A couple of months in the past, brothers Bui Hai Nam and Bui Hai Lengthy developed a bookkeeping utility for small companies in Vietnam. Known as SoBanHang, this utility helps shops “digitize” their conventional ledger.
A buyer of SoBanHang
When Covid-19 hit, SoBanHang joined them to take care of difficulties. The hackathon workforce finds new product concepts for retailers to create on-line shops and handle orders. Since its launch three months in the past, practically 20,000 folks have signed up for SoBanHang, a lot of whom are promoting on-line for the primary time.
On August 24, SoBanHang stated that it had efficiently raised $1.5 million in a seed spherical, with participation from buyers similar to FEBE Ventures, Class 5, Kevin P.Ryan – founding father of Gilt Groupe, Enterprise Insider and MongoDB.
Earlier than introducing SoBanHang, Bui Hai Nam based Datamart Options, a knowledge analytics and automation platform, and labored at Lazada. In the meantime, Bui Hai Lengthy spent a number of years in a administration place at Lazada earlier than holding the place of Chief Know-how Officer and Director of Analytics at Landers Superstore, a Philippine grocery store chain.
The concept of SoBanHang arose when Bui Hai Nam visited a grocery retailer. The store proprietor noticed the Lazada shirt he was sporting and requested tips on how to begin promoting on-line. So he helps them register an account on Shopee and publish pictures and product descriptions.
“After the set up was executed, they acquired their first order and requested me once more, ‘How do I ship,’” he recollects. “I stated {that a} provider would come and choose up the products. Then there’s the query of cash. They do not perceive the method and do not feel comfy sending the products to the provider.”
Since most e-commerce orders in Vietnam are paid in money on receipt (COD), store house owners additionally questioned the fee. He instantly defined that the client would pay the driving force, who then handed it again to Shopee and Shopee paid into the shop proprietor’s e-wallet.
“Then they requested the place is my pockets, how can I withdraw cash to my checking account if I haven’t got a checking account? It was an “a-ha” second once I realized that many e-commerce platforms nonetheless haven’t reached about 90% of outlets in Vietnam,” Hai Nam advised TechCrunch. “The system is just too sophisticated for them.”
So, the 2 brothers launched into constructing a bookkeeping utility to assist retailer house owners digitize their operations. Nonetheless, when the epidemic befell and the areas had been blocked, they weren’t capable of promote items on-line instantly. Primarily based on a survey by SoBanHang, there are about 16 million micro-enterprises within the nation. Many companies solely serve prospects inside a couple of kilometers. Actually, SoBanHang prospects usually ship the products on foot.
“It was a second a-ha second about retailers, promoting to prospects who stay round. Consumers and sellers are primarily shut to one another. After they join with the customer, they’ll make a transaction, then the vendor delivers the products themselves and receives the cash on the purchaser’s door.” This eliminates the necessity for an advanced logistics or fee system for SoBanHang, or having to make use of a paid third-party supply app.
Many SoBanHang prospects beforehand recorded transactions on paper and didn’t have a POS or a laptop computer. Due to this fact, the applying strategy is the primary time they “digitize” their actions. SoBanHang can be utilized for all retailers, however throughout the epidemic, it’s most used for comfort shops and meals. This quantity is sufficiently small to ship a textual content message to the customer, however SoBanHang makes the method smoother, serving to them to promote extra merchandise. Having an internet retailer additionally helps retailers higher put together for Covid-19 and keep buyer relationships.
For instance, SoBanHang signed a strategic settlement with Viettel to offer a reduced SMS package deal. SoBanHang prospects can ship messages about promotional gadgets to a variety of consumers even when the customer would not have the app put in.
After the restrictions are eased, SoBanHang will assist small companies compete with bigger rivals similar to supermarkets and comfort retailer chains. Their benefit is “good relationship with prospects, perceive them properly; We need to flip that relationship into a brand new gross sales technique.”
Sooner or later, SoBanHang intends to take care of the unique thought of a ledger utility. Like another comparable functions, the startup plans so as to add monetary companies, however will proceed to assist small shops promote on-line for the primary time within the brief time period.
