Online focus pays off as Sabina sales surge

An aggressive online focus saw listed Thai lingerie retailer Sabina achieve 14.3 percent sales growth last year.

Sabina CEO Bunchai Punturaumporn, pictured above, said the company’s performance last year outperformed expectations, despite declining consumer purchasing power due to a slowing economy and falling confidence.

Sales totaled US$103.5 million and net profit reached $13 million.

In Thailand, Sabina opened two new stores, at Central Village and Samyan Mitrtown, and home-market same-store sales rose 3.7 percent last year.

But the real growth engine was online, with sales up 32.3 percent year on year.

“At the end of last year, Priceza studied online sales and found that lingerie was the best-selling product in the fashion category and that Sabina had earned the highest sales online, especially during the 11.11 and 12.12 shopping festivals held in November and December last year,” said Punturaumporn.

Last year was the first that Sabina had participated in the shopping festivals. Apart from experiencing online success, the company also developed new lingerie collections it says caters to changing demands and requirements of today’s consumers.

Outside Thailand, Vietnam was a standout market, with Sabina achieving 25.7 percent year-on-year growth there. Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar also saw good growth, he said.

Sabina also manufactures products for European retailers, but that side of its business posted a lackluster result, with sales up a mere 0.1 percent.

Meanwhile, the company says that last year 37 percent of its products were made in China through sub-contract manufacturing with local factories, the majority 63 percent made in its own Thai factories. But since the coronavirus hit this year, Sabina has migrated some contract manufacturing from Mainland China to Vietnam, spreading its risk factor as well as becoming a base for the Vietnamese market, which has shown strong growth potential.