[SG] 30-year-old printing company diversifies on e-commerce platforms

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Some time around June this year, Anthony (@demaco) was scrolling through social media and chanced upon an ad for the CarouBiz Booster Package, offering 90% support for 6-months of CarouBiz subscription and Carousell Coins. While reading through the information on the website, he saw the word “services” as one of the types of companies that qualify to apply. “It never occurred to me that I can also list printing services online. I searched on Carousell and saw many others also doing printing services and I thought to try,” shared Anthony, who had previously been using his personal account to sell mobile accessories and lifestyle products.

Anthony had been running printing business Suncience Marketing since 1987, providing various services such as photocopying and corporate calendars. However he noticed a drop in demand for such services, and started to diversify into lifestyle products on e-commerce websites, including Carousell. 

“During SG50 (when Singapore celebrated 50 years of independence in 2015), we noticed that people bought a lot of the commemorative notes, but did not have an album to keep them. So we made personalised albums for sale, and thought about selling it online. Slowly, we started bringing more products,” shared Anthony.

Since he started listing printing services, Anthony noticed more chats to his Carousell account. “Almost every day, I receive chats for printing services. Mostly these are for t-shirt printing, as customers are interested in producing 10-15 pieces for work uniforms. We’ve also noticed more students enquiries as well, as they prefer to meet up and pay in cash,” said Anthony. One of the tips he has for listing services is to review the descriptions if customers ask questions, and see if there are any adjustments to make so it can be easier to understand.

With the CarouBiz Booster Package, one of the features Anthony uses mostly is Bumps. He shares, “when you bump a listing, you get more chats, from which a number converts into sales. I studied and came up with a strategy on my own. My preference is usually to bump on Thursdays or Fridays, and this has worked well. What I feel is that there is a niche market on Carousell, for example, students who don’t have credit cards or those who want to see items before they buy. These groups feel uncomfortable buying on the other e-commerce sites, and will come to Carousell.”