It was in 2014 when Grupo Gigante entered e-commerce with Office Depot and Radio Shack. This was a sure step that allowed the company to cope with the boom in online shopping brought about by the pandemic, and although sales through this channel had solid growth, they were insufficient to reverse the losses generated by the closure of stores due to contingency.
The company, already with the experience acquired in the digital field, carried out an evaluation of its online stores in 2019 and, in order to obtain some improvements in the customer experience, decided to move the platforms to the SAP cloud, which which allowed it to generate savings of up to 30% in implementation costs, explained Carmen González, Grupo Gigante Information Technology Project Manager, in a conference.
For this, each of the businesses that make up the business group established a differentiated and independent e-commerce strategy; However, as a group they set the goal of having faster and friendlier platforms, with certifications in security matters.
“In order to align our objectives, we have established certain strategic projects for this year and next, based on the management of our clients. Securing their information is the most important thing for us, while we consolidate the omnichannel experience on all the group’s platforms,” he says. .
Ángel Losada Moreno, executive president of the group, said in the financial report for the first quarter of the year that a crisis of such magnitude was also an opportunity to innovate and the company deployed digital strategies in all business units, which together with a control of expenses, were among the measures he undertook to overcome the health crisis.
“After the pandemic, online sales became our main income. Many of our companies were closed, but they were ready, each one with its e-commerce page, which allowed us to withstand this situation during the emergency ”, affirmed Carmen González.
Office Depot was one of the brands that showed results. At the end of last year, the office and stationery products chain had a growth of more than 74% in its e-commerce channels.
To comply with the logistics of deliveries, the company promoted a home delivery service with private cars, allowed its customers to collect their purchases from their vehicles and the launch of the store application
Petco also excelled in digital channels in 2020. The chain launched its mobile application to buy food or accessories for pets or schedule appointments for the grooming service (bath and dog grooming). Sales revenue from the app represented 30% of total e-commerce. To this were added the telephone sales to serve customers.
The Home Store was one of the winning formats, as its digital sales grew 190%, with a goal of deliveries to customers in 24 hours. In addition to the chain’s mobile application, social networks were one of the channels to boost electronic commerce, with an average ticket increase of 6.3% in its annual comparison.
The restaurant division was also adapting, and as happened with other chains in the sector, the impulse came from the hand of home deliveries through aggregators, and also serving diners from platforms such as WhatsApp. Panda Express grew 34% its sales in delivery.
“The pandemic caught us in the middle of the renovation project and we had to redouble many efforts, above all to be aware and open communication with the work team 100%. We had to work very remotely with the Mexico and Central America team. This represented a challenge for the company ”, he points out.
Hit by COVID-19
Even with the growth of electronic commerce, Grupo Gigante did not manage to overcome the crisis and in the first quarter of 2021 it registered a 15.3% drop in its income to 6,634.1 million pesos.
In its financial statement, the group specified that the sales of units with more than one year in operation, or same stores, had a decrease of 12.5%, with a turnover of 6,064.1 million pesos.
During the period, operating cash flow totaled 761.7 million pesos, which represented a 2.1% decrease compared to the amount of the same period last year. Consolidated net income fell 183.6% to 117.3 million pesos.
As a result of the crisis. Since last year and until the first quarter of this year, Grupo Gigante lowered the curtain on nearly 70 stores of its Office Depot, Radio Shack, The Home Store, Toks, Beer Factory and Panda Express brands.
The effects on the group’s companies were not a surprise, given that specialized stores were one of the consumer categories hardest hit by the pandemic, along with the restaurant sector.
Although there is no disaggregated data for this year, specialized stores ended 2020 with a 6% drop in sales in stores with more than one year of operation and 2% considering the new units.
The directive added that for now the company will continue with investments in digital transformation, without disclosing the amount of resources that have so far been allocated for this purpose.
“It has been years to be able to integrate the digital transformation that allows us to have control of our inventories and know consumption, now tied to an electronic commerce system, which aims to meet expectations and grow each business”, points out.
