“Overall, sales are more than 10% higher than usual at this time of the year. (…) Some categories witnessed decline: home appliances, automotive, fashion, while other categories saw growth: laptops, monitors, TV sets, staple foods, house cleaning products, products for kids,” Iulian Stanciu, CEO of shareholder of the eMAG group, told ZF.
eMAG posted more than 5 billion lei (over EUR1 billion) sales in the entire region in 2019.
Stanciu said it was very hard to provide a forecast, but he did not expect decline, considering the big picture.
“The durable goods (computer and electronics, furniture), automotive and real estate markets will definitely stand to suffer. We will prepare with estimates for that. The estimate in China is 18% decline in the first half. The fashion market will shrink a lot, considering people spend a lot of time at home. Other categories will grow: staple foods, sanitary products, IT and personal care products. We will adjust with a greater focus on such products,” Iulian Stanciu said.
“We estimate a lot of activities to go digital, we’ve seen it in China, South Korea and Italy. This will probably offset the market decline, so we don’t estimate decline in sales. There are a lot of things that are hard to factor in: the duration of the epidemic and of restrictions, the impact of the economic steps taken by the government, the effects on the economy coming from the major markets. In other words, we’re preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.”
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)