Taipei, Oct. 25 (CNA) In response to an emerging clientele of nighttime shoppers, Taiwanese supermarket chain PX Mart on Monday announced plans to turn 10 of its stores in the Greater Taipei area into 24-hour outlets that would take orders online and offer round-the-clock rapid delivery services within 5 kilometers of its sites by the end of this year.
Data collected by PX Mart showed that more consumers seemed to be shopping online late at night.
That prompted the supermarket chain to begin offering 24-hour online order and rapid delivery services at four of its stores in Taipei and New Taipei cities recently.
The chain offers around 2,000 products that are sold online, including fresh and frozen food, vegetables, fruits, food with a long shelf life, and other groceries.
According to PX Mart statistics, the three best-selling products at night are drinks, snacks and microwavable food.
PX Mart plans to expand the 24-hour online and rapid delivery service to a total of 10 stores by the end of this year and to all of its stores around Taiwan next year, it said.
Currently, round-the-clock rapid delivery at the four stores in Taipei and New Taipei cities is only available within 3 km of the store, but such service will be available within 5 km of the 10 stores once the program is in full operation, the company said.
PX Mart's operations have become increasingly diversified in recent years. It launched a home delivery service in collaboration with Uber Eats in the beginning of this year, including a one-hour express delivery service.
The one-hour rapid delivery service mainly covers the Greater Taipei area with 50 outlets included in the initial period, but has now been extended to 200 stores around Taiwan, including Keelung, Taoyuan, Taichung and Kaohsiung cities.
Following the successful launch of the service less than one year ago, the value of its orders rose 40 percent, while the order volume surged 60 percent, with a repurchase rate of more than 70 percent, PX Mart said.
The latest announcement came after PX Mart said last week it will acquire Taiwanese hyper market chain RT-Mart and the acquisition should be completed in mid-2022.
