KUALA LUMPUR: Retailers are less optimistic about their prospects in 2023, expecting a drop in both sales value and volume.
This is due to continued global uncertainty, including a potential escalation of the Russia-Ukraine War, the tension in the Taiwan Strait and a prolonged sell-down in most stock exchanges.
This insight follows Small and Medium Enterprises Association Malaysia's (Samenta) two recent surveys, a Mid-Term State of the SMEs Survey in July in partnership with Affin Bank and a September survey on Retail Outlook and Predictions 2023.
Samenta chairman Datuk William Ng said this was primarily driven by political and economic uncertainty, an increase in the Overnight Policy Rate (OPR) and the normalisation of "revenge shopping" post-pandemic.
"Our retailers, especially the SMEs, are facing a quadruple whammy of downward pressure on sales, slower than larger firms' recovery, a rapid increase in costs and a severe shortage of workers.
"This is not only hampering growth and recovery but is debilitating to our quest to have a vibrant retail sector as one of the cornerstones of our economy," he said in a statement today.
Ng said Samenta was working with the government including the Malaysia Productivity Corporation (MPC) and Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation to help support affected SME retailers to digitalise, improve their productivity and cushion their labour and costs issues.
These include initiatives such as the SME digital transformation and productivity orogramme launched in partnership with MPC to transform 1,000 SME retailers into digital-ready and digital-first businesses.
"Typically, we will prefer if businesses are left alone – to compete fairly.
"But these are unusual times, and we will need quick government intervention to rebuild consumer (and trade) confidence, contain costs pressure and ease the labour crunch," he added.
Formed in 1986, Samenta is Malaysia's oldest and largest association for SMEs.
Source: https://www.nst.com.my/business/2022/10/844355/malaysian-retailers-expect-difficult-2023