After the pandemic-induced one-off decline in the Asia Pacific retail industry in 2020, sales have since been increasing at healthy rates in the region. China, as the biggest market, is a major driver of this, but India continues to see above-average growth, with modern retailers helping to boost the overall performance in the latter country. However, as in many other countries, e-commerce remains the most dynamic channel in India.
Delivery
This report comes in PPT.
With the region having emerged from the pandemic, retail offline sales were growing in most markets in Asia Pacific in 2023, helped by the bulk of consumers having now returned to visiting physical stores. However, the e-commerce channel is generally performing better than retail offline, with convenience, wide product ranges and competitive prices favouring the ever more popular online marketplaces.
Live-streaming has become a normalised type of marketing promotion for retailers in China. Live-streaming provides an interactive space for consumers, and is regarded by players as a more efficient way of distributing coupons and other promotional deals. Live-streaming can also increase customer loyalty and encourage repeat sales.
Companies in Indian are increasingly realising the importance of following an omnichannel approach, with both bricks-and-mortar stores as well as a digital presence. Big offline supermarkets and hypermarkets have been offering digital apps for ordering, enabling consumers to order online, while major e-commerce players such as Nykaa have opened up physical stores to scale their operations and increase consumer touchpoints.
Having already been faced with high inflation in recent years, Japanese retailers are likely to face logistics and staffing issues in the coming years. A new regulation limiting the working hours of long-distance drivers could push up logistics costs, while a falling population will make recruitment harder, of both drivers and in-store retail staff.
Retail is the sale of new and used goods to consumers from a business for personal or household consumption from retail outlets, kiosks, market stalls, vending, direct selling and e-commerce. Retail is the aggregation of Retail Offline and Retail E-Commerce. Excludes specialist retailers of motor vehicles, motorcycles, vehicle parts. Also excludes fuel sales, foodservice sales, rental transactions, and wholesale sales (e.g. Cash and Carry). Sales value excluding or including VAT/Sales Tax. Retail also excludes the informal retail sector. Informal retailing is retail trade which is not declared to the tax authorities. Informal retailing encompasses (a) sales generated by unregistered and unlicensed retailers, i.e. retailers operating illegally, and (b) any proportion of sales generated by a registered and licensed retailer that is not declared to the tax authorities. Unregistered and unlicensed retailers operate predominantly (although not exclusively) as street hawkers or operate open market stalls, as these channels are harder for the authorities to monitor than permanent outlets. Activities in the illegal market, which is usually understood to refer to trade in illegal, counterfeit or stolen merchandise, are included within our definition of informal retailing. Activities in the “grey market”, which is usually understood to refer to trade in legal merchandise that is sold through unauthorized channels – for example cigarettes bought legally in another country, legally imported, but sold at lower prices than in authorized channels – will be included as informal retailing if no tax is paid on sale by the retailer. However if the retailer pays tax – for example on cigarettes bought legally in another country but sold at a lower price than standard – the sale is included within formal retail.
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