SINGAPORE: Shoppers who like the products on offer at Little India’s stores but are less keen on the crowds and traffic jams are likely to welcome one of the newest entrants to Singapore’s online retail space.
About 50 vendors, who make up about a quarter of the shops in the area, have decided to make their products available on an online marketplace called Dei, which stands for “Daily Everything Indian”. The website, dei.com.sg, sells everything from clothes to cooking utensils to fruit.
The website’s founder G Jayvarman said that, along with a team, he started the website to ease the pain felt by shoppers of being “squashed by massive crowds, facing unpredictable weather, carrying huge bags and standing in long queues just to get back home”.
What was worse was that we saw the elderly like our parents going through such inconvenience just to get their shopping done.
He added that while young people are adept at navigating the online space, shopping for Indian products is another matter. The online marketplace bridges the gap between being tech-savvy and knowing Indian products. He added that more than 10,000 products are listed on the website.
Dei partnered with the Little India Shopkeepers Heritage Association (LISHA) in early 2016 to get the website off the ground, and the collaboration has borne fruit, as far as LISHA chairman C Rajkumar is concerned. He believes that the online shopping has cut down the number of shoppers at the heritage site on weekdays.
“Weekdays see a higher number of tourists having the ability to move around more freely without constraint caused by shoppers,” he said. On weekends, locals still make trips down to Little India, but more for dining or to places of worship, he noted.
One consumer who has benefitted from using the website is accounts executive Puvan Alagan, who used to make two trips to Little India every week to buy prayer items. She did that as a responsibility she took over from her father, who died two years ago, she said.
The 32-year-old, who is also studying part time, said that the journeys to and from Little India left her exhausted, and she is glad that her mother suggested she try it.
Mr Jayvarman said that currently the majority of customers are local and non-resident Indians between the ages of 25 and 54.
“We are also noticing a steady growth of consumers of other ethnicities, especially from the Chinese community,” he said.
E-COMMERCE EFFORTS NOT WITHOUT CHALLENGES
Mr Rajkumar said that while it was not difficult to bring retailers on board, it was a challenge to keep them interested enough before their store became profitable.
“When we first approached the vendors in Little India, they were a tad hesitant to come on board as they were not used to technology and how it will benefit them,” Mr Jayvarman said. However, when they realised that the website could be an additional channel of revenue, they were more willing, he added.
Mr Rajkumar said that one of the initial challenges retailers faced was managing their online inventory and physical inventory at the same time. The more difficult challenge is getting on board retailers who do not even use a Point-Of-Sale system, which makes it harder to track inventory, he added.
Many retailers seem to be keen to experiment. “Though they might not have the clearest of understanding about e-commerce, most of them understand the significance of the online space,” he said.
Mr Rajkumar said he is keen to help these “old-school” vendors, adding that they should be able to see higher profits now that they have a different channel of customer acquisition and sales.
One retailer who has experienced this is Mr S Manimaran, owner of Raghvendra Enterprise, which sells banana leaves and fruit.
Up until last year when he made his products available on the website, Mr Manimaran had been supplying to hospitals, supermarkets and temples. Sales have increased 15 per cent since going online, he said.
It was difficult initially to fix the prices of fruit as the fluctuate frequently, he said, but eventually settled on selling at the lower end of a possible price range.
“The website has given us bigger reach. I have totally new customers, because for the first time, I am able to directly deliver my products to consumers,” he said. In order to cater to consumers, he now counts his stock by the piece instead of by the pallet. Delivery is done by Dei’s 10 full-time and freelance drivers.
Meanwhile, although online shopping has eased some of traffic and clutter, Mr Rajkumar feels more can be done to enhance the Little India experience, even as he hopes to further increase online commerce.
“An accessible parking option in the form of a multi-storey car park would do a whole lot of good. Also, getting rid of the lots along the roads would be a good option too in our opinion,” he said.
