• Increasing Accessibility of Purchase; if owning a small or medium enterprise, e-commerce is an uncommon way of gaining access to local and international markets.

• Cost-effectiveness; operating cost are significantly inadequate on selling online and lesser logistical expenses.

• Learning and Optimizing through Customer Data; provides detailed data and dynamic operation.

Resources and efforts

• Warehousing and stocks

• Delivery

• Customer Service

• Exchange and returns

Example

Checking out Shopify (http://www.shopify.com/), which is an e-commerce website solution tool that works in a similar way to the website builder tools.

The website of local online grocer, RedMart (redmart.com), is an example of how a smooth and functional user experience can be like. They have combined an easy to browse web catalog with secure transactions and reliable delivery service for a success formula. You can also gain more inspiration from FarEastFlora (fareastflora.com).

Tip

What is your marketing strategy?

Who is going to buy from you?

What are your competitors doing?

What do you want your site to do?

What types of resources will the business need?

Which e-commerce platform are you going to use?

How far will the business cast its net?

What is your customer service policy?

How are you going to attract new customers online?

How can you convert browsers into buyers?

Melvados/ Foodedge Gourmet

Learn about the benefits of digital innovation from Mr Manmeet Singh, CEO of Foodedge Gourmet Pte Ltd, who shares about the challenges he faced in his business and how adding an online ordering channel significantly increased his company’s sales in spite of a competitive food industry.

Please tell us more about your business.

Melvados Singapore is the retail brand of Foodedge Gourmet, a Singapore-based wholesale bakery and kitchen. We supply food and beverage products to key clients such as major airlines, restaurants, hotels, country clubs, supermarkets, convenience stores, care chains, office pantries and fine dining outlets in Singapore. Since 2002, Foodedge Gourmet has grown to become an influential business in the wholesale food and beverage industry with a company of 70 staff serving the needs of more than 400 clients countrywide.

Our tagline is “Your Outsource Chef” which represents our commitment to provide gourmet food of every kind from appetizers to desserts. Our business’ core strength is the ability to provide any business, eatery or otherwise, customized products at wholesale prices. Small teams work with our various clients daily to create unique and exclusive products for their businesses. All our food inventions are created and baked right here in Singapore. Some of the extraordinary creations include Tuna Ice Cream and Foie Gras Ice Cream.

The aim of Melvados is to meet the rising needs of food-loving Singapore residents who are too busy to whip up a gourmet meal for themselves. Our own passion for food is what led us to create a host of ready–to-eat meals and delicious desserts perfect for hectic days at work, to feed busy school children in between classes, for dinner parties, potlucks and even BBQs. These products are sold online and at our newly opened retail outlet in Joo Chiat.

What are some of the biggest challenges you face in your business?

Some of the difficulties we faced have to do with getting sufficient manpower. In our early years, it was hard to convince people to take a chance in our start-up and join us full time. Although we are more established now, it has become increasingly difficult to get staff to work on the production lines, especially with stringent rules on obtaining foreign labour.

The competitive nature of the industry coupled with the small size of the Singapore market pose another challenge. There’s only so much you can achieve in Singapore before you hit a plateau in terms of growth. That’s why we are looking for opportunities to expand overseas, which we consider as the next phase of our company’s evolution.

What was your marketing strategy and what groundwork did you have to do before embarking on e-commerce?

Our company’s vision has always been to think big. That’s why we devote our time into developing two strong pillars for our business – the wholesale and the retail channels. To grow our retail brand Melvados, we employed e-commerce solutions and other online platforms.

When we started, we were only a small, but nimble, team and were strapped for cash. Hence, we relied heavily on ourselves, studying basic research materials like books and research papers to understand how the e-commerce medium works. We also asked some of our wholesale clients who had successfully implemented e-commerce and social media to learn from their advice and experiences.

How did you set up your e-commerce platform and why?

We started by creating a comprehensive website with purchase capabilities. On ground, we readied the infrastructure to deal with increased sales so that our delivery trucks will continue to provide efficient service. We also set up a Facebook page and heavily promoted it via emailers to encourage customers to explore our online options and share their positive experiences. Complementing our online store, we have monthly food sampling at our factory for those who are hesitant to come and try before they buy. It’s also a way for us to engage with them face-to-face.

How are the results?

Our retail sales increased 10% after the first year of launch. A recent in-house marketing survey conducted showed that a majority of our clients found us through word-of-mouth either by friends or family. Surprisingly, our wholesale clientele also increased their orders with some wanting to buy in bulk and others using our customization services for the first time. With such encouraging results, we decided to revamp our website, which was built in 2006, to better suit the present market conditions and consumers’ preferences.

Any advice for SMEs wanting to go into e-commerce?

The biggest hurdle we faced as a small start-up was the need to make decisions and do everything with limited knowledge. This delayed our progress because we had to learn on the job, and fast. We made many mistakes along the way while tackling all other daily processes hand-in-hand. We also fell behind because we didn’t have the time or capability to consistently monitor the industry. On hindsight, I think we would’ve done better if we had invested in hiring a professional.

My advice for start-ups is to engage professional experts who’ll teach you the ropes. It is definitely a worthy investment in a fast-paced and dynamic industry especially in the F&B sector. You have to be quick and versatile to keep up with the market, and a consultant with vast experiences can help put in place systems that effectively react to changes.

• Create opportunities to bring customers online to in store to sustain the engagement

• Learn from the experiences of others who have done it

Frockalicious

Jennifer Choi, founder of successful fashion and retail online shop Frockalicious, recollects her self-taught journey of web coding and transforming the business and sales platform from a simple Facebook page into an online shopping catalogue. Read on to find out more.

Please tell us more about your business.

As an avid online shopper, I was tired of feeling disappointed whenever I buy and receive poor quality clothes from blog shops on the Internet. I decided that with my passion for fashion, I would develop a more reliable and rewarding service. Hence, I started Frockalicious in March 2011.

At the start, we started out selling mainly clothing such as casual smocks, formal outfits, tunic dresses and sheath dresses. We curate a selection of fabulous looking clothes inspired by designers, runway shows and unknown designers from across the globe for our customers. Subsequently, we added pretty items for accessories such as bags, shoes, etc.

What are some of the challenges you faced in your business?

I had a partner for approximately 8 months, but she decided to be a full-time mum. Therefore, it is pretty much a one woman show at the moment. In this business, I encounter three main challenges.

• Stock management – Customers often do not know their measurements and end up buying something that cannot fit. The exchanges usually result in plenty of leftover stocks.

• Customer service – No matter how unreasonable or nasty the customer is, and how much you feel like telling the customer off, you know you have to hold back because that would be just as unprofessional. So you have to take a lot of care and attention while crafting a response. I realise I cannot please each and every customer; hence I am appreciative for my handful of loyal and happy customers.

• Competitive pricing – With many blog shops selling at really low prices, some customers tend to compare them with our pricing without realising that it is not quite an apple-to-apple comparison in the fashion business because of the difference in design, trends and materials.

What was your marketing strategy and what ground work did you have to do before embarking on e-commerce?

Before embarking on e-commerce, my selling was handled primarily through Facebook as it was easier to do an initial set up. Low entry cost plus the ability to market new stuff through people’s Facebook wall when they “Like” what they see lets me grow my sales quicker than it would have been if I started with e-commerce.

As the volume of orders increased, I needed a more efficient platform. I did a landscape analysis to see what competitors from low to high end fashion retailers, as well as extremely successful local blog shops, are doing online. With that knowledge, I drew up a list of what I wanted, searched out for an affordable server host and purchased easy-to-use software that will enable me to develop the e-commerce website by my own. As I gained more experience through reading and learning, I am also starting to implement tagging, Google analytics and SEO technologies to increase customer traffic to my website.

What e-commerce platform did you use and why?

I chose WordPress.org as it is low-cost, easy enough for a newbie (with some basic technology knowledge) to get started. All I needed to do was to search for a design theme that could be purchased at a reasonable price, install it and I was good to go. Right now, I am taking orders from the website as well as Facebook because that was how the business was started. Within the next year, I hope to shift all the purchasing to the e-shop.

Any advice for SMEs wanting to go into e-commerce?

Invest in technology. Get an expert to build the engine for you so you have more time to think about other things like strategy, marketing, buying instead of fixing codes.

• Observe what the competitors in the landscape are doing

• Improve and enhance e-platforms and tools as volume increases

OuterEdit

How can a local upstart punch above its weight and make a difference on the global stage? Find out how from Ryan Tan, founder of online fashion retail shop, OuterEdit, who made use of digital technology and the power of connectivity it offers to make this dream a possibility.

Please tell us more about your business.

We started OuterEdit from a standpoint of wanting to make a difference in the international graphic t-shirt scene. We wanted to do that not only by featuring or commissioning the best creative talents around the world, but by enabling global graphic collaborations. We wanted to give groups (typically 5 at one time) the ability to explore and create killer artwork together that would otherwise not be achievable by the efforts of one individual. And these stunning works of art can be marketed and live on as OuterEdit tees.

Collaborations at such a scale haven’t been done before in the world of graphic t-shirts, so this was a truly bold and exciting project for us. Not only because we proved that such a world changing platform can be launched from our tiny island of Singapore, but also because it was a fresh idea that had attracted the attention and participation of renowned creatives worldwide.

With OuterEdit Collab, it doesn’t matter whether you are big or small time, local or international. Our unique 5-way group structure creates a dynamic setup that everyone can enjoy being a part of (for e.g. local creatives get matched up with internationally acclaimed designers or artists). This creates an environment that values individual creativity and craft, treating them as an integral element to create the best t-shirts for the world.

Through the way we curate our OuterEdit Collab, we also hope to shine a light on the usually opaque process of creativity and feature the real heroes behind all the stunning visuals we see hanging around our towns every day.

What are some of the challenges you face in your business?

A lot of people think that running your own outfit comes loaded with perks and a flexible lifestyle. While this may be partly true, we also feel we’ve never had to work this hard in our lives before. There exists a daily internal battle that I think only fellow-entrepreneurs would fully understand. But knowing that you’re pursuing your own thing makes it all worth it. It becomes that extra source of energy you need to withstand the challenges of the day-to-day. Apart from this, other challenges would inevitably include:

• Having to build your own brand and “street cred” from ground-up with limited time and resources.

• Being responsive in an extremely dynamic, fast-paced and ever-evolving social media environment while taking care to maintain any nurture every relationship.

• Getting compared to other online t-shirt store offerings, which is a given with the competitive nature of industry. But OuterEdit’s proposition of producing t-shirt graphics through global collaboration is a true blue Singaporean original, and I believe that makes us much more than just another graphic t-shirt shop. Still it is important to remain fluid with the times, focus on what we’re good at, and through a careful interplay of resources and tact, stay ahead of the competition.

What was your marketing strategy and what groundwork did you have to do before embarking on e-commerce?

We knew our online success depended on getting the word about OuterEdit out. Lots of groundwork had to be done to gain a deeper understanding of our target consumer profile, needs and preferences, but unfortunately we had to work with extremely limited marketing resources.

To solve this, we relied on the O/E collaborators to become our OuterEdit ambassadors who will help to generate awareness and patronage of our t-shirts among their large followings. It did the job not only among our target consumers in Singapore, but in the region and rest of the world. We just needed to focus our attention on accommodating international orders, currencies, and payment and delivery methods.

What e-commerce platform did you use and why?

We scoured the Internet for a suitable e-commerce platform that could serve our specialised needs but none seem to fit the bill back then. So we decided to custom-build one just for OuterEdit.

How are the results since launch?

I can’t share figures or elude to them at this stage, but what I can say is that our investment in e-commerce have greatly helped us inch towards our goal of ‘glocalization’, and reach a state where the majority of our sales not only come domestically from Singapore, but also internationally from parts of Europe and Japan.

Any advice for SMEs wanting to go into e-commerce?

The decision to adopt e-commerce in one’s business model is a serious one and can introduce a lot of complications to the strategic and day-to-day operations of your company.

Try not to think of e-commerce as a convenient magic solution, but ensure that it is in-line with the strategic direction of the company. Study how it will affect your business structure, and the marketing and ground operations that have to be integrated with an online storefront; so that when you decide to implement it, you can reap the full benefit of e-commerce and optimize your business.

• Build customer relationships through social media platforms

• Awareness and understanding of market behaviour is vital for business modelling