[This is a sponsored article with Pos Malaysia.]
There are many factors that influence the success of an SME’s business. Some commonly talked about ones include capital, the product offered, and marketing strategies.
However, one crucial process of running a business is ensuring that your product even reaches customers satisfactorily in the first place.
When the pandemic happened and more businesses transitioned into e-commerce, entrepreneurs faced extra pressure to make sure they were able to compete in the online space.
For these two Malaysian SMEs who had already adopted reliable courier services early on though, they were able to ride the pandemic’s e-commerce craze with relative ease.
Inspiring authors efficiently
Despite having a civil engineering degree, Nickey Teoh Jin Chien decided to pursue his love for books and writing as a career.
In 2010, he noticed people paying exorbitant fees to companies abroad just to publish their writing. He thus founded Inspiration Hub in order to help aspiring and professional authors get their books self-published in Malaysia.
9 years later, the company started an online bookshop where partnering authors could sell their books without depending on physical bookstores.
It was a good call, and just in time for when the pandemic hit about a year later. Today, about 30% of the whole business relies on book deliveries from the online bookshop.
Previously, as they had only been doing minimal deliveries, The Inspiration Hub relied on Pos Laju’s standard delivery services.
Once their online deliveries grew in number, however, Nickey knew they had to upgrade, and so they signed up for SendParcel, Pos Malaysia’s online shipping platform launched in 2019.
Recalling what triggered the switch, Nickey shared, “We were helping one of our partnering authors launch his book online, and we had to pack and ship out over a few thousand copies of books to customers.”
The Inspiration Hub was still handling consignment notes manually at the time, and faced with that situation, it was clear that it wasn’t a sustainable method in the long run.
Thus, SendParcel came in handy with its feature where sellers can upload 100 names and addresses via an Excel sheet, have them processed by the SendParcel system, then print the information out on thermal printer stickers.
“Those features really saved us tons of our time,” Nickey said. “Time is of the essence during our authors’ online book launch. Once that happens, we only have 1-2 weeks to pack and ship the thousands of orders to customers.”
Another way SendParcel cuts down on their turnaround time is by readily providing the team with packages.
“Everything works like a well-oiled engine,” he added. “Pos Laju SendParcel’s contribution in this entire process is very invaluable. If you take them out of the picture, the engine would grind to a halt.”
While there are many elements to consider in a business, Nickey believes the platform’s reliability played a role in growing Inspiration Hub’s revenue, especially with its online bookshop.
Sharing the legacy of motherhood
When Mommy Happy was founded by Siti Sarah Binti Mohd Fauzi in 2019, she had two missions she wanted to accomplish.
Firstly, to make education fun for kids through its early childhood education products. Then, through its agent system, housewives who are busy caring for their children and homes are also given opportunities to generate income on the side.
Clearly, people resonated with Mommy Happy’s vision. The company has expanded from 5 staff members to almost 50 now.
They also have several lots and warehouses to store their products, as they operate through a dropship system with a network of 40,000 agents.
Since Mommy Happy is fully online, they are entirely dependent on deliveries.
“We know every courier has its own pros and cons,” said Sarah. “We try a lot and analyse which courier can offer the best service.”
To that, Mommy Happy ended up landing on SendParcel, finding it one of the easier platforms to use for their needs.
Sarah also highlighted that Pos Laju was the most reliable courier service for Mommy Happy over in Sabah and Sarawak.
Using the prepaid payment method that works on a credit basis, the company is able to better anticipate the costs involved as well as enjoy the free pick-up service.
With SendParcel, in just 2021, Mommy Happy shipped out around 200,000 to 250,000 parcels. They also reached the milestone of RM25 million in sales.
Anyone can SendParcel
Although Pos Malaysia has been servicing the country since the 1800s, they are still innovating and keeping up with the times. The SendParcel online shipping platform is proof of that.
Put simply, SendParcel aims to simplify the online shipping experience. With features such as an all-in-one view dashboard, smart text input, improved address book management, and the track and share functions where users can share tracking updates via WhatsApp, Pos Malaysia wants to help sellers send parcels with ease.
Thus far, they’ve seen some traction, with the postal service company reporting almost 300k users, around 70% of whom are SMEs and e-commerce sellers.
Thanks to the well-established nature of Pos Malaysia, there are over 1,000 drop-off locations across Malaysia that sellers can conveniently access too.
These are one of the key factors enabling Pos Malaysia to provide reliable and quick delivery services, as The Inspiration Hub and Mommy Happy’s experiences have shown.
Promo: To make the onboarding journey easier for SMEs who’d like to experience the same benefits, SendParcel is offering first-time sellers an RM10 credit upon signing up so they can ship their very first parcels for free. The platform is also running a promotion until the end of June, whereby sellers can sign up to enjoy the promo rate of RM5 for the first 5KG.
- Learn more about SendParcel here.
Featured Image Credit: The Inspiration Hub / Mommy Happy
