Signature Market looking to deepen omnichannel experience
The pandemic presented unprecedented challenges for businesses everywhere but it also triggered the digital and e-commerce’s turning point. For some companies, they witnessed an unforeseen growth as consumers went digital, purchasing more goods online and this led to accelerating the digital transformation. You could say it was the silver lining behind the Covid-19 crisis.
For Signature Market, the homegrown online marketplace that sells healthy snacks and wellness products had plans to expand its business in other countries in Southeast Asia but the pandemic halted its plans. In previous reports, the company was said to have optimized all its key metrics in Malaysia instead of focusing on its expansion. It paid off as the company became more profitable in 2021.
In addition to that, the prolonged lockdowns had Malaysians focus on shifting their habits towards a healthier lifestyle. This resulted in a high demand for healthy products, which was spot on for Signature Market.
“Everything changed in 2020 because Malaysians was more aware about healthy living. We have actually been educating consumers for many years, and because of this pandemic a lot of people decided to upgrade their lives by living a healthy lifestyle,” he said.
THE OMNICHANNEL EXPERIENCE
The company has celebrated its 7th anniversary recently and as it continues to grow, Wang said they are looking to go offline as well.
With the borders reopened and the retail industry is back in full swing, it leaves room for them to explore in providing an offline experience for customers.
“We have already mastered the online experience, now we want to combine online and offline together to create an omnichannel experience,” he said.
Wang added that there are a lot of things they can do offline, that can’t be done online. For example, they plan to launch an offline experience store.
“When customers buy from us, they do it from a computer screen, so there isn’t any form of human touch, communication or explanation so that’s why we have decided to plan for an experience store, which is coming soon,” he said.
SEVEN YEAR JOURNEY
Wang started Signature Market in 2014 based on the concept of delivering fresh roasted nuts to customers. He came up with the idea from his travels to places such as Japan. At the time, Wang said they were the first to introduce fresh to deliver roasted nuts.
With just 3-4 people in the team in the early days, the company now has about 150 staff.
The product variety has since expanded into food, a variety of snacks and even personal care items and aromatherapy under the name Plant Origins. In total, Signature Market has 700 SKUs.
Watch our full interview with Edwin Wang in this first episode of Bang For Your Buck.
