Strong demand: Ng arranging hampers at his shop selling traditional medicine in Johor Baru.
JOHOR BARU: Businesses offering hampers for the Chinese New Year are seeing brisk sales as people rush to get goodies for their loved ones and corporate partners.
Loo Chok Nan, the owner of a hamper store, said he has been receiving orders from customers since early last month and began deliveries before the end of the year.
“Sales have been very encouraging this year. In the past three days alone, I have sent out more than 1,000 such hampers ordered by my customers.
“It is definitely better compared to the past two years, and from the looks of it, I believe it could potentially even surpass sales during pre-pandemic times,” he told The Star.
He noted that the reopening of the border has also helped boost sales further as Singaporean customers could walk in and choose the hampers for themselves instead of ordering them online.
“People prefer looking at the hampers in person instead of just seeing photos online. Now that the border has reopened, I can once again welcome my customers from Singapore,” he said, noting that his customers also include companies that are gifting the hampers to their business partners.
In terms of price, Loo said he had to increase the price of the goods by about 10% as the price of items has also increased.
“There is no way for us to avoid increasing the price of the hampers, but we try not to increase it too much and absorb the extra cost.
“We also had to reduce the contents of the items in the hampers as a way to cut costs without having to increase the price of the goodies too much,” he said, adding that the hampers are priced between RM88 and RM5,000.
Meanwhile, the manager of a shop selling traditional medicine, Ng Yong Seng, said there has been an increase of at least 80% in the number of walk-in customers buying the hampers.
“It is too early to know if sales this year will be as good as pre-pandemic times, but they are definitively better compared with last year.
“The most obvious increase is in terms of walk-in customers we are receiving. However, there has been a slight drop in the number of online orders we receive.
“Orders coming from businessmen and corporations have also been a little slow so far, but we hope that this will improve in the next few weeks,” he said.
He added that sales are expected to pick up in the next few weeks with more people busy preparing for Chinese New Year, which falls on Jan 22.
He added that hampers at the shop are priced between RM88 and RM3,888, while customised packages could be higher.
“There is a slight increase in the price of the hampers this year compared with last year, but we have absorbed most of the extra cost,” he said.
