The Gulf Time Newspaper One of the finest business newspapers in the UAE brought to you by our professional writers and editors.
Bloomberg
Robinsons Retail Holdings Inc plans to increase its e-commerce business to between
2% and 3% of total sales this year by expanding the company’s online presence through its own Internet platforms and others.
The Philippine retailer’s
e-commerce sales reached 1.1% of total revenue last year, up from 0.4% in 2019, as
consumers migrated to online purchases because of the pandemic, according to a release from the company distributed in a virtual investors’ briefing. Robinsons Retail s profit fell 25% last year as net sales dropped 7.3% to 151.03 billion pesos ($3.11 billion).
The company will add more business units in GoRobinsons, one of three e-commerce platforms it operates, and will continue selling via third-party platforms, it said.
Robinsons Retail, which operates supermarkets, grocers, drug stores and specialty shops, said it’s budgeting between 3 billion pesos and 5 billion pesos this year to add
80 to 120 stores. Spending fell 40% to 2 billion pesos in 2020 as the pandemic curbed expansion and consumer demand.
Growsari Inc, a grocery-delivery service for smaller stores, plans to double its number of clients this year and
increase gross merchandise value as much as threefold from 2 billion pesos in 2020.
Robinsons Retail forecasts growth in same-store sales will be flat to 3% this year after shrinking 8.9% in 2020.
The company forecasts that its gross margin this year will be unchanged or will rise by up to 20 basis points after it slipped to 21.8% of sales in 2020.