14 December 2018

On 11 & 12 December, Ram, Jia Xin, Cheryl and Shun Kai went to OCBC Centre for our first ever corporate staff sale.

Prior to the event, Ram and Cheryl have conducted a site visit to check out the area where we will be setting our booth and the dimensions of the table to better plan for our booth layout and décor.

Cleo also designed an e-mail mailer to publicize for Frond where the event in-charge helped to forward and blast out to the staffs at OCBC Centre.

As this is a private sale exclusively for OCBC staffs, the booths timing were much shorter than our previous event to cater to the break time of the staffs.

Location

The booths were located at the OCBC recreation club house; B1 of the OCBC Centre South building. The location was not the most ideal as it is not an area where all the staffs will pass by. Instead, it is a pantry and recreation area where staffs can eat their meals, or play table games (foosball, pool) during their break time.

Day 1

There were many vendors selling a range of different products from phone accessories, cakes, metal straws, shoe laces, children clothes and more.

With a wide option to choose from, many of the people bought cakes that was sold by a regular vendor there and colourful no tie shoe lace that were rather unique and special.

Although many staff popped by and look at our terrariums, many did not buy due to the following reasons:

• They have already bought one recently from another vendor
• They would prefer a closed terrarium that does not require watering
• They will consider and come back the next day if they decide to buy one

Therefore, the sales of our terrarium were rather disappointing as many chose to buy novelty items – no tie shoelaces that were situated close by.

Day 2

After evaluating on our sales for Day 1 , we have noticed that customers tend to take time to decide, and many told us they may come back on Day 2. Since it was our last day, we have decided to swap our signage to “Last Day” so the people will feel the urgency to purchase before we leave.

Lo and behold, the sales were much better than Day 1. We have had customers buying a few terrariums for their Christmas gift exchange and customers buying multiple figurines to decorate their own plants.

The higher sales could also be due to having only 3 vendors such that customers have lesser options to choose from.

This OCBC event has given us the opportunity to test out selling at a corporate office for staff sales.

Some issues and key learning points are as follows:

• Regularly, OCBC staffs are exposed to terrariums vendors. Therefore, although terrariums can be used to decorate their office, many do not feel a need to buy another one.
• The number of vendors in the event have an impact on our sales. Having other vendors selling products that are suitable for gifting means that customers have greater choices. Thankfully, we are the only plant seller at the time hence, we still managed to secure a few deals.

This event has given us the exposure to corporate staff sales. We will continue trying out different events to find the optimal customer segments that we should focus on.