Watson’s Personal Care Stores (Taiwan) Co Ltd (台灣屈臣氏), the nation’s largest cosmetics and drugstore operator, is set to launch an online store today, targeting two-fold growth in its sales through e-commerce.
Watson’s, which operates a total of 471 outlets in Taiwan as of the end of last year, is set to be the nation’s first cosmetics and drugstore operator to establish a direct e-commerce channel.
“We have seen great potential for the e-commerce market in the retail sector since the company made products available on Yahoo-Kimo Inc’s (雅虎奇摩) mall in 2011,” company managing director Toby Anderson told a press conference yesterday.
Watson’s has seen growing pace of sales in the e-commerce sector triple the level recorded in physical stores, Anderson said, adding that revenue from the company’s online sales through Yahoo-Kimo last year showed a 100 percent expansion from 2012.
In addition, the nation saw annual sales of cosmetics and drug products through e-commerce of NT$36 billion (US$1.19 billion) last year, Anderson said.
The drugstore operator aims at a 200 percent growth in sales over the next three years.
Watson’s plans to sell 1,000 exclusive online products and offer a bonus collection plan for its 4.3 million members to boost sales momentum in the e-commerce sector, Anderson said.
Meanwhile, Anderson said the company is scheduled to raise the number of its brick-and-mortar outlets to 500 by the end of this year, as statistics showed many people increase their purchases in physical stores after buying products online.
President Drugstore Business Corp (統一生活事業), which owns Taiwan’s second-largest drugstore chain, Cosmed (康是美), said it would not follow Watson’s lead to launch its own direct operating online store.
President Drugstore, a subsidiary of President Chain Store Corp (統一超商), already sells some of its products on its parent company’s online shopping portal, 7net, and through books.com.tw (博客來).
The firm plans to open a net total of 10 Cosmed stores this year, which would increase its total outlets to 372 by the end of this year.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in server chips, expects revenue to decline this year due to sagging demand for 5-nanometer artificial intelligence (AI) chips from a North America-based major customer, a company executive said yesterday. That would be the first contraction in revenue for Alchip as it has been enjoying strong revenue growth over the past few years, benefiting from cloud-service providers’ moves to reduce dependence on Nvidia Corp’s expensive AI chips by building their own AI accelerator by outsourcing chip design. The 5-nanometer chip was supposed to be a new growth engine as the lifecycle
RSS