Retail SMEs bullish on peak season but wary of growing pains

Majority said operational complexity is limiting their growth.

Retail small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Hong Kong are heading into peak shopping season with strong confidence in customer demand, but face growing operational challenges, an Airwallex report revealed.

Some 89% said they expect higher sales on Singles’ Day than last year, including 38% who expect sales to rise by more than 30%.

Concerns about operational readiness, however, temper optimism as 92% said operational complexity is limiting their ability to grow as quickly as they would like.

More than half said it has reduced their profitability or margins (57%) and increased operating costs (56%).

On average, retail SMEs spend 10% of their operational time, or roughly four hours a week, dealing with operational and financial complexity.

“As businesses expand across online and physical channels and look to serve both local shoppers and overseas visitors, the complexity of managing payments, financial operations and business data grows alongside them,” said Arnold Chan, APAC general manager at Airwallex.

“The challenge for many SMEs is converting growth into profitable growth, which increasingly depends on how well they can manage the systems, payments and financial operations behind the customer experience,” he added.

Maintaining visibility and control as retailers expand across online and offline channels has also become a challenge.

Two-thirds say managing payments across channels has become more difficult as their business grows, whilst 66% say disconnected e-commerce, point-of-sale and business systems prevent them from gaining a complete view of business performance.

Much of the resulting work remains manual, with 63% of retailers still reconciling payments by hand, 56% relying on manual financial reporting, and 55% on manual inventory reporting.

Such processes limit teams’ capacity to focus on strategic priorities and make it harder for retail SMEs to maintain efficiency and control as operations become more complex, according to Airwallex.

Meanwhile, improving online-to-offline customer experiences emerged as the leading growth priority, cited by 66% of respondents.

More than half (55%) are prioritising the introduction of additional payment methods over the next 12 months, most often to attract inbound visitors and tourists (42%) and better serve older consumers (38%).

These reasons for introducing additional payment methods ranked ahead of improving conversion and sales (35%) and reaching younger shoppers (29%), reflecting efforts to cater to evolving customer segments, including the silver economy and inbound visitors, said Airwallex.

The research was commissioned by Airwallex and conducted by Censuswide amongst 350 retail SME decision-makers in the city between 17 and 24 September 2026.