Taiwan FamilyMart Co (全家便利商店) yesterday said e-commerce is to play a greater role in the company’s sales plans, with the aim of accounting for 10 percent of overall sales in five years.
The nation’s second-largest convenience store chain said it has joined with TV shopping operator Eastern Home Shopping Network (東森購物) to provide “TV outlets” at its stores so customers can learn about products offered on Eastern Home shopping channels and place their orders right at the store.
FamilyMart will also help deliver the goods to the buyers.
Photo: Yang Ya-min, Taipei Times
The first stage of the plan will see FamilyMart installing television sets in seven outlets in Taipei and New Taipei City.
It said it aims to expand the number of outlets equipped with TV sets to 150 in the first quarter of next year.
FamilyMart president Hsueh Dong-du (薛東都) said the new service could help boost store visitor numbers by 30 percent and help increase e-commerce revenue to more than NT$100 million (US$3.15 million) this year.
Over the next five years, revenue from e-commerce is expected grow to account for about 10 percent of FamilyMart’s total revenue, Hsueh said.
The idea of omni-channel retailing — meaning the disappearance of boundaries between physical and online stores — has had a core role in the company’s operational strategy for years, FamilyMart said.
Taiwan’s e-commerce market is expected to reach NT$1,127 billion in sales this year, data from the Institute for Information Industry (資策會) show.
FamilyMart said that its stores could be the best support for developing an online business because of its effective logistics system.
In the first half of this year, there were 3,014 FamilyMart outlets in Taiwan.
FamilyMart also plans to enter further into the e-commerce sector by using the latest big data analysis.
It said it would collaborate with Eastern Home Shopping Network to analyze its customer database to develop a more precise marketing strategy through data mining.
Sales in the second quarter of this year reached NT$15.3 billion, up 8.2 percent from the first quarter and 4 percent more than the same period last year. Its earnings per share were NT$2.05.
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