In the first half of this year, the e-commerce business has been on the rise, from the Lunar New Year’s Holiday, Women’s Day in March, to the 618 Mid-Year Festival. In May and June, pandemic prevention measures have driven online consumption and the stay-at-home economy has boomed. In the first half of this year, the overall number of members spending on ETMall grew by 13%. In addition, the Mama Bear Shopping platform under ETMall benefited from the demand for fruits, vegetables, fish and meat products due to the stay-at-home pandemic prevention measures, thus increasing 23% when compared with May’s performance and reaching an annual growth rate of 90%.
ETMall offers tens of thousands of products to ensure that consumers can experience “good food, good health, and beauty.” According to the top ten best-selling products in the first half of this year, the top three in terms of sales performance are still led by Apple products in the cellphone, tablet & computer category, with three products alone making NT$390 million. As for the top 10 in terms of sales volume, nut products under the Viva brand took the top spot, selling 91,000 units with more than 3.4 million packs of nuts in the first half of the year. This is equal to the height of more than 1,000 Taipei 101 buildings, a very impressive feat indeed! It is followed by products in the health supplement and cosmetics & hair care categories, including The Family Probiotics endorsed by Sam Tseng, Natural Beauty’s STREMARK Advanced Revitalizing Cream + Huatuo Ginseng and Deer Essence, Natural Beauty LOHAS Essential Oils + Yanmeihui Patented Double Dragon Tablets for Bones and Ligaments, and the BIO-S Inca Oil Capsule Set. These four products sold over 50,000 units, generating NT$300 million in sales revenue. In addition, Greyverse Hair Darkening Essence was the top seller in the hair care category, with 120,000 bottles sold. ETMall observed that in recent years, health supplement products accounted for more than 50% of the most popular products, while shampoo products with a focus on health are also trending. This shows that the health awareness of the public is on the rise. Health maintenance is no longer favored by only the elderly, the younger generations are also beginning to pay attention to their health.
It is worth mentioning that due to the pandemic, ready-to-eat products that can be prepared quickly and conveniently at home have become top sellers. In the first half of this year, half of the “ETMall Top 10 Best Selling Food Products” were ready-to-eat products. Among them, the “Eastern Farm Cooking Kit,” jointly launched with “CooKing,” has become a popular dark horse this year. A total of 250,000 kits were sold in just 2 months since its launch in May, reaching the fifth place on the food product ranking. Other precooked meals, such as Chef Ah-Chang’s Crab and Calamari Pie, Delicious Chinese Four Herbal Tender Rib Soup, South of Border Premium Saury, and Tianshifu Milkfish Belly Soup, also made it to the top 10 food product ranking in the first half of the year. “Hu Mami’s Kitchen-Golden Scallop Deluxe Sauce, a famous online group purchase product and also one of the top ten souvenirs of Penghu, also ranked ninth this year.
To meet consumers’ online shopping needs for food and consumer goods due to the pandemic prevention period, ETMall also launched a food section called “Money Saving Food Moments.” In this section people can find a variety of precooked dishes, trending snacks, and beverages at the best discounted prices. In addition, ETMall also launched the “Summer Fun at Home” section, with special discounts starting from 23% off on selected daily necessities, as well as a variety of offers for ETMall members. The launch started with the popular 32-cm German Titanium Black Honeycomb Non-stick Frying Pan (lid included after reaching spending threshold) at the special price of NT$899 (originally priced at NT$4,000), and it came with a free gift of 304 stainless steel lunchbox set.
The main focus of Mama Bear Shopping, a subsidiary of ETMall, is fresh produce. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, orders for fresh fruits and vegetables have skyrocketed. In order to satisfy consumers’ demand for ready-to-eat food products, more products from well-known restaurants will be introduced in the future, including Shin Yeh’s Shin Yeh Fermented Tofu, frozen ready-to-eat dishes from the restaurant of the Grand Hotel Taipei, and the Regent Taipei’s featured dishes.
In addition to providing consumers with the highest quality services, under the leadership of President Gary Wang of Eastern Group, ETMall has also been involved in public welfare activities for years. Seeing the severe impact of the pandemic in Taiwan, the company not only took the lead and donated NT$10 million to Taipei City and New Taipei City for their pandemic prevention efforts, as well as protective gear to the Tri-Service General Hospital, but even extended their care to the senior citizens by donating air coolers and tents, so that the elderly waiting to be vaccinated would not have to wait in the sun. Yesterday (8th), Eastern Commerce Company (Eckare) donated “pandemic prevention satellite wards” and “modular negative pressure isolation rooms” worth NT$4 million to the Zhongxiao and Zhongxing branches of the Taipei City Hospital. Gary Wang said, “I felt very sad seeing the exhausted healthcare personnel working in the negative pressure wards.” Eastern is committed to fulfilling our “corporate social responsibility” and to safeguard our homeland together with the people of Taiwan. We look forward to overcoming the pandemic soon and the return to good health of our nation.