Mahmudul Hasan and Sukanta Halder

Clothing retailers are increasingly focusing on online sales amidst the surge in coronavirus infections as they seek to salvage their sales during the two biggest spending seasons--Pahela Baishakh and Eid-ul-Fitr.

The rising caseloads left the clothing brand executives to apprehend a repeat of last year’s situation when sales plunged to less than 10 per cent during the two seasons, which accounted for about 50 per cent of their total annual sales before the pandemic hit the country in March last year.

The stores are now arming themselves with better automation for online sales, building their delivery mechanisms or partnering with logistic aggregators, setting a target to make at least 20 per cent of the sales online.

The strategy of lifestyle brand Sara is worth emulating as it has built a new unit to cater to online orders.

“Now we can deliver products through our own arrangement in Dhaka city,” said SM Khaled, managing director of Sara Lifestyle, which has five outlets and witnessed an annual growth of 100 per cent since its 2018 launch.

“We have built a small but efficient team with IT experts, technicians and a fleet of delivery personnel so that we can deliver our product to customers in the capital in the shortest possible time,” he said.

The brand’s customers can also order clothes from anywhere in the country as district-level deliveries are being made through partner logistic companies.

Sara’s online sales jumped to 10 per cent of its overall sales in 2020, up from 2 per cent in 2019.

photo: SK Enamul Haq