Farm Fresh Bhd managing director and group chief executive officer Loi Tuan Ee
KUALA LUMPUR: Inflationary cost pressures have led to higher prices of most goods and is threatening the growth dynamics of the retail sector.
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(M) Bhd’s chief merchandising and marketing officer, Low Ngai Yuen, said she has seen people generally being much more careful on how they spend nowadays.
“Usually, if one doesn’t earn more then they won’t spend more. Prices are increasing between 8% and 20% for some products. With this situation, you will definitely see more consumers tightening their wallets,” Low said at the Business Foresight Forum 2022 organised by the Securities Industry Development Corp.
“They are not going to be so easy on the purse strings, perhaps like how they could remember (then). Everyone is talking about a looming recession or a potential rise in interest rates which could cause a recession. And these would affect sentiment on how people spend,” she added.
Commenting on the growth of eCommerce, Low said this segment of retail had seen a slowdown of late once lockdowns were eased and this is causing retailers to rethink how they should run their operations, moving forward.
On the same matter, dairy and milk products manufacturer Farm Fresh Bhd’s group managing director and group CEO Loi Tuan Ee said at the same forum that the company saw “a spike” in online orders during the lockdown period.
“We have some distributors who used live streaming videos to sell our products and in one session they could sell RM80,000-RM100,000 worth of products and I was baffled at how they managed to do it,” Loi said.
Meanwhile Securities Commission chairman Datuk Seri Awang Adek Hussin said in his opening speech that businesses needed to “walk-the-talk” to integrate environmental, social and governance practices into all aspects of their business.
