Hong Kong – Hong Kong-based beauty retailer Sa Sa has partnered with foodpanda mall in Hong Kong, the online grocery and goods shopping mall under foodpanda, to accelerate its online-merge-offline (OMO) functions. 

It would be remembered that in June of 2021, the HK retailer announced the closing of a number of its physical stores with the goal to build a stronger O2O business.

With the new partnership via foodpanda mall’s round-the-clock delivery service, Sa Sa will be opening up for local customers a more convenient way of shopping to enhance customer experience. It will also be offering about 700 selected products on foodpanda mall, including anti-epidemic products for which Hong Kong citizens have an urgent need, and popular products such as cosmetics, skincare, fragrance, haircare, and body care products, as well as health supplements. 

After customers have placed orders at the online supermarket, foodpanda’s couriers will collect the goods at Sa Sa’s physical stores and deliver them to the customers in as fast as 10 minutes. Customers can thus quickly obtain the products without going out, especially meeting their urgent needs for anti-epidemic products and their favourite items within the cosmetic and personal care categories. This service will initially be piloted at 20 of Sa Sa’s stores and will be rolled out at more stores in the future.

Following the launch of the ‘click-and-collect’ service, Sa Sa’s partnership with foodpanda mall will further enhance the OMO development of the Group’s physical stores and its online business in Hong Kong. It also provides customers with one more customer-centric and convenient channel for online shopping, complementing Sa Sa’s shopping website.

Moreover, the partnership will allow Sa Sa and foodpanda mall to manifest their respective advantages and generate synergy. Sa Sa will be enriching foodpanda mall’s product assortment with its cosmetics, health supplements, and anti-epidemic products. Both foodpanda and Sa Sa have large customer bases, which can enable mutual conversion and thus enlarge their respective target customer bases. Sa Sa can also strengthen and expand its own base of young customers by serving foodpanda members who are used to quick commerce.

Simon Kwok, Sa Sa’s chairman and CEO, shared that online shopping trend is especially more pronounced amidst the raging pandemic as more consumers would rather stay at home than go out to protect themselves against the disease, and they believe that foodpanda’s quick delivery meets their customers’ increasing demand for convenient, fast online shopping service.

“In the light of the urgent demand for anti-epidemic products, we are offering them at foodpanda mall in the hope of providing citizens one more convenient shopping channel to help fight the pandemic. We also hope to enhance the OMO function at Sa Sa’s operation through the partnership with foodpanda mall so as to provide customers with a more seamless and convenient shopping experience,” said Kwok.

Meanwhile, Ryan Lai, foodpanda’s managing director for Hong Kong, said that they are extremely pleased to have Sa Sa as a foodpanda mall retail partner, benefiting from complementary strengths in advancing each other’s OMO business strategy, and elevating customers’ shopping experience for personal care, health and beauty products, amongst others. 

“This partnership also expands and diversifies foodpanda mall’s product offerings, to better satisfy the wants and needs of our customers,” added Lai.

To celebrate its partnership with Sa Sa, foodpanda mall launches promotional offers from 15 March to 30 April, where customers will enjoy a HK$50 discount upon spending of HK$400 or above with their first purchase at Sa Sa on foodpanda mall by entering the promotional offer code ‘SASA’.

Hong Kong – Hong Kong-based beauty and personal care chain SaSa has announced in its latest financial results for the year 2020/2021 that it is expecting to close 15 to 20 stores throughout the year. 

SaSa is only one of the many businesses that have shut down operations as a strategic move over pandemic-induced economic downturn. According to the company, the markets of the Hong Kong and Macau SARs dealt a severe blow to the group’s sales performance with the pandemic bringing tourism to a standstill. 

Since the beginning of February 2020, the cumulative number of Mainland Chinese visitors in the Hong Kong SAR up to now has plunged to almost zero year on year, and due to social distancing initiatives imposed by the Hong Kong SAR government, local consumer sentiment has also been dampened. 

SaSa’s brick-and-mortar stores are established in Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR, and Malaysia. 

SaSa
Inside a SaSa store

Overall, the group’s retail sales in the markets of the Hong Kong and Macau SARs dropped by 58.1% year on year, while its same-store sales decreased by 54.4% during the financial year. Meanwhile, in Malaysia, turnover decreased by 34.9% in the financial year. 

Due to the movement control orders in Malaysia, the group’s stores were temporarily closed for nearly 100 days in total. As of 31 March 2021, the total number of SaSa’s retail stores in Hong Kong and Macau SARs was reduced from the peak of 118 two years ago to 100. Among closed stores in Hong Kong SAR, 80% were located in tourist districts. 

With this, the company has expressed plans to leverage its online sales and deliver an enhanced customer experience by combining online with offline. 

Sasa
SaSa’s current website

Compared to offline sales, the beauty retail chain’s online business had been looking up, rising by 45.4% to HK$501.3m accounting for 16.5% of the total turnover from the group’s continuing operations, up from 6% in the previous financial year. 

The company shared that the group’s long-term vision is to grow businesses beyond brick-and-mortar operations. By growing the share of sales from online platforms, it trusts that it can help reduce its reliance on physical stores. 

“Through persistently adjusting and rationalizing the store network, the group could improve its overall cost structure and lower the breakeven point for the traditional retail business, thus reinforcing its competitiveness and profitability in the long term,” the group said.

The group will work to further realize the complementary effects of combining the advantages of online business and physical stores to improve both customer experience and the group’s profitability. 

It plans to execute the integration of online and offline operations. The group said that it will be improving inventory and logistic arrangements to provide a seamless O2O customer experience. For SaSa, the O2O business offers a more favorable gross margin and basket size owing to the element of personal service when compared to pure online sales channels. All these mean a more attractive profit margin for the O2O business, an area that the group wishes to develop to its fullest potential.

Dr Simon Kwok, SBS, JP, the chairman and CEO of the Group, said that online business has become the new focus of the retail industry, and that they are dedicated to expediting development in the new retail landscape by investing more resources in their online business, unceasingly strengthening the brand and adjusting their product portfolio. 

“The Group will also proactively propel businesses beyond our core markets in Hong Kong and Macau SARs and promote the online business, thus diversifying and expanding our revenue portfolio and customer base and creating value for our stakeholders in the long term.”