Why Sheng Siong should scale up its e-commerce efforts

E-commerce turnovers contributed less than 1% of total sales in Q1.

Supermarket giant Sheng Siong is losing to its competitors in terms of e-commerce initiatives.

UOB KayHian said in the face of rising competition from NTUC, Redmart and possibly Amazon, SSG has not expanded its e-commerce presence in Singapore.

"We estimate that out of SSG’s 1Q17 sales, e-commerce related turnover accounted for less than 1% of total sales," UOB KayHian noted.

The brokerage firm said this static effort could be attributed to the conservative nature of SSG’s management.

"However, we believe the company should be taking a much more aggressive approach to expanding its e-commerce reach in Singapore," it noted.