After Singapore announced a semi-lockdown on non-essential businesses, the Elly Store, a boutique children’s clothing, shoes and toy store, immediately experienced a spike in online orders.
Although online businesses are permitted to continue operations, the Elly Store opted to stop all deliveries until the workplace measures are lifted. “We did not want to put anyone, not our employees or their families, or workers in our supply chain or our customers at unnecessary risk and we wanted to do our part in limiting movement in the spirit of the “stay home” message,” they explain in a COVID-19 notice on the store website.
While shipments are paused, the team’s concentration is on website improvements, digital marketing and connecting with customers. “We are continuing with regular social media posts and using the month for people to get to know our store and our wide range of products again. The “why we stock what we stock” rather than the “what we stock,” shares Co-Founder Audrey Ng.
Alongside building automated email campaigns and designing digital marketing campaigns, the company is also engaging its online communities for input and suggestions on store collections.
The Elly Store is focusing on the future and the digital steps necessary to get there. “Our plan is to improve current processes for our online fulfilment, cut costs in our supply chain where possible and streamline for 2020. . . This way, we’ll be ready with efficient fulfilment if our marketing succeeds in increasing sales.”
“We assume this outbreak will cause a generic shift to online shopping on the whole, especially for the baby gifting market, and our preps will be with that shift in mind,” Ng concludes.