Spring Singapore pushes local brands to go digital

Spring Singapore has launched a programme to help local brands embrace digital. Through its Omni-channel retailing plans, Spring hopes to propel these brands to break into newer markets with the help of digital.Yeo Meow Ling, deputy director (Lifestyle), Spring Singapore said that online shopping is one of the key trends driving changes in the retail industry and the shopping patterns of consumers are shifting.“It is imperative for retailers to be able to engage customers seamlessly across different channels. As the number of online shoppers in Singapore grows, Omni-channel retailing is one way for retailers to grow their sales without having to incur the rising costs of operating brick-and-mortar stores,” said Yeo.Ultimately, said Yeo, Spring hopes to help improve the retailers' productivity through the adoption of e-commerce, digital marketing and other retail technologies.As such, Spring will be providing funding for these brands. Under its Capability Development Grant (CDG), which is a financial assistance programme aimed at helping SMEs, it can defray up to 70% of qualifying project costs.Retailers that have identified Omni-channel retailing as their strategic focus and are willing to invest in this, can tap on SPRING’s Capability Development Grant (CDG) to develop in-house capabilities to enable Omni-channel retailing.Those unsure of their customers response to Omni-channel marketing, can take on bite-size projects to better understand their customers and fine-tune marketing strategies to target specific segments, Yeo added. Lim also added that the agency will help Love, Bonito in its brand positioning, user brand experience and sophistication in terms of digital marketing and partnerships.Currently, several local brands such as Love, Bonito, Metro, La Putri and Epicentre have already embarked on this journey.“Engaging customers on these borderless domains also opens up opportunities for overseas sales, and allows retailers to test-bed their offerings for new markets in a relatively lower-risk manner,” Yeo added.Marketing caught up with local blogshop, Love Bonito’s founder Viola Tan and its agency partner, Blugrapes, to see how they will be making the most out of the help provided by Spring.Ryan Lim, business director, Blugrapes said the agreement with Spring is such that the agency will be teaching and empowering the businesses rather then doing the work for them.According to Tan, the brand is set to make a foray into the Malaysia market before targetting other markets in the region. Meanwhile, she added the agency is providing her company help with strategic planning and consulting.  What is helping these brands is the autonomy given by the government body to make decisions faster and keeps the business nimble and adaptable.