Singaporean hopes to bring more Chinese tourists' traffic to Singapore retailers

Singaporean hopes to bring more Chinese tourists' traffic to Singapore retailers

SHANGHAI, Sept. 19, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- In the hot August summer in Shanghai, a team from one of the Polytechnics in Singapore visited Avantouch. Their trip was to understand Singaporeans doing business or working in China. The meeting allowed both parties to exchange information and explore collaborations.

Mr. Lee Kia Hwee, 2nd from left, with the visitors.
Mr. Lee Kia Hwee, 2nd from left, with the visitors.

One of the Singaporeans whom they have met has been in China since 2003. He is the CEO and founder of Avantouch, Mr. Lee Kia Hwee. In 2015, he and his team started a B2B digital voucher redemption platform in China called alaDing. "We are in the new consumption, new retail service provider business," said Mr. Lee. "I hope one day, we are able to divert Chinese tourist's traffic to Singapore with retailers who work with us. This is what we do in China, bringing more traffic, revenue and profit to the retailer."

The traditional retail world is going through painful restructuring due to the impact of the internet and online shopping. Using the US as an example, there is a drastic closure of retail chain stores. The closures, particularly of such premiums and visible brands as Saks or Nordstrom could be fatal for hundreds of shopping malls across the United States.

China, the world's second-largest economy on the other hand has some 4,600 malls. This is more than four times the U.S. total and accounts for more than half the malls built worldwide in each of the past three years. Last year, 61 million square feet of new retail space opened in China. China will hit a tipping point where there will be an oversupply of malls and retail shops if the growth trend continues without proper planning.

Further aggravation of the challenges faced by the brick-and-mortar retailers, is that China is the most active user of the mobile and desktop ecommerce. More than half of Chinese consumers say they shop via mobile daily or weekly. Only 46 percent say they shop at brick-and-mortar stores with the same frequency. Last year, online consumer sales racked up the equivalent of US$610 billion.  But they account for only 12 percent of all consumer goods sold, meaning it has plenty of room to grow.

"We notice two huge markets in China that need addressing and require linkup." said Mr. Lee. "One is the brick-and-mortar retailers who urgently need online strategies to attract additional customers so as to increase revenue and profit. The other one are the enterprises or issuers who need to gain new customers and keep existing customers by rewarding them effectively; through their promotions and loyalty programs. Both markets are perfect for each other. We see that these two markets need someone to link them up so as to create an eco-system to share each other resources. Seizing this opportunity, a B2B digital voucher redemption platform is created called alaDing."

When retailers in China work with alaDing, they immediately gain access to a huge pool of potential customers from enterprises such as banks, financial institutes, airlines and corporations. These customers are given digital vouchers so that they can redeem anything they want, anytime, anywhere. This redemption market is huge and is in the hundreds billion market size. As a result, the retailers gain this market by integrating their point-of-sale with alaDing. Today, the major convenience store chains are already working with alaDing namely Familymart, Lawson, 7-Eleven etc. Due to the nature of convenience store, users can redeem all the goods and services there 24 x 7.  Instant gratification is crucial to alaDing's business strategy as this differentiate from traditional online redemption where it takes few days to deliver the goods. Other retailers include supermarkets, retail chain stores, F&B, cinemas and more.

alaDing is the perfect partner when retailers want to maximize their promotion ROI. Traditional advertisement avenues such as internet search engine, internet, TV, radio, newspaper are unable to charge based on actual transaction. These advertisements meant to get eyeballs/attention but eyeballs do not guarantee a real sale or transaction. Therefore, the ROI for such promotion investments are unsatisfactory. alaDing aims to change all these with their RaaS (Redemption as a Service). Digital vouchers are given to potential customers through alaDing platform. The expiry of the voucher can be set pending on the nature of the promotion and the usage is tracked. Once the customers redeem to final goods and services, notification and settlement will be made with the retailers. As a result, there is no wastage in promotion dollars and ROI is maximized.

With the large redemption volume accumulated over the years in China, alaDing has the big data of customers' redemption patterns for precise marketing and promotion. Manufacturers with goods being sold in these retailers are ideal to leverage on alaDing platform to do their promotion too. An example will be manufacturers have new products to launch and promote. Manufacturers will receive precise reports on whom, when and where their new products are being redeemed. With the RaaS, manufacturers only pay for those new products being redeemed. This is a huge contrast to traditional promotion methods as there are not direct link between promotion dollars and actual sales.

Everything looks promising. With the ever changing landscape in China, alaDing will have to move fast in order to stay ahead and beat imitators. Hopefully one day, we will see Singapore retailers grow their revenue from the Chinese tourists through partnership with alaDing.

Photo  - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20170918/1944456-1

This website is best viewed using the latest versions of web browsers.