Local company, PayWhere Pte Ltd, wants to help small local businesses to sell online with their TackThis system. TackThis is a complete e-commerce solution for selling products on websites or social network. BTW, PayWhere is an incubatee company of NUS Enterprise. More information after the break.
Helping Small Businesses in Singapore to Sell Online
Singapore, 20 March 2012 – Wouldn’t it be great for your business if customers would automatically recommend your products to all their friends? Good news for online shops – they can now install TackThis onto their websites to allow this to happen.
Singapore’s e-commerce market is forecasted to reach $4.4 billion by 20151. However, only 15% of SMEs have a website with full e-commerce capabilities2. This is because small businesses may not have the technical expertise, resources or time to set up and maintain ecommerce capabilities. Local start-up company, PayWhere Pte Ltd, aims to help small businesses with their online retail problems. Their flagship product, TackThis, allows businesses to set up a full e-commerce solution on any website or social network and to manage the online retail shop with a centralised inventory and customer system. PayWhere today announced that TackThis has a new Share Promotion feature, which incentivises customers to share their purchases on Facebook.
TackThis is a user-friendly system, which can be incorporated on websites, blogs, and social media platforms such as Facebook. The TackThis system consists of a product catalogue (for customers to easily view products), a payment gateway (for customers to conveniently pay for their products) and an inventory management system (for retail merchants to effectively streamline all sales). TackThis has been in open beta since September 2011, and to date, nearly 1,000 retail merchants have signed up.
The newly-launched Share Promotion feature leverages upon the fact that shopping for many people is a social experience. People frequently want to show friends their purchases, seek opinions and get feedback. The TackThis Share Promotion feature allows retail merchants to give their customers a discount on their purchase, when they share a picture of it on their Facebook page. As this leverages upon a customer’s Facebook networks with viral marketing effects, this feature will be a boon for small businesses.
“When I heard about TackThis’ Share Promotion feature, I immediately incorporated it into Magic Global’s Facebook Shop,” said Bigy Tan who owns Magic Global, a small business that sells health products. “Getting word-of-mouth referrals is one of the best ways for us to market our products, especially since an existing customer’s Facebook friends are likely to also fall within our target audience. Furthermore, with the discount element, we are able to boost customer loyalty at the same time. I have already seen a 15% increase in sales, after installing TackThis on my website and Facebook, and I am hoping to see a further increase in revenue with the new Share Promotion feature.”
Advantages of TackThis
TackThis provides numerous advantages for both the retail merchant and their customers. The benefits of TackThis to retail merchants are:
- A complete e-commerce solution for the layperson – Individuals can incorporate all TackThis features, such as a product catalogue, shopping cart and payment gateways, without any coding or technical knowledge
- Increase work efficiency – The inventory check list and customer management systems are centralised, allowing retailers to efficiently check on stock or engage with their customers
- Gets people talking and buying – By installing TackThis onto social media platforms, retailers can be where their customers are. The new Share Promotion feature encourages customers to talk about the product, widening retailers’ reach.
- Fast and convenient – It takes just five minutes to install TackThis onto retail merchants’ websites
- Boosts customer loyalty – TackThis incorporates a coupon code engine to reward loyal customers.
The benefits of TackThis for customers are:
- TackThis has multiple payment options – This provides customers with increased flexibility and convenience, as they can pay for the products, with the click of a button. The payment options include credit card, Paypal, internet banking, ATM transfer and MOL payment.
- The professional product catalogue makes it easy to browse, with multiple photos and a zoom feature to view the detailing of the products
- Social interaction – TackThis encourages customers to share their latest purchases with friends who may have similar tastes and interests
PayWhere’s entrepreneurial journey
PayWhere is a company started by Dickson Gregory, a graduate from the National University of Singapore (NUS), along with two other friends, Vincent Lau and Damian Chow. Dickson recognised the hassle of collecting payments on line and began the company, while he was still a student, from the NUS Faculty of Real Estate.
Paywhere is being incubated by NUS Enterprise. The company has leveraged upon advice from NUS Enterprise mentors, who help in areas such as business development, market positioning and fund raising. The co-founders of PayWhere
have also benefited from attending business clinics, as well as access to legal, accounting and administration services, which has allowed them to focus on building the company and product. Prior to moving to its current location in Blk71, PayWhere was based within the NUS Enterprise incubator at the Faculty of Engineering.
“Social commerce is rapidly becoming the preferred way to do business online. With the convenience, connections and marketing opportunities, it is a win-win situation for both customer and retail merchant. We set up TackThis to revolutionise online shopping, making it fun, social and seamless. We hope that this innovative tool will help small blog-shop businesses in Singapore to boost their efficiency and increase revenues,” said Dickson Gregory, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder PayWhere.
Businesses wishing to sign up with TackThis may visit www.tackthis.com or call (65) 6777 2317.
1 PayPal. http://www.techinasia.com/the-stats-and-facts-of-online-shopping-in-singapore/
2 Singapore ecommerce survey. http://www.slideshare.net/tonygutao/singapore-ecommercesurvey-2009-2010-report
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