CoolBlog eyes five to 10 East M’sia outlets within the year
KUCHING: Having existing outlets here in East Malaysia, drinksmaker CoolBlog hopes to open more outlets in Sabah and Sarawak as it calls for more East Malaysians to come on board as master franchisees or individual franchisees.
“Our main goal for the East Malaysian market is to ensure everyone in Sarawak and Sabah can be a part of the CoolBlog experience and enjoy our beverages.
“We are looking to expand into more East Malaysian locations and hope to open five to ten more outlets within the next year,” said Keith Loh, chief executive officer of CoolBlog Apps Sdn Bhd (CoolBlog Malaysia) in an interview with The Borneo Post.
“I personally make it a point to meet with every one of them (the franchisees) on a regular basis and listen to their input. We also have an open door policy whereby our franchisees can share their opinions freely with us and we work together to improve the brand.”
Loh said this falls in line with his vision of having 30 to 40 outlets in the whole region in the next five to seven year period.
“We believe the East Malaysia market is sizeable for a brand such as ours. Our type of beverage business is targeted at the mass market with a product range and pricing that suits our customers in East Malaysia.
“With a strong platform in West Malaysia, our offerings of local and mass market favourite beverages have great potential in the East Malaysia market.”
Loh said CoolBlog is very much Malaysian and its flavours are localised and appeals to the local crowd.
“We are different in the sense that we are independently owned and home grown,” he said.
“As a kiosk-based dessert beverage brand, CoolBlog ensures that its products and pricing is well suited to the mass market as CoolBlog’s flavours are created to well suit what customers want.
“We also ensure that our pricing is affordable for the target market and is kept at that range of pricing even with our new products. Our prices start from as low as RM2 and reach a maximum of RM7.50 with our new product range.
“We have an internal R&D team that constantly tests out different combinations of drinks that will work well together and our product development is done between six to twelve months ahead of ever launch.”
“We strongly believe that this will attract the East Malaysian market especially with our beverages that strongly carry the Malaysian influence.”
As an example, Loh said they use a lot of durian, coconut and yam in its recipes, three ingredients that are very local and popular amongst the Malaysian culture. The East Malaysian market will be sure to be enticed with these flavours, he believed.
Meanwhile, CoolBlog has underlined a three-year growth plan to increase the number of outlets in local and international markets to 500 outlets.
It currently have a few locations already in mind, and Loh said negotiations were already under way.
“However it is still too early to disclose. We are always looking out for any location that we deem to be suitable.
“If there is potential in a particular market, we will not hesitate to explore it. We have already expanded into the East Malaysian market this year and in line with the recent budget announcement on women empowerment, we will be looking more in-depth into the women workforce and how we can assist them to grow more within our organisation.
“In the long run, we wish to expand to the South East Asian region. I would like to bring CoolBlog to different heights within the next five years and this would be an achievement to both myself and the company.”