PRODUCT

Our main core is to provide a one-stop destination for consumers who are seeking creative products. These product offerings include accessories, home-decor, gifts and wearables that Oh, Culture will work towards expanding further. The tangible benefits in this product mix is the curation of these labels and products that will work closely in line with the lifestyle image that we are selling to customers. From our range of products and independent labels that we are working with, customers will enjoy the benefits of convenience and accessibility, surveying what is in the market and evaluating their choices based on current trends. The added benefit of supporting young creative entrepreneurs will also be passed on to consumers; who might find exclusive brands and product offerings available solely through Oh, Culture.

Our core product in itself is an shopping good as the mass market of customers do not see creative products as a necessity and purchase these goods less frequently. Due to the nature of the products that we are selling, Oh, Culture will have to market and advertise based on what customers can gain and build awareness on what we offer as an online retailer for creative products. However, we see a growing demand for creative products with the rise of local independent creative labels establishing themselves in Singapore. As we consider the product life cycle from introduction to decline, it is also important for us to introduce new products and emerging labels so that we can continue to grow as a retailer to target a growing consumer base.

PRICING

As a distributor of shopping goods from different suppliers, we have a few pricing strategies that we would like to adopt. As we will be selling goods from budding artists and homegrown brands, there will be different pricing strategies for different vendors.

PLACEMENT

Oh, Culture will be adopting a pull strategy, where our partner artists and independent labels are crucial players in our business model.

The quality of their work and products are integral in helping make effective promotion and distribution decisions. With the pull strategy, our partner artists and independent labels can promote to their present loyal supporters. As an online retailer, we will also promote directly to final consumers, creating a demand vacuum that “pulls” the product through the channel. Customers can then find these products on Oh, Culture, who will first receive these products from our artist (producers) at a manufacturer suggested retail price (MSRP). Upon a purchase in our store, we will earn a cut from a marked-up selling price. With more artists moving their current consumer base to Oh, Culture as an intermediary retailer, we will work towards retaining these interest groups on our platform for further product releases.

PROMOTION AND DISTRIBUTION

With the adoption of a pull strategy, our promotional mix strategy will employ tools that help us reach consumers effectively – placing emphasis on advertising, sales promotion, public relations and customer retention marketing. As our business-to-consumer model works predominantly on the the online sphere, we will be employing a mix of digital marketing activities through owned, earned and shared media channels.

Through our owned channels on our website and social media pages, we will be pushing for content creation that reinforces brand identity and promotes engagement. We will be working on creating online content that invites potential customers to understand who we are so that we can work on being the top-of-mind platform whenever the need arises. Through our owned media channels, we will also work on analysing web visitors and data analytics to retarget consumers and understand their preferences.

Paid advertising methods such as google ads, facebook ads, search engine optimisation and search engine marketing is also important, serving to move our potential customers from curiosity and intent to purchase stage. In addition, we will also aim to drive our customers through the customer life-cycle strategy (refer to figure 1), recognising that we want our customers to eventually reach the advocacy stage.

By first targeting our early adopters, which fit the ideal customer persona (refer to 4.3 Our ideal customer persona) by segmenting our potential customers, our first milestone will be moving this particular target audience into becoming advocates for Oh, Culture through the digital marketing mix.

KEY PARTNERSHIPS

Buyer-supplier relationships

As our business model’s survivability is built around distributing products from artists and homegrown brands, we would want to ensure that our ‘buyer-supplier’ relationships are personal, stable and long-lasting to assure reliability. As such, we would be communicating with them on a weekly or bi-weekly basis to keep each other aligned on our operations. As we are having their brands on our website afterall, we would be ensuring that their criteria would always be met, if possible.

Strategic alliances between partners

In order to extend our reach in our targeted market, we would want to work with organizations that focus on the local arts scene with both online and offline presences. Additionally, we are also looking into partnering with home-decoration and wearable companies as well, where we would be able to bring in a refreshing perspective of local art. A major form of marketing commonly organised by such companies are pop-up events. We hope that these pop-up events, where our target audience will be as well, will be a viable launchpad for our business in Singapore.

At pop-up events, there is a high level of curation orchestrated. A pop-up event provides Oh, Culture founders the opportunity to meet other creative entrepreneurs for collaboration. This would be the best chance for us to be able to create awareness in the market and to discover new local brands (Deborah Tan, 2016).