Puregold expects double-digit growth in revenues this year

By Denise A. Valdez, Reporter

PUREGOLD Price Club, Inc. expects to see double-digit growth in revenues this year, as it partnered with Globe Fintech Innovations, Inc. (Mynt) to introduce a new payments system using mobile wallet GCash in its supermarkets.

The wholly owned company of Globe Telecom, Inc. launched yesterday a new payment method, initially available in all Puregold stores across the country, which will allow customers to pay by scanning a barcode generated in the GCash mobile application.

Puregold Vice-President for Operations Antonio E. De Los Santos said the enhanced payment system through GCash is seen to drive higher sales for the company.

“We declared between 8-10% growth for sales (this year). This (GCash barcode payment system) should help bring us to the higher level, double digits,” he told reporters in a media briefing in Quezon City.

“With innovations like this, we’ll be able to attract more shoppers. They will be able to shop more frequently… So far on track naman kami [we’re on track to reach our sales guidance],” Mr. De Los Santos added.

The scan-to-pay system is expected to improve the speed of grocery shopping through GCash to three seconds, from the previous 45 seconds using the GCash quick response (QR) codes.

In December 2017, GCash launched a QR payment system in Puregold stores, which allowed shoppers to pay using the mobile wallet by scanning a static QR code mounted on payment sites.

Mynt Vice-President for Merchant Solutions James Mauricio Aujero said Puregold is currently the company’s number one retail partner, growing threefold over the past year with 40-50 million monthly transactions valued at P2,000-2,500 each transaction.

“It’s been growing really fast. Month-on-month, Puregold remains to be our biggest retail partner, both in volume and value,” he said.

Mr. Aujero said the scan-to-pay barcode system will eventually be deployed to more merchants as this is the “natural evolution” of cashless payments. But he noted GCash will continue rolling out static QR codes to tap more retail partners such as sari-sari stores.

The company led by tycoon Lucio C. Co grew consolidated net sales by 12.8% to P34.83 billion in the first quarter of 2019, bringing profit 11.9% higher to P1.51 billion. It is allocating P5.2 billion in capital expenditures to finance expansion plans this year.