Online shopping is huge in Singapore, and it is not going to stop growing anytime soon.
Joining a handful of other online shopping sites which we covered on Vulcan Post is ShopAbout. ShopAbout is platform that partners local merchants by providing them with an online platform to merchandise their goods. Currently there are more than 150 local merchants using ShopAbout to form the online marketplace.
ShopAbout was founded by Mr Reuben Lee, 26, and Mr Lawrence Koh, 25, during their final year at university in 2012. The two young entrepreneurs saw an opportunity to create an online marketplace for small-to-mid sized Singapore businesses, which may not have the resources to operate their own online stores. With their own funds and the support of private investors, their website www.shopabout.sg started operations in April 2013.
Within a year, the site has expanded to feature approximately 15,000 products across nine categories, ranging from electronics, fashion, health and beauty, home, kids and baby, sports and outdoors, and gifts and others.
Mr Reuben Lee, co-founder and director of ShopAbout, said, “ShopAbout complements our partner merchants’ brick-and-mortar outlets and further extends their online customer reach. For consumers, we offer value by bringing these local businesses closer to them and providing a variety of quality products at attractive prices.”
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Some of the brands featured on ShopAbout
The site also offers consumers the flexibility of letting customers collect their purchased products at the merchants’ stores and this has helped drive foot traffic to
their partners’ brick-and-mortar shops.
“Many of our merchant partners have noted a positive impact on their sales at their physical stores, following an online listing on ShopAbout,” noted Mr Lee.
One such merchant is NewUrbanMale, a lifestyle fashion retailer, which has presence in Singapore and across Asia.
Mr Shenzi Chua, CEO of NewUrbanMale, said, “Besides an increase in sales on the online front, some of the customers who collect their purchased goods at our store are further able to enjoy our in-store offers and purchase additional clothing items when they arrive.”
Will the website work?
Maybe. ShopAbout is competing in the tough but lucrative e commerce space with big boys such as Taobao, Rakuten and Zalora now. If the merchants on ShopAbout are actively pushing for the ShopAbout brand, and become brand ambassadors for ShopAbout, ShopAbout might just rise to become the next most visited online site in Singapore. ShopAbout would have to be careful about getting too many brands onboard though, as it might dilute the traffic distribution to each individual merchant partner.
From now till 19 May, ShopAbout celebrates its one year anniversary by holding an anniversary sale; customers will be able to enjoy a $25 off for every $100 spent on the site.
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