Puregold eyes 10% sales hike this yr

MANILA, Philippines - Supermarket chain Puregold Price Club, Inc. aims to increase its sales by at least 10 percent this year as it expands membership of loyalty programs and opens new stores.

“This year, we want to grow double-digit. We’ve been growing double-digit for the past five years. It should be at least 10 percent growth (for sales),” Antonio De los Santos, vice president for operations at Puregold said in a briefing yesterday.

Puregold’s latest financial report showed that its consolidated net sales reached P59.8 billion in the January to September period last year, up 16.1 percent from P51.5 billion in the same period in 2013.

Puregold store sales account for the bulk or more than 80 percent of consolidated net sales.

De los Santos said the group is optimistic Puregold could achieve double-digit growth in sales this year following the positive response to the launch of its Perks Card loyalty program which rewards shoppers with points every time they shop at any Puregold store.

“We’ve very confident because shopper response is strong. We didn’t expect shopper response to be big,” he said noting that the program now has 500,000 members since it was launched three months ago.

He said the aim is to grow the Perks Card program’s membership, which is focused on end-users, to one million within the year.

To encourage membership to the Perks Card program, Puregold not only offers discounts to cardholders, but also holds promos every payday.

Puregold’s other loyalty program, Tindahan ni Aling Puring, which covers resellers such as sari-sari store owners as well as canteens, currently has 300,000 members.

The supermarket chain expects to get more members for the Perks Card program since there are more end-users than sari-sari store owners.

Aside from growing its loyal customer base, the firm is also opening new stores to grow its sales.

De los Santos said the supermarket chain wants to have over 250 Puregold stores by yearend, with most of the stores to be located in the Visayas and Mindanao, from a total of 233 last year.

“Many (of the stores) will be in Visayas and Mindanao (because) we only have five there,” he said.

To start its store expansion, Puregold is opening a new store in Cavite within the month and two more before the first quarter ends.

The supermarket chain also plans to put up neighborhood stores, a new store format, this year.

“It (neighborhood store) will be a smaller store, around 300-square meters and grab and go,” De Los Santos said, adding that such stores would be located in subdivisions and other residential areas.

The plan is to conduct a pilot of two to three neighborhood stores in Mega Manila within the first-half of the year.

“After the pilot, we will determine how many we want to open,” De los Santos said.

The neighborhood store would be bigger than the sari-sari store but smaller than Puregold’s other store formats such as Price Club (hypermarket), Puregold Jr. (supermarket) and Extra (discount store).

Puregold is also looking to convert more sari-sari stores that purchase their products for sale exclusively from the grocer into mini-marts this year.

“These (mini-marts) are our most loyal Aling Puring members,” De los Santos said.

The firm which has already upgraded 15 sari-sari stores into mini-marts, wants to raise the total to 50 by yearend.