Our Community
Other Stories
Lam Ka-man opens a shop using the money saved from operating her online business.
Courtesy of Lam Ka-man
Small shops net customers
by Dennis Cheng
Breaking the conventional method of face-to-face trading, online business, or e-commerce, helps small-business owners survive and thrive by connecting them with target customers.
For fashion designer Lam Ka-man, the Internet is a good tool for promoting her clothes and accessories to customers through websites and e-mails.
After finishing her designs, Miss Lam takes photographs of the products and uploads them on her website and the Yahoo! online auction centre. When a consumer makes a purchase, she will send the goods by mail or hand delivery.
The advantage of using the Internet to manage business is that costs such as rent, wages for employees and other operational expenses can be cut or kept down, said Miss Lam, the owner of online shop Planet-Beez.
With the money saved, the designer opened the shop queenzzzzz in Mong Kok, after eight months into running her online shop. ˇ§The store can be another way to send my products to the customers who purchase through the Internet,ˇ¨ Miss Lam said.
She said through the online shop, she succeeded in reaching her target customers, mostly girls and teenagers.
Another shop owner Jeff Ng Tsz-ngai established an online member club to maintain the relationship with his customers.
Mr Ng's shop, Toys2046, in Tseung Kwan O, sells imported Japanese animation figures, such as Gundam, Keroro and Pinky.
As the number of his customers grew, he decided to build a website to sell his goods earlier this year.
To Mr Ng, keeping in touch with customers means more than just sending e-mails to inform them about his products.
ˇ§It is just a waste of time to send information about every new item to all the consumers, since there are always too many products,ˇ¨ the 30-year-old shop owner said.
To avoid the e-mails ending up in consumers' junk mailboxes, what Mr Ng does is to send updated information to customers based on their different interests. ˇ§Targeting is very important,ˇ¨ he said.
Sincerity matters too, as Miss Lam pointed out, in online business.
The anonymous nature of the Internet makes customers who shop online have little knowledge of Miss Lam other than her products.
To build their confidence in her, she often keeps in touch with them. ˇ§I will send e-mails to the customers, who just bid (at the online auction centre) but have yet to make up their minds about whether or not to buy, so as to let them know my sincerity,ˇ¨ Miss Lam said.
She will also do follow-up work to keep up the relationships with customers after a purchase. ˇ§Using good and hearty service to build consumers' confidence towards my products is my principle,ˇ¨ she said.
She will try to remember the names of her frequent customers and offer them discounts. Some customers have become her friends and recommended her products to their friends, she said.
The self-employed designer can evaluate her business with the online feedback of the customers. At the Yahoo! online auction website, 367 out of 377 members gave Miss Lam comments.
ˇ§I am happy that customers love my designs,ˇ¨ she said. She considers being able to do what she loves is worth the effort she puts in the business, and the Internet has made her job easier in extending her customer base.
E-commerce not only enables small businesses to get more customers' attention, but also helps bring their products to the world.
Duncan Wong Shek, assistant professor of computer science at the City University of Hong Kong, said that the global nature of online commerce helped broaden the market for business owners.
ˇ§By using the Internet, it's like you have a shop opening 24/7. The advantage is that customers can check out your products anytime,ˇ¨ said Dr Wong, who is specialising in e-commerce. ˇ§In addition, the Internet is a global net, that is, your homepages will be viewed by potential customers all over the globe.ˇ¨
With the opening of his online business, Mr Ng wants to enter the global market. ˇ§I can increase my profit and reach more customers from different places such as Taiwan and the United Kingdom , not just from Hong Kong ,ˇ¨ he said.
As the lifestyles, shopping behaviour and attitudes of foreign customers are different from that of the locals, Mr Ng said, he could meet the demand of overseas customers right from the start through his e-shop.
He said clients from Taiwan and the UK often asked him if there were any new products at his shop.
ˇ§The Internet can help maintain the relationship (with customers abroad),ˇ¨ he said. ˇ§They are also willing to keep up the relationship.ˇ¨
But Mr Ng has doubts over whether the Internet can be equally helpful in fostering the ties with local customers. ˇ§It is hard to maintain the relationship with ( Hong Kong ) customers, because over 80 per cent of them just care about the prices,ˇ¨ he said.
He noted that there were many similar toy shops in Hong Kong and the competition was ˇ§very tenseˇ¨. Customers compare the prices, not the features.
A customer, Wilson Ng Wai-sang, who is unrelated to the Toys2046 owner, finds it convenient to order goods from the shop by e-mail.
Yet, e-commerce is unlikely to become the future trend of marketing in Hong Kong , he said. ˇ§I do not think the Internet will become a major access for Hong Kong people to shop because the consumers cannot see the products clearly online.ˇ¨
Mr Ng, the shop owner, agrees with his customer that online businesses may not have the same success locally as it does in the overseas market.
As local consumers have many choices, including where and how to shop, ˇ§the Internet can only provide the up-to-date information, like prices, product details and the release dates of the products,ˇ¨ Mr Ng said.
At the same time, Dr Wong pointed out that the Internet ˇ§has already become an essential tool for conducting business in Hong Kong ˇ¨ for its efficiency and accuracy, but it ˇ§should be used as a complement rather than a replacement of existing channels for marketing or customer relationsˇ¨.
