PILLAR TWO: ESTABLISHING YOUR SALES CHANNEL

A key pillar required to turn your brand global is to determine and establish your sales channels. Whether in the online or offline space, both sales channels are equally significant. Identifying “Where to Sell?” for your brand or service forms the right foundation in accelerating your growth to be a global brand. This forms the second pillar of the Four Pillars strategy.

Over the last decade, we have seen the emergence of E-commerce as an important sales channel, which has seen tremendous YoY growth in this region. The Covid-19 pandemic has definitely accelerated the shift from traditional retail to E-commerce. All businesses, from small to large, would have already started an online business, especially during lockdowns, when traditional retails were not allowed to operate. However, as we move into the post pandemic era, where people are starting to crowd shopping malls again after being grounded at home for the last two years, it is very crucial to have a strong offline presence for your brand. The eyeballs obtained in the offline space definitely plays a key part in the full consumer journey. Hence, brands need to ensure they have both online and offline sales channels. Both have to complement each other.

Online Sales Channels

As I have pointed out many times, not many businesses can build a profitable and sustainable E-commerce business. Most businesses end up bleeding from their E-commerce expansions. However, expansion into E-commerce is inevitable. It plays an important role as consumers spend most of their free time in the digital space, exploring or discovering new brands. It is the best window for brands to communicate with consumers.

There are many options when it comes to online sales channels. The easiest and lowest risk option is to venture into marketplace platforms, where they only take a cut when sales transactions are generated. There's no setup costs involved, provided it is managed by your own team. But it is this mindset that causes many businesses to fail. The idea of setting up a store for free causes every organization to neglect putting sufficient resources to make it successful. E-commerce is definitely not free.

Apart from marketplace platforms, businesses can also consider to setup their own webstore. However, the tricky part with building your own webstore is the amount of investments required to pull traffic into the store, which results in the cost to acquire a new customer becoming higher. The cost to recruit the right talents for this purpose is also generally higher. Setting up your own webstore is like opening a physical retail store in a dead mall, where there is very low traffic and visibility. Hence, it is not advisable to start your own E-commerce webstore if your brand is still in the incubation phase.

An alternative to your own E-commerce webstore should instead be social commerce, which is building fast momentum in this region. From Facebook Shop to WhatsApp Shop to the latest trending Tik-Tok Shop, all these social media giants offer easy to use E-commerce experience to both businesses and consumers. Social commerce will definitely play a key part in our everyday lives in the near future.

Despite rising costs, expansion into the online or digital world remains very crucial. The online world remains very competitive and dynamic. It is already no longer a secret that most brands or small businesses are not able to build a profitable and sustainable e-commerce business if they rely solely on marketplace platforms. Alternatives or expansions to other online channels need to be part of your online strategy.

Offline Sales Channels

Having a solid online and offline strategy is very crucial. However, it is not necessary to be running your own online store and own retail store, unless your brand has reached a certain popularity. For new and emerging brands, there are many options to expand your offline presence. Offline provides brands with an opportunity to reach out to more new consumers and increased in-store conversion rates when executions are done right.

One can consider to expand its offline coverage or footprint through partnerships with chain stores. Listing into a chain store like Watsons in Malaysia will enable you to reach out to over 500 touchpoints nationwide. Well, the key here is to ensure you monitor the investments required, which includes listing fees, higher channel margins, distribution costs and etc. This come backs to the Pillar One strategy, which was discussed in the previous article, developing the Blueprint of your brand. Ensure all costs and investments are well forecasted and makes financial sense to your business.

Temporary touchpoints like events and exhibitions are also effective in reaching out to new consumers. Consumers who visit such short term fairs, are always open to discover new products. Having promoters to do a product demonstration will likely increase your conversion rate. There might also be business owners who visit such fairs to find new potential brands to distribute. Hence, by participating in fairs you are actually killing two birds with one stone.

Online & Offline Complementing Each Other

Having both online and offline sales channels is no longer an option, but a compulsory strategy for all brands to turn global. Both channels can complement each other. Starting to sell in the online space will in fact reduce your initial risks. If you would like to penetrate into a new overseas market, explore Cross-border E-commerce as an option to start. Once you gain more consumer insights, and with a bigger war chest, then your second move is to expand into offline. Again, plan well and you will not get it wrong!?