Business is booming for Taiwan’s home shopping sector, with revenue in the first six months of the year reaching a record NT$97 billion (US$3.07 billion), a 6.6 percent annual increase, the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Department of Statistics said in a report yesterday.
Revenue from Internet platforms, television, radio and telephone advertising, and mail catalogs is expected to surpass NT$200 billion by the end of the year, another record, the report said.
The sector last year reported revenue of NT$189.4 billion, a 12.4 percent increase from a year earlier, the report said.
The industry’s average annual growth has been 8.1 percent over the past eight years, far ahead of the average annual growth of 1.1 percent for the domestic retail sector, it said.
The home shopping sector contributed 5.2 percent of overall retail sales in the first half, up from 3.2 percent eight years ago, the department said.
Home appliances and consumer electronics are by far the most popular retail categories, data compiled by the department showed.
In 2017, home appliances accounted for 28.8 percent and consumer electronics 22.6 percent of the sector’s total sales, up from 18.2 percent and 16.5 percent respectively in 2013, the data showed.
With the sector’s steady growth, competition is intensifying as companies wage price wars, leading to low gross margins, the department said, citing a survey it conducted among companies in the sector.
Rapidly changing consumer demand is also an important factor fueling competition, it said.
In addition, new applications that use technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data to improve understanding of purchase behaviors would be a growth driver, it said.
Meanwhile, the share of stationery and education products fell to 7.9 percent from 24.2 percent, the department said, attributing the decline to a decreased birthrate in the nation, as well as diversification of information and communication channels.
Credit cards remained the most used payment method at 66 percent of overall transactions completed in 2017, while cash made up 29.3 percent, the data showed.
Mobile payments or other forms accounted for 1.3 percent of transactions, the company’s data showed.
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