MOORTHY KOWSHIYADHARSHNI

Executive summary/Abstract

The Sustainability Project (TSP) is a small business in Singapore that aims to reduce waste and make low waste lifestyles easier to pursue. I have been attached to TSP for the entire month of January as a WOW! participant under Temasek Junior College (TJC). This page contains the record of what happened during the WOW attachment as well as my reflections regarding the tasks!

Contents

Background information of the projects/tasks which you were involved in.

As compared to other attachments, within The Sustainability Project (TSP) there was no one specific project we were involved in. However, as a whole, the attachment aims to immerse students into the experience of running a store which sells sustainable products. These products replace single-use items or unsustainably produced items. Being exposed to such experiences is valuable as we are moving towards climate change and many natural disasters caused by our acts and mistakes from the past. Working at TSP, not only exposed us to the possible low waste swaps but educated me about the implications of ignorance and how living a sustainable lifestyle goes way beyond with just replacing the plastic in our lives.

When I joined TSP, there were a lot of introductory segments to listen to and standard of procedures (SOPs) to read through. As TSP is a business and many external parties are involved, our actions do leave a ripple effect and so these segments were really important as they increase our efficiency. They covered the basics of what we had to know to complete certain tasks, which reduced the number of questions we had to ask our external mentor, Jo.

Elaboration / record of the activities, results / deliverables / impact of work done

1. Pricelist

The price list was an ongoing task through out the month. Essentially, Jo was rebranding the business, from the aesthetics of the online shop, social media posts, down to the price tags. Our task was to make the updated price tags by changing the colours, fonts and transfer or adding information about each product. To have a cleaner look, we had to In addition, we had to order all the price tags in an alphabetical order to introduce a system for the price tags as well.

After the soft copy of the price tags are finalised, they were printed out. All prints, for any purpose, are done on recycled paper. As such, the price tags were printed out on recycled paper as well and Elvin and I had to cut and paste the price tags onto repurposed cardboard to reinforce the paper.

2. Delivery

Since The Sustainability Project has an online shop as well, we receive orders via the website from time to time. Whenever an order is received, we had to save information regarding the orders and pack the respective products to be collected by the customer directly or by the courier company. The information we had to save are the order details when the order is received and generate waybills if applicable and finally delivery details after the order has been received. When the delivery details are saved, we are to update the backend of the website on the status of the orders.

Order Details - Each document contains the time, date and order number of the order as well as the contact details of the customer, the products they had ordered for, shipping details if applicable.

Waybills (Only for courier deliveries) - A document to be label the package with to aid in the courier company's package-sorting. It contains information similar to the order details as well as our contact details and address.

Delivery Details (Only for courier deliveries) - Each document contains the signature of package's receiver, the time and date of receiving the package.

Updating the backend of the website - All orders that are made via the online shop are indicated at the backend of the website and are set to 'Processing' as a default mode. It is our duty to update the status of the orders after saving the delivery details.

3. Stockist

A stockist is simply another store or organisation that carries our products and sells our products at their place. I was assigned to 3 stockists, Lyaya, Botany and Takashimaya. For each stockist, I had to:

1. Liaise with stockist via emails - Through the emails, I had to collect information such as whether they were interested in renewing their agreement and the monthly sales of the products. The monthly sales sheet allows us to gauge what products sell of faster and adjust our top up of stock accordingly. I had to liaise with the representatives from Lyaya and Botany while the representative from Takashimaya was already informed about the necessary details before I came onboard.

2. Draft a consignment agreement - We were given a template to follow, which made drafting as simple as filling in some blanks with information such as how the stockist would like to extend their agreement for and what products they would like to have. I drafted agreements for Lyaya and Botany.

3. Draft a stocks sheet - The stocks sheet is a multi-purpose document which contains information about how many of each product is sold per month, how many products are delivered per delivery and the consolidation of the sales at the end of the year. Moreover, if necessary, I had to come up with product codes for both the stockist's staff and us to identify a product. For example if I am packing a blue bag that sells for $10, the product code will be TSP-BB-$10 and a purple bag of the same price will be TSP-PB-$10. I drafted the stocks sheet for stockist A with the requested products.

3. Pack and Top up at their location - After confirming what products each stockist would like to carry, I had to pack an appropriate quantity of respective products, depending on the stock quantity we had at our shop as well. Depending on the stockist, I had to either write down the product codes on repurposed cardboard or they were printed out as stickers by the stockist, to be standardised with the rest of their products. If the product codes are written on cardboard, they had to be attached to the respective products using scrap fabric. I had packed and topped up for Lyaya and Takashimaya.

4. Events - Packing and Selling

One of the main assignments we had was going for events, mostly on our own. I had gone for 4 events - SIMFiesta, Northland Primary Staff Bazaar, SMU Patrons' Day and OCBC Corporate Event.

For each event, I will take the following steps:

1. Pack for event and update packing list in terms of the number of stock brought for the event

The stock count before each event is vital especially when there is a lot of crowd and some transactions/sales are not recorded. With the stock count before and after the event, we can fill in the blanks wherever needed. The entire packing process usually occurs 1 or 2 days prior to the actual event and to save time, we do not unpack the stocks from the previous event after doing stock count; instead we simply add on stocks which were sold!

2. At the event, set up the table and products to be sold along with their respective price tags

Jo taught Elvin and I how to set up the table at the first event and from there onwards, we had been packing, setting up and selling the products on our own. After handling 1 event on my own, I was told that I should aim to set up the table within 15 minutes. Although setting up may sound like a simple task, one must remember that it consists of unpacking the bags, arranging the products on the table such that nothing is blocked. Moreover, the table size is not always the exact same, nor the products we bring to every event (although we do keep it similar). Therefore, some time has to be spent to mentally plan out how to lay out the products.

3. Entertain customers whenever they stop by, answer their questions about the products

All of us have access to a product handbook which contains most information regarding the sizing, care instructions, lifespan etc. We had to memorise all those information to be able to confidently explain the products to customers. However, customers are unpredictable and there is only so much that one can prepare beforehand; for unprecedented questions, it boils down to thinking on your feet and using logical reasoning while not seeming too unsure, which turns some customers off. Moreover, it is important to stay calm and cheerful even if some customers just ask about the products and not buy the products; at the end of the day, The Sustainability Project's aim is to educate the general public about sustainability as well.

4. When there are no customers, make use of the time and do other tasks assigned

Ideally, events have large crowds and there are back to back sales. However, in reality, there are many pockets of time between sales and so we are to do work at events, when there are no customers. For example, among other tasks, I had worked on SMU Patron' Day at SIMFiesta and drafted the consignment agreement for Lyaya at the Northland Primary Staff Bazaar.

5. Events - Planning and gathering Information

One of the many types of emails we handle on a daily basis is an invite to an upcoming event. While replying these emails, we have to take note of certain details regarding the event to be communicated later to Jo, for her to choose whether we should consider attending the event or not. Generally these are the information we take down or request for in emails with organisations:

1. Time, Date, Venue - One of the first few steps is to check if we are available on that day before proceeding to gather the other information.

2. Footfall & Publicity - By judging the estimated size of the crowd and the scale of reach the event has, we would be able to see if our sales at that particular event will bring us profits or loss, which are important to consider especially since The Sustainability Project is a small business and we have to be careful with how we are spending our money.

3. Other Vendors - By having a sense of which other vendors will be attending, we will be able to ascertain that we do not sell the same items, which will cause a decrease in the number of people who purchase from our booth.

4. Logistics - Knowing what logistics are provided, we are able to prepare accordingly.

After gathering these information, we will inform Jo and if there are any documents attached in the email thread between the organisations and I, I will save them into a shared folder for Jo access.

6. Daily Checklist

7. Wholesale Pricelist

Similar to the previous price list, we were rebranding the wholesale price list. The purpose of the wholesale price list is to serve as a catalogue for organisations to take a look and have all information they require of the products, from the product description to the wholesale prices. This catalogue is to be sent out to the organisations that ask for bulk products.

8. Vending Machine - Stock Tracker and Invoices

The generation of invoices are similar to the ones done regularly, which are elaborated on under Delivery; for each product sold, a confirmation email is sent to the customer which then gets saved as our invoice of the

Some challenges which were prominent with the vending machine was when it does not dispense the product paid for or the product comes out broken. As for the broken product, the customer was sent a replacement and I generated the order details and waybill for it for the replacement to be sent out. When such cases occur, the speed of replying to their queries and of sending out a replacement is very important as their impression of us will vary accordingly.

10. Blog Post

To educate is the the first arm of The Sustainability Project, as such it started off as a blog. By blogging, we were meant to educate the readers about low waste lifestyle and raise awareness amongst them. Both Elvin and I were told to pick 1 topic related to sustainability which we are passionate about and draft a blog post about it. The topic I had picked about online shopping - how it compares to traditional shopping and how it can be used wisely to reduce the amount foot print we leave behind.

The biggest challenges I faced when it came to drafting the blog post were one, researching for statistics that are Singapore based or at the very least, global and the other issue was that my style of writing a blog post was different from Jo's. As such, there were many comments and edits to be made for my blog post to cleared. After finalising the draft, I uploaded it as a draft onto the backend of the blog's backend, following the blog post standard of procedure (SOPs).

Similarly, Elvin and I decided that we will do one more blog post together and this time, we did on the zero waste hierarchy and how reducing, reusing and upcycling are considered more effective at reducing waste as compared to recycling.

11. Social Media Collaterals

Being a shop in today's day and age, it is important to keep up a good social media profile to have a greater reach. To keep a good profile, being active and posting regularly without spamming is key. Therefore, we were assigned to design a few collaterals which will be spread out and posted on The Sustainability Project's social media.

A challenge that rose with almost all of the collaterals was the back and forth between Jo and I, where there will be a lot of minor edits to be made, especially since each of us have our own designing preferences.

Instagram Stories

Instagram Story Drafts

12. A Peek Into Zero Waste Lifestyle

'A Peek Into Zero Waste Lifestyle' is a sharing session by Jo, on how to pursue a low-waste lifestyle and overcome the obstacles that come with it etc. It is aimed at those who wish to embark on the low-waste journey but do not know where to start. I have drafted the marketing schedule; which is essentially a schedule of when to post what on which platform. It makes it a lot more organised and prevents all the posts from going up at one shot and seeming like spam which people ignore. I have designed a few collaterals as well, which are all displayed in the Instagram section above.

3 content knowledge / skills learnt

Independence - Being in a small business, one cannot always expect Jo to guide us at all points. After a few days into the attachment, it was really important for us to be independent and be comfortable being so. If you are not comfortable with being independent, it makes you feel burnt out easily and it will affect how you treat the customers as well. Both of these affect how the business as a whole so it is vital that we keep our image in check.

Switching modes - As mentioned above, The Sustainability Project has a small team and so there are many responsibilities and tasks assigned to one person which are quite diverse in nature. For example, I would be working on the new price tags and there will be a new order to generate waybills for. I will have to pause the price tag project and finish up the waybills or reply to emails. This skill becomes more of a necessity towards the end of the month where the workload increases drastically.

Being organised - This skill ties in with the previous one, since how fast I work on certain tasks affect the workload/productivity of others as well, it is essential that I prioritise those tasks over others. Prioritising on its own is not too hard of a task. However, when put in a situation where your mind is already occupied in processing another task and preparing for the next, it is not as easy to stop the current task and order all the tasks to be done in terms of priority. Jo did give us guidelines to follow, which made it a lot easier to prioritise in a pinch.

2 interesting aspects

How can I not mention sales and customers when it comes to running a store? One of the most interesting aspects of the journey was going for events and interacting with customers. I find it fascinating how each customer who stops by has different needs, a different purpose of stopping by and a different view of sustainability as a whole as well. Interacting with them brings out these opinions in small gestures. For example, there are customers who approach us without any idea of replacing any of their daily essentials. These customers will typically browse through the items. They may leave if I were to approach them so it is important to give them space to browse and simply smile to let them know that I am here if they need any assistance. Contrastingly, there are customers who come in with the exact idea of what they want. These customers are usually quick with their purchasing and ask all sorts of questions. I find this to be a really effective way to learn about the products myself.

Jo had assigned tasks such that Elvin and I had about the same amount of workload and had a feel of how each task works. Due to this, there was a variety of tasks which I really enjoyed. By not being restricted to one type of task, I was able to widen my exposure and skills while not getting tired of one particular task. Moreover, this made the attachment a lot more meaningful as well.

1 takeaway for life

Flat hierarchy - This attachment might just be the first time I have experienced a flat hierarchy with a figure of authority. Knowing that whatever we do will greatly impact the business and that the effects may be detrimental, I was very surprised with how much freedom Jo gave us. When I had raised this fear to Jo, she mentioned that it was all about how an employer letting things go and accepting matters as they are, instead of trying to micromanage everything. I found it to be a really powerful message, especially in this world where businesses are getting increasingly competitive and how every move of the business matters. It showed how much Jo wanted this attachment to be a meaning journey and a conducive environment for learning. Thank you Jo!