I have no research numbers to back me up here, but I feel its a bad idea. My gut feel of the customers base of sheng siong are budget conscious heartlanders who wanted cheap products. Online transactions seems to work better with the young, and also with products such as electronics, clothes, accessories etc, products that might not be easily available off the shelves (from overseas, or boutique brands)and provide satisfaction in "online windows shopping". I doubt anyone(or many ppl) is so busy such that they cannot go to sheng siong to get their shampoo or the likes.
To me, its a product mismatch as well as target audience mismatch, if NTUC has fail to generate volume, what makes them diffierentiated enough to succeed?
Greenrookie, I for one would love to use this service if they do deliveries. I like to shop online for groceries in bulk once in awhile as I hate carrying the heavy detergents, soap, tin food, can drinks, etc back from the shop. Been using redmart and some others
Problem here is there's already a lot of companies selling groceries online in Singapore.
(19-03-2013, 12:32 PM)Sampling Wrote: [ -> ]Greenrookie, I for one would love to use this service if they do deliveries. I like to shop online for groceries in bulk once in awhile as I hate carrying the heavy detergents, soap, tin food, can drinks, etc back from the shop. Been using redmart and some others
Problem here is there's already a lot of companies selling groceries online in Singapore.
The overhead of setting e-commerce platform should be minimum. Base on the report, Sheng Siong will start slow, and will evolve with customer preference.
It is always good to be ready for changes to avoid surprises. Who know one day, it might become the key contributor to the bottom line.
(19-03-2013, 03:06 PM)CityFarmer Wrote: [ -> ]The overhead of setting e-commerce platform should be minimum. Base on the report, Sheng Siong will start slow, and will evolve with customer preference.
It is always good to be ready for changes to avoid surprises. Who know one day, it might become the key contributor to the bottom line.
CF,
The smiley there most likely indicates that you have vested interest?
Maybe i shoudl start compiling a list of things the other companies did wrong and send it to SS !
The most high profile online grocery company was webvan of dot com era which blew up
But does that mean the model does not work? A lot of concepts during the dot com era worked, from eyeballs to mindshare to net PC or even 3G. Question is the timeline or payback period. People expecting success within 2 years or less and that marked up the "paper" ROI. The rest was history
End of day we ask ourselves: would we prefer a delivery service at low cost for generic products? Most of the time we buy the same type of groceries except for fresh produce. I'm pretty sure many housewives would prefer to have oil and rice delivered, and even toiletries.
Hence if there is a need for it the main problem is EXECUTION. My 2cts:
1) does it have a simple to use interface like amazon?
2) what is the return policy and customer service?
3) delivery time management? I think this is the most important as people will get fed up waiting for delivery for more than an hour . Non delivery also cause logistical headaches to the grocer. That's why usually you need a hub in a relatively small locality. I think Singapore or small cities make sense.
(20-03-2013, 10:02 AM)specuvestor Wrote: [ -> ]The most high profile online grocery company was webvan of dot com era which blew up
But does that mean the model does not work? A lot of concepts during the dot com era worked, from eyeballs to mindshare to net PC or even 3G. Question is the timeline or payback period. People expecting success within 2 years or less and that marked up the "paper" ROI. The rest was history
End of day we ask ourselves: would we prefer a delivery service at low cost for generic products? Most of the time we buy the same type of groceries except for fresh produce. I'm pretty sure many housewives would prefer to have oil and rice delivered, and even toiletries.
Hence if there is a need for it the main problem is EXECUTION. My 2cts:
1) does it have a simple to use interface like amazon?
2) what is the return policy and customer service?
3) delivery time management? I think this is the most important as people will get fed up waiting for delivery for more than an hour . Non delivery also cause logistical headaches to the grocer. That's why usually you need a hub in a relatively small locality. I think Singapore or small cities make sense.
I concur, but would like to add-on
It is a service product to consumer, and it is ONLY specific to local customers, so an open-mind, customer focus, start small and always ready to adapt to customer needs are key to success IMO
SS strategy seems along this line.
Just to clarify that my 3rd point may not be clear: What I mean is NOT that the time of delivery from placing the order to delivery is 1 hour. What I mean is that their system must be able to tell you say delivery at 3pm-4pm and be there. I think many of us have bad experiences where delivery/service time supposed to be 8-12noon and they come at 1pm. If it's those once in a blue moon installations issue, we may forget it. But for recurring purchases like groceries, would be a big turn off.
(20-03-2013, 12:40 PM)specuvestor Wrote: [ -> ]Just to clarify that my 3rd point may not be clear: What I mean is NOT that the time of delivery from placing the order to delivery is 1 hour. What I mean is that their system must be able to tell you say delivery at 3pm-4pm and be there. I think many of us have bad experiences where delivery/service time supposed to be 8-12noon and they come at 1pm. If it's those once in a blue moon installations issue, we may forget it. But for recurring purchases like groceries, would be a big turn off.
It is termed as delivery window, isn't it?
So far the shortest window committed is 3 hours in my experience. I seldom shop online, probably the norm is much shorter.
I think it should be "waiting-for-the-delivery-man-to-come-as-promised-time" window