COVID-19: Geylang Serai Bazaar vendors move online after cancellation of event

SINGAPORE: Every twelvemonth for the by 6 years, Ms Lena Edaya has looked forwards to the almanac Geylang Serai Bazaar, which her family unit-run home decor business depends on to brand the majority of earnings for the year.

With the event cancelled this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Ms Lena is trying to brand her sales online. While some of her regular clients are inquiring on new designs and the firm is seeing some sales, information technology is footling compared to what they brand at the bazaar, she said.

"We don't take a retail shop, so the boutique boosts our sales for the year," she said. The earnings from the bazaar typically make upwardly 80 per cent of the almanac revenue for the firm, Artist Touch.

READ: Hari Raya Boutique at Wisma Geylang Serai deferred due to COVID-19 concerns: PA

The boutique was an opportunity for her to meet new clients, and for them to terminate by, fifty-fifty if they were not proactively looking for abode decor, she said. Last year, the bazaar, typically held ahead of Hari Raya Puasa which falls on May 25 this year, attracted a record 2 one thousand thousand people.

"When people don't see the detail, they tin can't feel the texture, meet the rusticity of the wood grain. They can't tell the difference betwixt our products and other products," she said.

Another vendor who finds that the online platform is not the best for his products is carpet store owner Reza Fotohi. A stalwart vendor, Mr Fotohi has been selling his carpets from Fotohi Gallery at the boutique for 22 years.

READ: Singapore reports record 386 new COVID-nineteen cases and 9th death

Carpets may accept the aforementioned designs and colours but different qualities, and without being able to feel those, customers may not sympathise the difference between a S$100 rug and S$1,000 carpet, Mr Fotohi said.

"Carpets are one of the trickiest items to sell online," he said.

Mr Fotohi said that the bazaar helps him recover losses made throughout the rest of the year.

"From last year's Hari Raya to now, it'due south been ix months. We've not been able to cover all our costs every month. Some months, we might lose Southward$two,000, some months we might lose S$half dozen,000," he said.

Mr Fotohi is paying more attention to selling dates, which he also does every bit part of his business. But as a wholesaler, he typically relies on 25 distributors who only operate at the bazaar. He besides supplies dates to mosques, which are closed during this menses.

With both aspects of his business suffering, Mr Fotohi said he is jumping on the same bandwagon as other sellers, and is looking to auction his carpets online through alive-streaming.

SELLING THROUGH LIVE-STREAMING

It might be the way to become, judging by the success of the Facebook live-streaming carpet sales conducted by consequence organiser Mohamad Ishmam Jalil.

Mr Ishmam, who ordinarily buys and resells booths at the Geylang Serai Boutique, is this year helping vendors sell their products online.

"Some of these businesses don't know how to sell online, they are traditional," he said.

Mr Ishmam, with a team of six, does marketing for these businesses and sets upwardly a live stream on Facebook through a page called Live Ramadhan Sales 2020. It is important for the set-up to be professional person, with good lighting and audio, to brand sales, he said. He also organises delivery for them.

Among the items he is helping to sell are carpets. Inside two hours during a alive stream, he is able to brand S$1,000 to S$two,000 in sales, he said.

He as well successfully applied to the Ministry building of Trade and Industry for one of his clients, a store selling baju kurung, to stay open for the alive-stream. Shops providing not-essential services and products are closed till May four, under circuit breaker measures implemented past the Government.

Yet, he said that dress motility slower.

"Some people are worried that they cannot celebrate with the families and friends this twelvemonth, and that there will be no purpose in buying clothes," he said.A Facebook page created to sell items for Hari Raya through live-streaming.

Fortunately, some are still ownership, to take part in the spirit of the festive flavor, he added.

Mr Ishmam is helping the vendors on a goodwill ground, bearing most costs, and taking a small cut only when sales are made.

TRYING TO Aid VENDORS

Others have also chipped in to aid boutique vendors in whatsoever way they tin can. Mr Medico Noor Hadi, who co-owns an consequence organising business, is in the procedure of setting upward an "e-boutique" site which will go live next calendar week.

He said that the vendors are carefully curated to ensure that they are selling Hari Raya-related items. He is as well hosting CelebFest, an annual star-studded outcome, on the same site, ebazaar.sg. The event was to be held in May at Suntec City.

Ms Huda Rahmat also wanted to help when she saw some retailers sharing their worries online in one case the cancellation of the bazaar was announced.

"I saw quite a number of our sellers who usually open a berth at the bazaar worrying over their stock," she said.

She started a Facebook group chosen Bazaar Ramadhan Singapore 2020 in mid-March. Past the cease of the day, the group had 4,000 members. Nigh a month later, on Apr xiv, it had more than 33,000 members.

One of the retailers who was worrying about having ordered too much stock was Ms Namelia Hamzah, owner of Alana Exclusive, an online clothing store.

Ms Namelia, who manufactures matching mother-and-daughter outfits just for the Hari Raya season and has been a bazaar vendor for the past three years, said that she started making preparations for this year's stock in December last year.

While she was fretting about whether her stock will motility, Ms Namelia is grateful for boosted platforms to showcase her items, like the Facebook group started past Ms Huda.

"I am getting orders from at that place. Non much, but at to the lowest degree there are new customers," she said.

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Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/covid-19-geylang-serai-bazaar-cancellation-vendors-move-online-194681

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