AllHome Corp., the listed retail arm of the Villar group, on Thursday said it was able to capitalize on its store formats and its locations that are already in existing communities or in close proximity to residential developments.
Its location, in communities many of which were developed by its sister firm Vista Land and Lifescapes Inc., proved to be an advantage during the community quarantine period when customers minimized travel to and from their homes to buy essential products, the company said. “We were able to generate sales from our pop-up store This augmented the company’s financial capacity to brace the challenging circumstances,” Benjamarie Therese N. Serrano, the company’s president, said.
The presence of supermarkets of All Value retail, the Villar group’s privately held company that operates coffee shops, convenience stores and grocery stores, has proved invaluable to AllHome during the lockdown, she said. The supermarket presence provided an advantage as AllHome put up complementary pop-up stores that provided essential home products to the customers.
AllHome also capitalized on the sudden acceleration of Filipinos’ adoption of e-commerce due to the lockdown as it relied on previously built-up social media assets to stay connected to its market. It used engaging content on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and even Pinterest, to market to customers looking for various home improvement products, the company said. Despite the lockdown, the company’s income in the first quarter rose 30 percent to P270.2 million, from last year’s P207.1 million, mainly as a result of its aggressive expansion.
Revenues for the period rose 41 percent to P3.4 billion from P2.4 billion in the same period in 2019, the company said.
“Over the course of the ECQ [enhanced community quarantine], AllHome launched two Viber communities for two different consumer sets. One, shop online at All Home for end users; and two, All Home Builders Shopping that targeted contractors and other related-industry professionals,” said Camille A. Villar, company vice chairman.
“Amassing a remarkable 7,438 and 1,413 members, respectively, over the ECQ period, these communities pushed product and promotional content, highlighted AllHome’s safety policies, and created awareness for AllHome’s presence on other e-commerce platforms.”
AllHome also tapped into the activity of all community-based Viber and Facebook groups that were natural customer fits for its 45 store locations across the country, thereby using these as additional alternative digital selling platforms nationwide.
“All these further proved AllHome’s ability to quickly move and rise to the challenge,” she said.