PETALING JAYA: The number one challenge facing local brands and retailers is the lack of relatable and engaging content when interacting with the consumer, according to social e-commerce company RPG Commerce.
Its CEO Melvin Chee (pix), said it does not matter which stage the consumer is at in the customer lifecycle of a brand. With how saturated the market is from the amount of competing products, it is important to be able to communicate with customers in a strategic and engaging manner.
“This issue can be addressed by learning from your business and customer insights, using that information to exponentially scale what works well for engagement. It is also important to experiment with new methods of communicating your product and services to your consumer base using calculated risks,“ he told SunBiz.
With the economic downturn caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, Chee said Malaysian consumers have turned towards more economical and unique solutions to their wants and needs.
“This new normal created by the societal reaction to the pandemic will create an upward trend that will even continue post-pandemic, and we believe it is a perfect opportunity for direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands to strengthen their foothold among Malaysian consumers as a more viable choice than big traditional brands.”
Established in 2017, RPG Commerce builds DTC brands from scratch. RPG Commerce was founded based on a noticeable gap in the industry, where many offline retailers are struggling to effectively reach their consumers. Often, these business owners face issues such as high overheads, limited locations, and an oversupply of malls. These issues have escalated due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Brands under RPG Commerce’s portfolio are able to reach customers in Asia, the UK and Europe, Canada and Australia. RPG Commerce wants to deliver game-changing, consumer-centric products and services.
RPG Commerce currently owns all of its brands under its portfolio. Part of RPG Commerce’s model is to launch and acquire digital consumer brands, then take them to a new level where it introduces digital tools to enhance their overall brand presence and general consumer awareness of the unique products they offer.
“As such, we’re not currently in a position to help other SMEs directly, but only the brands we will be acquiring or have acquired. Nevertheless, as we continue to amass brands under our portfolio, our aim is to build one of the world’s largest networks of DTC brands which are able to not only withstand the physical limitations put forth by the current pandemic but also all future crises. Ultimately, we hope to build DTC brands which are future-proof.”
There are currently nine brands under RPG Commerce, and, moving forward, RPG Commerce aims to actively launch new brands every quarter and achieve a goal of 100 brands by 2025, by strategic acquisitions in companies that can target a gap that is not sufficiently serviced by other DTC brands, as well as hiring the right talents that can spearhead its brand and product development team.
“Our brands currently servicing the Malaysian market are Thousand Miles, Bottoms Lab, Comfort Republic and Pocket Angel. At the moment, the Malaysian market is contributing about 10-15% to the overall business of RPG Commerce, but we foresee this number increasing towards the final quarter of 2021 as our brand presence gets stronger among Malaysian consumers,“ said Chee.
With the upswing in the market from the vaccine rollouts, RPG believes 2021 is the perfect opportunity for the company to triple or quadruple its revenue from 2020.
“Even though Covid-19 has affected the majority of businesses negatively, RPG Commerce has managed to grow 500% in 2020 compared to 2019 with newly launched brands and products through 2020.
“In 2021, RPG Commerce will continue to innovate in the DTC space, whether it’s by our own in-house brands, or even through new acquisitions of other brands, that are currently in the works.”
Being a young entrepreneur, 28-year-old Chee said it is important to be able to learn from one’s predecessors.
“The road to success is being able to build upon previous mistakes or achievement, we need to constantly innovate within this space to bring additional value to the targeted consumer. It is also important to not be afraid to take big, but calculated risks when you see the opportunity.
Thankfully, we’re young and tenacious enough to not give up during the journey. I believe that those qualities combined with hard work and an incredible team has brought RPG to where it is today.”
RPG Commerce recently closed its Series A round with a renown venture capital based in Singapore. RPG went from a headcount of 20 a year ago to just under 100 headcount at the moment and intends to create another 70 to 80 new job opportunities this year.
