WITHOUT BAZAARS, CLOTHING FIRMS PLOT NEW PLAN
Entrepreneurs take to social media to promote their collections
SALES and production of traditional Raya clothes, especially by smallscale entrepreneurs, are affected due to the Movement Control Order (MCO) this Ramadan.
Nor Akma Mohd Desa, 58, who runs a home-based boutique, said Ramadan had always been a highly-anticipated period of the year. She said it was when she got maximum sales through offline and online marketing.
However, in view of the MCO, she will have to re-strategise her plan due to her being unable to sell her collections at Ramadan bazaars, which have been cancelled throughout the fasting month.
“Sales during Ramadan tend to be higher based on my experience.
“Unfortunately, I will have to plan my next move so that I can still make some profit this year,” said the founder of Seleksi Akma.
Seleksi Akma was located at BB Plaza before the complex was shut down in 2015 and demolished to make way for the construction of a Mass Rapid Transit station.
Akma said her online marketing strategy was different from the offline retail in terms of product exclusivity.
Now that she has focused on sales via social media, she had no choice but to promote her exclusive collections online.
“Our online division usually handles high volumes of orders throughout the year as we often come out with new collections with a market price below RM200. But our exclusive products, which we had planned to sell at events, are actually limited edition and cost slightly higher to cater for a specific target market.”
She added that her initial plan was to rent a Ramadan booth at a number of elite locations, including The Curve Petaling Jaya and Publika Shopping Gallery Kuala Lumpur.
She said that since the MCO was enforced, she had to face production problems, which included low stocks of sewing equipment such as zips and yarn, as well as material from overseas suppliers not arriving on time.
“We have never encountered a halt in production previously, but we had a bad break since the MCO started in terms of preparing our products on time.”
She added that she was sceptical that they could even achieve their sales target by Hari Raya Aidilfitri.
Shah Alam-based Qalas, a brand specialising in traditional menswear, is attempting a different strategy.
Founder Alif Nabil Ismail, 32, said the company decided to put its new releases on hold and focus on selling its previous collections through social media platforms this Ramadan.
“We have around 30 per cent of our stock from the previous collections worth RM140,000.
“We have to sell off the remaining stock before we release any new collection.” He added that there would be price reductions for the collections.
The company, he said, had received all materials for its new collections and had started production when the MCO came into effect.
He said a new strategy was needed to minimise loss as the company had focused on selling its collections at Ramadan bazaars.
“We had planned to open up a number of pop-up booths at prime locations, such as 1 Utama Petaling Jaya, The Curve Petaling Jaya, Melawati Mall Kuala Lumpur as well as Angsana Johor Baru Mall, but had to pull out due to the MCO extension.”
He added that since its social media accounts had about 1,000 followers, its marketing strategy was to advertise on Facebook and Instagram.
He said he would have to fork out around RM50 a day for the ads.
“We used to target buyers from Klang Valley, but this year is a little bit tricky since there’s no more physical store.”