Rome was not a built in a day, but I had the opportunity to work with the Destination Beverage team on setting up a brand new e-shop from scratch - and we managed to create it in 2 weeks.
🔍 Background
Destination Beverage has been a beverage supplier in Singapore since 2013, bringing foreign alcoholic and non-alcoholic brands to local outlets. The activity initially relies therefore mainly on B2B interactions, with limited B2C outreach.
🧭 Problem Definition
The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has affected the Singapore market since beginning of February 2020, with a significant decrease in the demand : starting first with the drop in the number of tourists, and continuing with the circuit breaker, restaurants, hotels and bars have not been able to operate properly.
Without the orders from the outlets, the problem was therefore to find a new source of revenue. Given the context and the resources of the company, the only potential source of revenue was the end customers ordering online. The problem was therefore creating a platform to facilitate the orders, aka an e-shop.
📝Contingencies
Newbie when it comes to the creation of an e-shop. I have previously worked on websites, but their purposes were basic (registration pages, class projects...). Creating an e-shop requires a more complex attention to customer journey to ensure that the visitor actually makes a purchase. It also means a lot of time to register all of the products, their categorisation and their presentation.
Generator of unique and attractive offers. Shifting from wholesale to retail has impacts on the value promoted:
First, the prices have to be adapted (due to the GST and fees from the website to include in the calculation), which involves a heavy work re-pricing each product to guarantee viable margins.
Then, to differentiate from other beverage retailers - who have been selling to end customers for a longer time - there needs to a unique selling point to rely on. Our main strength being our reputation to supply the best cocktail bars on the island, it was agreed to create cocktail kits and curated bundles with our spirits.
Finally, it is key to have attractive visual content. Yet, there was never a need for a visual catalog before, so we lacked of product pictures. Therefore, in the timeline, we needed to set up a photoshoot of each of the products (more than 300), the packages offered and additional "lifestyle" content for promotional purposes.
Minimising the financial shortfall. The circuit breaker started mid-March for Singapore, and that is when the decision was taken to actually build the website. The faster the website would be up an running, the more we could focus on fostering revenue.
Adapting the operations. Even though the chain of action is similar to wholesale, there are a couple of adjustments required when delivering to an individual.
The orders have to be retrieved from the e-shop instead of the usual emails, so there is a minimal training for the admin
They still need to be invoiced in our system for us to keep track, but the CRM and the website are not linked. As a result, the inventory has to be aligned regularly online shop to match the available products
The deliveries were historically done by a single driver who knew our customers well, and made sense financially when the volume of the orders brought down the cost of delivery per order. Since he was coming daily to the office, he could return the invoices signed by the customer as a proof of delivery. However, with the number of orders significantly dropping, and especially the number of items per order, this partner was becoming too expensive to work with
Restricted market. Does the circuit breaker mean that people drink as much as usual, but at home instead of the bar ? Not really. While there is still a demand for beverages, it is far less than in normal days. And for this remaining population, there are plenty of players ready to supply beverages: usual beverage retailers of course, supermarkets, restaurants and bars creating "cocktails-to-go" or selling their bottles in retail, ... Moreover, when it comes to the product itself, the trend of consuming beverages at homes includes more often wine and beers than spirits, vermouth, liqueurs or syrups.
Solution
The best option to create an e-commerce platform from scratch in a limited amount of time was to use Shopify. User-friendly and with a heavy FAQ community, it definitely made the technical part of the job more approchable.
Given the pricing, the delivery was agreed to be mainly done by a third-party called Lalamove - specialised in fast delivery both B2B and B2C. Because Lalamove provides different drivers, they need to be aware of our delivery policy, which is that the recipient has to prove that (s)he is legal to drink and sign the invoice. This means that the driver has to send us back these information after delivering.
Assessment
The website was launched 2 weeks after the management approved the initiative.
Link to the website : www.destinationbeverage.com
However, a nuance needs to be mentioned : even with the e-shop live, and the operations ready to operate, the organic sales from end customers will never be enough to cope with the loss accumulated since the beginning 2020. In other words, opening to B2C was never a way to match the usual revenue, but to generate enough revenue to cover the expenses until the end of the circuit breaker. The eventual goal is that in the couple of months following the reopening of the outlets, both sales channels would suffice to reach the projected fiscal year revenue.
The following phase is the promotion of the website, driving relevant traffic and converting the visits in sales. During the lockdown, the marketing mix mainly includes social media, and press release to get mentioned by the media.