, has targeted NT$9.7 billion (US$310.59 million) in sales for its 13 branches across the nation during its month-long pre-Mother’s Day campaign.
Shin Kong Mitsukoshi assistant vice president of operations Chris Chou (周寶文) said the sales target is 3 percent higher than last year.
In the first quarter, the company’s sales grew about 5 percent from the same period last year.
Chou said Shin Kong Mitsukoshi is optimistic about its business outlook for the rest of the year, as it benefits from a new membership program launched in October last year.
The program, which had signed up a total of 450,000 members as of the end of last month, is expected to improve Shin Kong Mitsukoshi’s customer base by drawing more consumption from youngsters under 40, Chou said.
Far Eastern Department Stores Co (遠東百貨), which has 10 outlets in Taiwan, also aims to generate NT$6.8 billion in sales in the run-up to Mother’s Day, up 5.3 percent from the same period last year.
Hsieh Kuan-wen (謝寬文) said two of the company’s shopping malls — Top City (台中大遠百) in Taichung and Mega City (板橋大遠百) in New Taipei City — may lead the sales performance continuously, backed by their larger food and beverage sales, which showed an 8.5 percent increase in the first quarter to top the list.
Pacific Sogo Department Stores Co (太平洋崇光百貨), another major department store chain under the control of Far Eastern Group (遠東集團), has not announced its sales target for the pre-Mother’s Day sales event yet.
However, the department-store operator has launched a sales campaign for its Zhongxiao (忠孝) and Fuxing (復興) stores, with a focus on cosmetics and skin-care products, aiming to generate NT$550 million in revenue for the company ahead of the official pre-Mother’s Day event, an increase of 10 percent over the same campaign last year.
Miramar Entertainment Park (美麗華百樂園), a shopping mall in Taipei’s Dazhi district (大直), expects sales during its pre-Mother’s Day event to rise 6.5 percent from a year earlier to NT$660 million, following the strong-than-expected consumption momentum in the first three months of the year, company officials said.
Miramar Entertainment has set its full-year sales target at NT$6.8 billion, a rise of 6 percent from the NT$6.4 billion it posted last year.
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