SOSOON offers e-fulfilment service

Online retailers have to fulfil their promises of convenient and better shopping experience to their customers. Robert Van Lith, general manager for Unitox, tells Retail Asia about the potential pitfalls for e-tailers and how his company can help them deliver on their promise of customer delivery.

While one of the most cited benefits of online shopping is time efficiency and convenience – the consumer can shop at any time and shop quickly through a few clicks – online retailing creates new responsibilities for e-tailers.

Robert Van Lith, general manager for Uitox, the company behind the online store SOSOON, said e-tailers must have the back end and the fulfilment processes in place to match up to the promise of online shopping. Otherwise, they fail to meet customer expectations and their customers lose part of the benefits promised. In the case of SOSOON customers, the promise is to deliver within 24 hours, free delivery for purchases above S$40, as well as cost-free and hassle-less returns.

Van Lith said e-commerce will be successful only if there is an ecosystem of services that enable online retailers to deliver on the promise. He stressed that shoppers want more than just product variety from online retailers, but a number of other important attributes, such as trust, transparency and better prices. “First of all, trust is important, especially on payment. The consumer wants to know that his money is safe when he pays on order, that he will get the product he wants and that the product will be delivered.”

The consumer also wants no surprises, no hidden costs. Therefore he wants to be clear about delivery charges, delivery times and cost of returns. Furthermore, the consumer expects lower prices when he buys online than in a physical retail store.

To help online retailers deliver on the promise, SOSOON is offering its fulfilment services to other online retailers.

“At SOSOON, our front end (website) and back end systems (payment gateway and logistics) are connected in real time. Our established infrastructure called Uitox Inside is an integrated system linking up the vendor, the website, inventory management, finance and logistics.”

Van Lith said Uitox can fill a gap currently existing in the Singapore e-commerce marketplace. “E-commerce is still immature in Singapore, and the infrastructure in general is not yet in place for single parcel shipment. We believe good inventory management is a key factor for success, but we are not sure the right mindset is in place.”

Van Lith said SOSOON is keen to work with vendors that can leverage its Uitox Inside infrastructure in different ways, depending on the need and the e-commerce maturity of the partner. “We welcome partners to put their products under consignment in our warehouse and we will be able to fulfil their orders within 24 hours.”

Potential partners could include companies that are less experienced with e-commerce but understand the growth of online retailing, branded companies that have their own website but want excellent fulfilment service, and vendors abroad that sell their products in Singapore on marketplaces like Q0010 and Rakuten but currently have their warehouses located in China, Japan, Korea or Taiwan.