Central Department Store has revised its sales revenue target upward for this year from a single digit to 10 per cent based on healthy sales growth of 8 per cent in the first half.
The growth was contributed mainly by suburban branches such as Lat Phrao, Chaeng Wattana, Bang Na and Pattaya, as the political turmoil depressed the downtown shopping mood in the second quarter and affected sales at its CentralWorld and Central Chidlom properties.
Piyawan Lelasompop, vice president for marketing, said yesterday that sales at Chaeng Wattana, for example, jumped 25 per cent during April and May.
"We thought the firsthalf figures would be negative, but the suburban branches' figures helped push the overall performance by 8 per cent," she said.
Sales last year totalled Bt27 billion.
The revised growth target is in line with the government's expecta¬tion that the economy will expand at least 6 per cent this year and the International Monetary Fund's 7-8 per cent growth forecast for Thailand's gross domestic product.
Piyawan said Central Pattana, the parent company of Central Department Store, also planned to revise its 2010 revenue estimate based on now available damage figures from Zen Department Store, which was ravaged by the CentralWorld blaze during the protests. Earlier, Central decided to delay the closure of its Lat Phrao branch to February, to compensate for lost revenue from CentralWorld.
The group has also witnessed a quick recovery in shopping mood after the end of the political turmoil.
Piyawan said all retailers would have to launch aggressive marketing campaigns in the second half to spur spending. Though the second half is usually the peak shopping season, the recovery in sentiment could not guarantee full consumer confidence in political and economic stability.
One such marketing campaign was launched yesterday, the Central The1Card UltraX promotion, in which UltraX points will be multiplied as much as 25 times until next Tuesday. The company expects the sevenday promotion to see Bt850 million in sales revenue.
The company's marketing budget for the remaining five months of the year is Bt900 million. Central Department Store sets an annual marketing budget of Bt1.5 billion but spent only Bt600 million in the first half, Piyawan said.