Panda Mart calls security as huge crowd swamps retailer

Shoppers Bree McCurdy and Cherish Brimelow visited on Monday after seeing it on social media and said they were impressed with the low prices and wide range of goods.

“We saw it on TikTok. There [were] people making fun of the things [in stock] here … but we’ve been finding some great things,” Brimelow said.

The pair of friends hadn’t intended to buy anything but departed the store with cushions, stationery, portable whiteboards, pens and a giant stuffed bear.

“Shipping is such a big thing online, whereas here you can just come down and get what you need in person at a similar price,” McCurdy said.

Chen is hoping Panda Mart can differentiate itself from e-commerce juggernauts such as Temu by having only a bricks-and-mortar offering.

“We want customers to feel the real goods, to see the real price. So they pay, and they know what they are paying,” he said. “Once they think [it is] worth it, they can take it and pay. Something online, you only can see pictures, you can’t really feel them … It might be difficult for customers to have what they really want.”

Panda Mart is in the Cranbourne HomeCo centre. Its Preston site sits across from Northland Shopping Centre and is due to open later this year.

The retailer, founded in South Africa more than a decade ago and with more than 100 superstores across New Zealand, South America, the United States and Africa, intends to open more sites across Australia.

“We want to open in big cities that have more people, and then we might open smaller stores, like 3 to 4000 square metres in shopping centres,” said Chen.

Cost-of-living pressures have pushed customers towards low-cost international retailers, including Shein and Amazon, which have undercut local retailers struggling to compete. Nearly 4 million Australians have purchased from Temu at least once in the year to August, while 2 million Australians have made a purchase from Shein, according to Roy Morgan data.

Temu is expected to exceed $2 billion in sales.

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