Macau Matters | Why no online grocery shopping?

Richard Whitfield

In many parts of the developed world people have been able to go online, shop for groceries and other things and have them home delivered for years. Every week, for example, I receive special wine deal emails and I take up one of the offers every few months, pay online and the wine is delivered to my father in Australia. However, this is still not possible in Macau, which is compact and densely populated and where we have one of the highest average incomes in Asia. The problem must be incompetence in the retail sector, the banking sector or the government, but in any case it is just not good enough and we should be demanding much better.
Home deliveries from most Macau supermarkets, wine merchants and some other shops has been possible for years. The major exception seems to be frozen goods because the home delivery trucks do no have freezer space, which is an easily solved problem if the demand is there. Thus, the problem is (mostly) not in the delivery infrastructure, which is quite inexpensive given the high population density in Macau.
It should also not be in the technology to set up online shopping portals. For years, Park ‘n’
Shop (see www.parknshop.com/WebShop/index.do) and the other major supermarket chains in Hong Kong have had extensive online presences where you can buy a long list of fresh, chilled and frozen foods and other items and get everything home delivered. Given that we have the same supermarket chain in Macau I am baffled as to why they have not replicated the Hong Kong system here.
There does seem to be a bank or monetary authority problem in that setting up online credit card payments in Macau. I know of several people who have asked local banks about doing this and they have been told it is not possible. Again, this is incomprehensible given that online credit card payments are very easy to do in Hong Kong, China and Portugal and the banks here are mostly subsidiaries of banks in these other places. Shopping cart software is also standard. Turbojet and some other companies offer online ferry ticket and other bookings in Macau, but they seem to be working through their Hong Kong offices. I suspect that the main problem lies with the Macau Monetary Authority, which is a totally unacceptable situation.
For years I have been saying that to add value and to enable economic diversification, Macau needs to be a showcase for high technology. When tourists come here they should feel that they are coming to the future, a showcase of what their home towns can aspire to be. Then, when tourists go home and start asking for a Macau level quality of life, Macau people can provide the expertise and products for other places in the region to upgrade themselves. Unfortunately, nowadays, many tourists must consider Macau to be a backwards “sleepy hollow”.
Macau is small and rich so that it is relatively easy to achieve 21st century quality of life here – it just needs competence in the government to create a local economy that encourages and values creativity and innovation and a local business sector populated by people with vision and a willingness to invest. Sadly, both seem to be missing. We deserve better in Macau, but we will not get it until we demand it, so start making some noise about improving things in Macau. For starters, I would really like to be able to shop online in Macau, pay by credit card and have goods home delivered – is it too much to ask?