Saha Pathanapibul Plc, the country's leading consumer products conglomerate, plans to beef up its strategic partnership with local wholesalers nationwide to strengthen its long-term sales growth.
Chairman Boonchai Chokwatana said business alliances with wholesalers nationwide is one of three new key business strategies being applied to ensure the group's long-term sales growth.
The other two are getting more local product and brand owners to use Sahapat as their distributor, and online sales expansion.
"I've yet to see any improvements in spending on consumer products this quarter, but I believe our sales will grow 9% this year, more than doubling 2017's numbers, because of the successful strategic partnerships formed with 200 wholesalers for food and household business last year," he said.
"The company will continue to find more wholesale partnerships to distribute its food and household products."
Mr Boonchai said the partnership scheme will not only help curb price dumping, but also enable wholesale partners to sell more products and earn more income, as Sahapat conducts market analytics for them. The company, in turn, can secure a steadier stream of purchase orders from its partners, he said.
As a result, the company can more efficiently plan logistics management, said Mr Boonchai.
Sahapat has used the strategic partnership scheme with wholesalers of Mama instant noodles and the Pro detergent brand and plans to extend the programme to other popular items.
Sales of 23% of its instant noodles and detergent come from these wholesale partnerships.
Mr Boonchai said the company also aims to increase online distribution channels through both business-to-business and business-to-consumer distribution channels and partners' online platforms.
Last year, there were 500 small distributors ordering products via online channels.
The number of small distributors who order products via Sahapat's online platform is expected to rise to 2,000 this year. The company expects online sales via such small distributors to be over 40 million baht in 2018, more than double last year.
He said the company also plans to work closer with a number of brand owners for product distribution.
Last month, firm was appointed to distribute Vinamilk, the No.1 yoghurt brand in Vietnam. The company expects to generate sales of 60 million baht from Vinamilk this year.
If target sales of Vinamilk are reached, the product could be produced at Saha Group's facility.
Mr Boonchai said the company is also in talks with Dorco, the leading Korean manufacturer of disposable razors, to sell their products in Thailand.
In a related development, he said the company plans to spend 1 billion baht to build a 50,000-square-metre central warehouse on a 50-rai plot in Sri Racha, Chon Buri this year.
Sahapat reported total revenue last year of 32 billion baht, down from 33.4 billion in 2016, with net profit of 1.53 billion, up from 1.37 billion.
"Our sales revenue missed the target last year, but we are quite satisfied as the profit grew in 2017," said Mr Boonchai.
