Asia General Retailing

Retailing in Azerbaijan Overall, retailing in Azerbaijan continued to see positive retail current value growth in 2021. Indeed, the overall growth was slightly higher than over 2020, as many non-essential retailers reopened as the threat of Coronavirus (COVID-19) and related measures to stem the spr ...

Mixed Retailers in Pakistan Mixed retailers experienced a disastrous 2020, as current value sales plummeted. This was due to restrictions on social gatherings and consumers working from home. This diminished demand for the apparel and footwear typically sold by mixed retailers. Economic uncertainty ...

Retailing in Pakistan The COVID-19 pandemic had a markedly divergent impact on channels across retailing in 2020. Grocery retailers maintained strong current value sales growth, benefiting from stockpiling that led to a surge in demand in early-2020 amid the global pandemic for grocery retailers. Eu ...

Retailing in Uzbekistan The Uzbeki economy had been growing strongly prior to the pandemic, as the government’s liberalisation policies led to increased foreign investment and a diversifying economy, supported by a young population. The economy also looked set to recover quickly from the disruption ...

Variety Stores in Taiwan Variety stores in Taiwan are popular for their wide product offering, which meets consumers’ daily lifestyle needs at affordable prices. Consumers often enjoy discovering inexpensive everyday items when browsing in these stores. This adds entertainment value to variety store ...

Retailing in Taiwan Taiwan’s retail industry faced abrupt changes when an outbreak of COVID-19 upended consumers’ everyday lives in mid-May 2021 and restrictions were imposed by the government. Retail sales across channels saw completely contrasting performances. Consumers reprioritised what was ess ...

Homeshopping in Turkey Homeshopping is dominated by the sale of 20-litre demijohns of water. Turkish consumers traditionally buy these huge bottles of water and order it for delivery to their homes, as tap water is not drinkable. As water is a necessity, the category continued to see growth in 2021 ...

Variety Stores in Turkey Variety stores showed some signs of a recovery in 2021. However, considering the contraction in value terms in 2020, the gains made in 2021 still left the channel’s value sales below the levels seen immediately prior to the outbreak of COVID-19. Variety stores is not a devel ...

Retailing in Turkey The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was still being felt strongly in the Turkish retailing market in 2021. Whilst there were clear signs of recovery and sales growth compared to 2020, consumer demand was not as strong as it had been in 2019. Whilst year on year value growth was s ...

Retailing in Hong Kong, China After a whole year of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the overall pandemic situation continued over the first half of 2021. The fourth wave of the pandemic led to the immediate suspension of schools, and businesses once again allowed employees to work from home over the ...

Variety Stores in Hong Kong, China Compared with 2020, when consumers in Hong Kong were adapting to their lifestyles after the emergence of COVID-19, the overall atmosphere in the consumer market in Hong Kong improved in 2021, as Hong Kong consumers were already used to the absence of travel, as wel ...

Retailing in Malaysia The COVID-19 pandemic continued to exert a very strong influence over Malaysia’s retailing industry during 2021. The most important factor to take into consideration is that a strict and extended quarantine lockdown was imposed upon the population in response to the third and f ...

Variety Stores in Singapore While economic uncertainty was the prevailing theme of 2020 and 2021, it is not entirely correct to associate variety stores with the lower socio-economic classes. Compared to mid-range outlets, retailers targeting low-income earners have struggled to survive due to movem ...

Variety Stores in Malaysia Variety stores registered its second consecutive year of negative sales growth in 2021 as the entire category struggled to recover from the requirement for all variety stores to remain closed throughout the quarantine lockdowns that were imposed upon the population of Mala ...

Retailing in Singapore The impact of restrictions was not consistent across all channels within retailing in Singapore. In 2021, strict movement restrictions resulted in a decline in retail salespeople. Malaysian staff members are commonplace in several retailing channels, including traditional groc ...

Retailing in Cambodia Cambodia’s retailing industry came under pressure during 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite political stability and the second highest vaccination among ASEAN countries, official COVID control measures and major changes in consumer behaviour in response to COVI ...

Variety Stores in the Philippines Variety stores was among the hardest hit retailers in the Philippines in 2020. During strict lockdown periods, variety stores were not considered as essential, and they therefore underwent store closures for a significant period. Furthermore, like department stores, ...

Retailing in Indonesia The COVID-19 vaccination programme accelerated in 2021 and there was also some loosening of movement restrictions in the first half of the year. However, the emergence of the delta variant and many people violating the lockdown imposed for the Eid holiday period led to skyrock ...

Variety Stores in Thailand Variety stores have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic and the economic shock that it has engendered, with their retail current value sales plunging by around half between 2019 and 2021. The stores operated by Daiso and MUJI – the dominant variety stores chains, ac ...

Retailing in Thailand Retailing current value sales in Thailand fell for the second year in a row during 2021, with the rate of decline accelerating into double digits. Having seen very few cases of COVID-19 during 2020, its incidence soared during mid-2021, leading to a new lockdown in July 2021 (t ...

Retailing in the Philippines In 2021, COVID-19 cases continued to rise in the Philippines with different levels of quarantine measures being implemented from time to time. Retailing players within schools, offices, and commercial clusters have remained affected by varying mobility restrictions, whil ...

Variety Stores in Indonesia Variety stores looked set to see value sales decline further in 2021. As in other retailing channels, the COVID-19 crisis has had a marked impact on the performance of variety stores, although it has been less severely affected than channels such as department stores. In ...

Retailing in Russia There was polarisation being observed within grocery retailing in Russia in 2021. On the one hand, there was increased consumer demand for high-quality groceries, a high level of service and modern technologies, as seen in Perekrestok, Magnit and Lenta outlets. On the other hand, ...

Variety Stores in Russia Variety stores saw a strong recovery in 2021 as Russia lifted its COVID-19 restrictions and foot traffic picked up. Category leaders like Fix Price remained popular due to their convenient locations. Many variety stores outlets are located in close proximity to residential a ...

Direct Selling in Russia Avon, Amway, Faberlic, Herbalife, Mary Kay and Oriflame adopted new sales models in 2020, some in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which delivered positive results for the most of them in 2020 and 2021. Some players looked to improve their internal communication systems, i ...