Wilcon Depot Inc. reported that its sales have been encouraging in the third quarter of the year after the reopening of its stores and as consumers spent more for non e-core products such as appliances and home-improvement.
“When we opened in May, we did not expect that, people would flood to our stores, despite the restrictions, despite the limit on the customers that are allowed to go inside, it was really very encouraging,” said Wilcon President Lorraine Belo-Cincochan.
She noted that, there was pent up demand for some “soft goods” as against the core hardware and construction products.
“We've seen we've seen an upsurge in the categories that are non-core…What happened was people locked up in their homes really saw all four corners of their houses, their rooms, like every crack every busted light bulb so when we opened in May, they were really coming into Wilcon to repair and replace these damages,” Belo-Cincochan said.
She added that, since people were staying home, they were buying more furniture and home appliances for their home offices or classrooms as well as to replace those that suffered higher wear and tear.
Belo-Cincochan said that, as quarantine measures continued to ease, “there have been improvements in terms of foot traffic and in terms of sales. I do not want to preempt it because we're not yet finished with September, but we're still hopeful that it will give us better results.”
She added that, their performance in September is even better than in August as all stores are now fully operational. “I guess we can see some good numbers for the third quarter,” said Belo-Cincochan.
Wilcon is targeting to complete the construction and opening of two more stores before the end of the year to end 2020 with 63 stores—two short of its initial goal due to disruptions caused by the pandemic. However, Wilcon Chief Operating Officer Rosemari Ong said they will make up for this next year by opening a total of nine stores in 2021.