Request for advice regarding transition from retail store to e-commerce

The best thing you could do is to hire an intern(pay them) or new graduate with a proven background in SEO & Social Media marketing. Marketing your business is a full-time job and you will get good results if you hire someone that knows what they're doing.

Put an ad on Craigslist or the local community college job board.



Interesting,using durian in your desserts.

Hi there TS,

I'm from Singapore too and I've tried your Durains Puffs. There were AMAZING .
That being said, what I think you need is someone who can help you with website SEO and directing Organic traffic to it. I have a friend who is an expert on this . You may want to consult his expertise on it and see if you are willing to try his expertise. Do PM me if you are interested

Cheers
Gabriel

I have used paid traffic in the past...stuff like facebook ads and bing ads. They worked really well. Also i would recommend doing a review video and uploading it to youtube. customers these days prefer to watch a review before making a purchase

Didn't realize that you were based in Singapore. Have you approached retail/grocery stores to sell your product? That's another possible income stream.

Hi Sunlife..

I run an offline bricks and mortar store and also have online ecommerce businesses.

You may want to consider an approach that targets larger organisations that wants to have a community involvement and reward it's staff with your product.

One business I set up was initially targeted at local clientele but what has happened it it has grown into a national supplier and become a preferred supplier to a number of organisations.

You may want to combine your online efforts with some offline marketing by just mailing some larger businesses and leverage the brands you show on your page as supporters and explain just as you have in your post that you support "low-wage" "Older" workers and you would appreciate their support to keep these people gainfully employed and at the same time make their staff happy by "subscribing" to a weekly delivery of XXX number of puffs or whatever on a specific day each week.

My best clients have been larger corporates, banks and educational institutions.

You may find that establishing a link or landing page for these corporate clients to order volume quantities the most profitable way to go.

You may find you could leverage local media to do a good news story of how your business is bringing joy to both workers and to consumers.

Promote the volume and the happiness your product brings.

Do you have capacity to supply a business like Singapore Airlines...for example?

Bet those puffs would be welcomed by any one of their passengers.

Hi everyone! Firstly, thank you so much for taking the time to post a reply and sharing your thoughts. All of these are extremely valuable and I appreciate all the advice given !


Hi violet0176, yes we have tried approaching grocery stores previously. So far, we have only received a reply from one of the largest grocery chain in Singapore. Unfortunately, they will require a 6 month credit term, and it is not one that our small business can work with at the moment. We will continue to explore the possibility of supplying to local cafes as an alternative approach though. Thanks for the suggestion !


Hi Gabriel, thanks for taking the time to follow-up on this thread! Yes, I absolutely agree with your comment that people will not usually do a Google search for our products unless they are really craving for it and are sourcing for possible places that carry such products. As with most food items, it is indeed a matter of convenience for most customers, and they are unlikely to travel all the way across Singapore to a shopping mall just to purchase a few dessert items.

That aside, I have tried out your suggestion of doing subtle marketing on social media as well. With the level of competitiveness in the F&B industry and with Singaporean's preference of having cafe food to enjoy the atmosphere + taking instagram-worthy photos, the success of our current social media marketing efforts are quite limited. Nevertheless, we will continue tweaking our efforts and placing on more emphasis to test if there will be better response.

On a side note, are you currently running any e-commerce business yourself?

Hi Oziboomer! Thanks for sharing, that is some solid advice indeed! You have mentioned about reaching out to larger businesses and local media through offline marketing. Will you be able to share a little on how to go about doing this successfully based on your past experience? I am new to this and have done some cold approach by emailing the general contact email addresses of such businesses, but have met with limited success since the emails are 1) not likely to be read by the relevant personnel in charge and 2) the likelihood of the email ending up in the Spam folder is extremely high.

As our operation is small, we unfortunately do not have the capacity to supply to large corporations such as the Singapore Airlines. However, that is a long term goal that we would like to work towards . At the moment, I have managed to reach out to some human resource personnel in MNCs/ smaller local firms, and have obtained the permission to sell our products in their premises for special events. If the business is able to scale up in future, we would then explore the possibility of having a central kitchen to meet the production requirements of large orders.

I have noted your suggestion regarding a link or landing page for these corporate clients to order volume quantities a well, and will keep that in mind for future reference. Thanks once again, and hope to get a follow-up from you regarding the above query !