Editorial | Hong Kong’s struggling retailers could aim to tap online markets up north
Local retailers have much to gain by looking across the border and competing on creativity and quality rather than just price
Adapting and innovating has been a tried and tested formula for business survival amid paradigm shifts in consumption. Struggling firms need to look no further than the mainland market for a way out.
The business opportunities seem enormous, with 78 per cent of the respondents saying they had bought Hong Kong goods online in the past year. They also said they were frequent shoppers, making an average of 9.4 purchases per month, particularly those in tier one and the nine mainland cities in the Greater Bay Area.
As e-commerce becomes more popular, many local brands have already moved to establish their online presence, but those which partner with mainland and overseas platforms can reach a wider market. From January to May, the online retail sales of physical goods on the mainland reached 4,987.8 billion yuan (US$694.6 billion), up by 6.3 per cent, accounting for 24.5 per cent of the total retail sales of consumer goods, according to the National Bureau of Statistics of China. Food, clothing and consumer goods increased by 14.5, 1.2 and 6.1 per cent, respectively.
Hong Kong retailers will benefit if they can tap into the mainland market. Even though the city’s retail sales in May jumped by 2.4 per cent year on year to HK$31.3 billion, reversing a 14-month contraction, the uptick was attributed to a surge in visitors during mainland China’s Labour Day “golden week” holiday. Online sales were provisionally estimated at HK$2.6 billion, accounting for only 8.3 per cent, according to the Census and Statistics Department.