(Bloomberg) -- Robinsons Retail Holdings Inc. plans to increase its e-commerce business to between 2% and 3% of total sales this year by expanding the company’s online presence through its own Internet platforms and others.

The Philippine retailer’s e-commerce sales reached 1.1% of total revenue last year, up from 0.4% in 2019, as consumers migrated to online purchases because of the pandemic, according to a release from the company distributed in a virtual investors’ briefing Friday. Robinsons Retail s profit fell 25% last year as net sales dropped 7.3% to 151.03 billion pesos ($3.11 billion).

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The company will add more business units in GoRobinsons, one of three e-commerce platforms it operates, and will continue selling via third-party platforms, it said.

Robinsons Retail, which operates supermarkets, grocers, drug stores and specialty shops, said it’s budgeting between 3 billion pesos and 5 billion pesos this year to add 80 to 120 stores. Spending fell 40% to 2 billion pesos in 2020 as the pandemic curbed expansion and consumer demand.

Other highlights:

• Growsari Inc., a grocery-delivery service for smaller stores, plans to double its number of clients this year and increase gross merchandise value as much as threefold from 2 billion pesos in 2020.
• Robinsons Retail forecasts growth in same-store sales will be flat to 3% this year after shrinking 8.9% in 2020.
• The company forecasts that its gross margin this year will be unchanged or will rise by up to 20 basis points after it slipped to 21.8% of sales in 2020.

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