Rapid Growth in Food and Meal Delivery... Online Retail Sales Increased by 15% Last Year

Sales Trends of Major Retailers in 2024
Online Sales Drive Overall Growth, Surpassing Offline Channels

Last year, sales of online retailers increased by 15%. This was the result of growth in food, e-coupons, and food delivery through online channels.

According to the '2024 Major Retailers Sales Trends' announced by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy on the 23rd, sales of major retailers rose by 8.2% year-on-year, with both offline (2.0%) and online (15.0%) sales increasing.

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The growth in online sales drove the overall sales increase. A ministry official stated, "Online sales grew mainly in food (22.1%) and services such as e-coupons, food delivery, and performance and travel tickets (58.3%), despite the Tmon incident and strengthened entry of overseas platforms into the domestic market." He added, "As consumption channels rapidly shift online, the difference in sales growth rates between online and offline widened significantly from 1.5 percentage points in 2023 to 13 percentage points in 2024."

Offline sales showed mixed results: large discount stores decreased by 0.8%, while department stores (1.4%), convenience stores (4.3%), and semi-large stores (4.6%) saw sales growth. Large discount stores experienced sluggish non-food sales (-7.9%) despite growth in food sales (2.3%). Semi-large stores maintained growth due to an increase in store numbers, expanded demand for home-cooked meals, and a trend of small purchases near home. Convenience stores consistently grew, briefly surpassing department stores in sales share in the second half of 2024, but due to the December seasonal boost for department stores such as Christmas, the annual results showed a 0.1 percentage point difference, with department stores maintaining a higher share.

Last year, the online sales share of total sales reached 50.6%, up 4.3 percentage points from 47.3% in 2023. A ministry official explained, "Since July last year, Tmon and Wemakeprice were excluded from online sales, adjusting the 2023 sales share from 50.5% to 47.3%. Online sales had already surpassed offline sales in 2023."

By product category across online and offline channels, shares declined in home appliances and culture (-0.9 percentage points), fashion and accessories (-1.2 percentage points), and children and sports (-0.6 percentage points) due to weakened consumer sentiment and the impact of overseas direct purchases. Meanwhile, food (0.7 percentage points) and services and others (2.2 percentage points) saw an increase in sales share.