Online shopping platforms are expected to benefit from a rise in COVID-19 cases as people stockpile goods and demand for disease prevention supplies surge, Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) said last week.
Panic buying of food, daily necessities and healthcare products over the past few days amid an outbreak of COVID-19 should boost sales and earnings for e-commerce companies such as Momo.com Inc (富邦媒體) and PChome Online Inc (網路家庭), which are already profiting from a shift to online shopping, Yuanta said.
“Consumers in Taiwan shifted to online shopping in the first half of last year, when the pandemic was starting, leading to sales growth in the e-commerce sector of 18 percent year-on-year, marking the strongest growth in 10 years,” Yuanta analysts said in a note on Wednesday.
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“Taiwan’s e-commerce penetration rose by 1.3 percent last year compared with less than 1 percent previously, and we expect e-commerce growth to accelerate going forward, driven by consumers further shifting to online shopping amid a surge in new cases,” they said.
Among traditional retailers, hypermarkets and supermarkets are benefiting from customers’ stockpiling food amid an increase in locally transmitted cases of COVID-19, the analysts said.
However, department stores are to see the greatest impact due to fewer travelers and declining customer traffic, as well as lower sales exposure to daily necessities, the note said.
Department stores’ sales declined 22 percent year-on-year in April last year, amid an earlier outbreak in Taiwan, they added.
Convenience stores, cosmetic chains and pharmacy outlets would also be negatively affected by the recent outbreak, which is similar to what they experienced last year before the pandemic eased in Taiwan, Yuanta said.
Assuming the effect lasts longer this time, brick-and-mortar retailers would have limited ability to reduce costs with fixed expenses such as rent and labor accounting for a large portion of their operating budget, which could negatively affect their earnings, the note said.
However, popular competitive retailers such as cosmetics chain operator Poya International Co Ltd (寶雅國際) and convenience store operator Taiwan FamilyMart Co (全家便利商店) would likely gain market share after the outbreak, it said.
Nonetheless, the outbreak would have a severe and long-lasting effect on the food services sector after the COVID-19 alert was raised to level 3 nationwide, with dine-in services suspended from today, Yuanta added.
Consumer spending on entertainment, transportation, dining and shopping is likely to fall notably in the April-to-June quarter, Singapore-based DBS Bank Ltd economist Ma Tieying (馬鐵英) said in a report on Tuesday.
Related service sectors would also likely take a hit, Ma added.
“Private consumption is expected to decline in the second quarter,” Ma said. “The magnitude of decline could match or even exceed a 10 percent fall recorded in the first and second quarter of last year.”
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