The fast growth of online shopping has taken a toll on brick-and-mortar stores, especially in Taipei’s East District (東區), where an increasing number of storefronts sit idle as the number of shoppers shrinks, a survey released on Wednesday by Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) showed.
The nation’s retail sales rose 30.9 percent in the past decade to NT$42.77 trillion (US$1.39 trillion) last year, with online transactions rising 69.4 percent and department store sales gaining 46.5 percent, the survey found.
“The figures help explain why many storefronts in the city’s East District have become idle as they increasingly lose attraction and competitiveness as shopping venues,” Evertrust general manager Yeh Ling-chi (葉凌棋) said.
The district refers to the area off Zhongxiao E Road between MRT Zhongxiao Fuxing Station and the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall, which is dotted with restaurants, shops, cafes and boutiques.
A Pacific Sogo Department Store (太平洋崇光百貨) branch and Ming Yao Department Store (明曜百貨), as well as other department stores, are on the main road.
The district’s decline might worsen as consumers become increasingly comfortable with online shopping and do not bother to visit stores that lack economic scale or special characteristics, Yeh said.
Statistics on passenger flows on the city’s MRT metropolitan railway system lent support to the gloomy prediction.
Passenger flows shrank 6.6 percent at MRT Zhongxiao Fuxing Station and 7.4 percent at MRT Zhongxiao Dunhua Station over the past five years, Yeh said.
“That will put correction pressures on storefront rents in the area until they can motivate,” he said.
The western district, better known as Ximen (西門), fared better with a 15.7 percent increase in passenger flows during the same period, thanks to its historical and cultural tourism resources, as well as a plethora of distinctive stores that have proved popular among young foreign travelers, he added.
The Xinyi District (信義) also witnessed an increase of 8.9 percent in passenger volume, with the pace soaring to 26 percent at MRT Taipei 101-World Trade Center Station, Evertrust found.
Consumers of all ages can find attractions at various retail and entertainment facilities in the area that cannot be replaced by online shopping, Yeh said, citing exotic restaurants as an example.
It is time that the government took steps to regenerate the East District, which is losing visitors to Ximen and Xinyi districts, as all three areas are linked by the MRT system, he said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last