Digital shopping enabled

Supermarket chain operator Puregold Price Club Inc. is expanding its online grocery shopping to 100 stores by the end of the year as it anticipates a shift in consumer shopping behavior resulting from the COVID-19 situation. The listed Lucio Co-led retailer on Wednesday said it plans to increase the number of stores available for digital shopping in its Puregold Mobile App to 100 stores from the current 40 stores. “Puregold will also continue its expansion program by opening 25 new Puregold stores and has opened two S&R membership shopping warehouse in 2020. This will provide our shoppers better convenience especially now that travel is limited due to quarantine,” Puregold said in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange.

As of the end of last year, the Puregold group had a total of 436 stores nationwide, including 380 Puregold stores, 18 S&R membership shopping warehouses and 38 S&R New York Style quick service restaurants, bringing its total net selling area to around 565,000 square meters.

Puregold saw 16 percent higher consolidated core net income in 2019, to P6.75 billion from P5.82 billion in 2018, driven by robust consumer spending during the year.