KUALA LUMPUR: After four years of online presence, five-time World Branding Award Brand of the Year Furniture (Mattress & Bedding) winner, Getha got
its break into e-commerce through online marketplace clout.
The homegrown brand had evolved from that of a 100 per cent natural latex cushion maker for the once popular rattan chair to a well-recognised brand in the bedding industry across 25 countries which includes South East Asian countries, America, Australia, Europe and
Russia.
Getha Bedding business development director Amelia Tan said that the company explored e-commerce by setting up its online store back in November 2015.
“With the rise of e-commerce and the maturity of the local logistic infrastructure and initiative such as Digital Free Trade Zone (DFTZ), we have decided to set up our very own web store about four years ago to bring our brand closer to our consumers,” she said, adding that online business currently only amounts to less than 5 per cent of the company’s total revenue.
Recognising the value that online marketplaces bring, Getha partnered with Malaysia’s No.1 online marketplace Shopee this year as part of its e-commerce growth strategy.
“We felt that Shopee would be a good partner due to aggressive campaign strategy, integrated payment gateway and free shipping programme. Additional, its large user base with about 20 million downloads provided us with data to penetrate new segments of the
market.
"With all those sorted for us, we felt like we could focus on our products and marketing to help grow our business further.
“To our delight, our partnership has derived a 282 per cent month on month (MoM) growth in November thanks to the recent 11.11 sale,” Amelia said.
With the success, Getha is now working with Shopee to enhance its cross-border trade initiative to penetrate the five other largest Southeast Asian markets such as Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
These markets (together with Malaysia) have combined market size of 570 million people.
“We are concurrently setting up our Official Store in Shopee Singapore. We foresee that the Singaporean market will be a revenue generator for Malaysian traders as product range and supply in the country are not as comprehensive and extensive as Malaysia’s.
"On top of that, their strong currency makes our products even more affordable and attractive.
"Therefore, we set a target of 100 per cent year on year (YoY) growth for our e-commerce business which we
find is realistic and achievable,” Amelia added.