With the festive season drawing nearer, everyone is looking forward to more shopping! One thing which a lot of shoppers face is this: where do I find cool new places to shop? Where do I find brands that sell interesting products which I can buy as a unique gifts for my friends?
That’s what Travelshopa is aiming to solve. Positioned as Singapore’s first and only online community dedicated to local designers and retailers, Travelshopa changes the way shoppers discover local shops and brands.
Travelshopa connects local retailers and designers across fashion, gifts and homewares with global shoppers. Whether shoppers seek brick-and-mortar, online or pop-up stores, or exclusive shopping events, the search-based site helps them discover a comprehensive selection of established and emerging local designers and retailers in their home-city or travel destinations.
You can look at it as the directory of Singaporean designers.
What stood out with Travelshopa is this: shoppers can search for products and brands according to vicinity search:
You can also search by Shop types, whether is it a pop up store, retail outlet, online shop, or even more:
When you click at the outlet names, you can find dedicated profile page on the business, including their website, social profile, as well as the products they carry. It is very similar to the concept of Facebook pages, and this allows business owners to generate leads for more sales. Business owners can also leverage Travelshopa’s wide range of marketing, advertising and content solutions.
Here’s how the individual business page look:
According to Travelshopa, current registered businesses include some of Singapore’s most respected labels and stores as well as the fastest emerging brands and newest stores in town.
“There are plenty of sites, books and brochures that promote food and beverage, accommodation or what to see and do, but few resources that go into the details of shopping. As an avid traveller and resident in a new city, I saw the need for a platform that had readily available information about the local shopping scene for both local and global shoppers,“ says Founder and Managing Director Renee Lodens on why she started Travelshopa.
Other than browsing over 180 business profiles, shoppers can also follow their favourite businesses, creating their own unique shopping trips and accessing exclusive content through weekly newsletters.
When Vulcan Post spoke to Founder and Managing Director, Renee Lodens on how Travelshopa has been doing so far in terms of traction, Renee told us that Travelshopa has had “double digit monthly growth across all our metrics”.
Renee also acknowledges that one of their biggest challenge so far with Travelshopa is partner selection.
“Findings partners rather than suppliers is a key objective. Meticulous partner selection has definitely been our biggest challenge. Not settling for the cheapest or only option is difficult to do when you are a start up. Working with the right people (from web developers, advisors, marketing partners as well as curating each and every business listing) has been key to the success of Travelshopa so far.” – Founder and managing director, Renée Lodens.
If you are looking around to discover interesting brands, do give Travelshopa a go and let us know what you think!
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