An eye-opening session. Kenanga Investment Bank organised a corporate day to showcase selective companies in the e-commerce space. Recall that the Malaysian market experienced relatively slow e-commerce growth in 2015, with only 5% online presence from Malaysian businesses despite c.70% internet penetration. However, fast-forward to 2017, according to a data from Statistica, revenue in the Malaysian e-commerce market amounted to USD1,078m in 2017, with an expected 5-year CAGR of 19% and could hit USD2,531m in 2022. With the boom of the e-commerce industry amidst ample market potential, we invited six start-ups, namely, GoGet, Zarrel, BuildEasy, Doctor2U, honestbee and Graaab, to share their background story, business models, challenges and industry landscape as well as the prospect of respective businesses and industries.

In the morning session, we kick-started our event with the presentation by Ms Francesca Chia, the CEO of GoGet. Unlike the typical logistic providers, GoGet is a platform which provides dispatch services through part-timers (or GoGetters). With its technology platform, GoGet offers win-win solutions for its GoGetters in terms of flexibility, job opportunity as well as its users, with 100% guarantee for deliveries during weekdays, protection through insurance for products as well as reasonable pricing. GoGet also plays the role as the marketing intermediaries with its skilled part-timers taking up the promotional jobs by distributing flyers/pamphlets, and at the same time collecting marketing data. With these value-adding services, GoGet fills up the gaps in the market of typical logistic players. The start-up is also actively collaborating with other FMCGs, eateries, telcos and retailers to widen its scalability; with the aim to operationally breaking even in six months.

Next up, Mr. Ong Zhong Ken, CEO of Zarrel, took the floor. Zarrel offers a fashion-based solution to female consumers for the rental of ready-to-wear apparels for a monthly subscription fee. As the clothing articles are rented, consumers could save from incurring the full cost of the clothing and are enabled with better wardrobe storage as the rented items will be returned when due. Customers also have the option to purchase the rented apparels. This service would appeal to consumers whom are frequently seeking to experiment new clothing styles. Currently, Zarrel is partnered with 11 clothing lines.

The third presentation was by BuildEasy’s CEO and founder – Mr Tan Yong Meng, who is involved in the renovation space. BuildEasy was created to address the core issue of renovation currently faced by new homeowners - which is finding a credible contractor who can deliver on time and within allocated budget. They have interior design templates on their website curated by third party and in-house interior designers whereby new homeowners can choose from. In order for these new homeowners to visualize the final look of the renovation, BuildEasy has ventured into using Virtual Reality (VR) by the use of goggles/smartphones. Since then, they have discovered more uses for the VR technology: such as building developers’ showroom within a virtual reality space to help potential new buyers have a view of the unit by using their smartphones/goggles. This allows property buyers abroad to have a look of the property and its surroundings instead of having to travel to the brick and mortar showroom. Since inception, BuildEasy has been granted RM150k funds from Cradle and is currently selfsustainable.

Doctor2u presented by its CEO and founder Mr Garvy Beh starts off by highlighting the importance of embracing disruption within businesses. Doctor2u is a healthcare based app that offers 7 core services namely; (i) Doctor home visit, (ii) Ambulance, (iii) Medicine delivery, (iv) live chat, (v) video consultation, (vi) e-commerce and (vii) electrical medical records. Their doctor home visit allows doctors to attend to patients at the comfort of the patient’s homes instead of them visiting doctors at clinics. They charge a flat fee of RM200 for a day visit and RM380 for night visits. From here, the doctor can either prescribe medicines, which can be bought through the app or get an ambulance to have their patients admitted into hospitals if the condition is severe. Patients can also track their medical records/ blood test done by BP healthcare through the app. Their e-commerce site has over 1,000 merchants and features over 5,000 medical products. Currently, the app has over 300,000 registered users with 37,000 active users per month. They have a fleet of 1,500 contracted doctors and partners Falck for their ambulance services. Currently, Doctor2u is solely funded by BP Healthcare and is looking for an IPO listing in SGX in 2018.

Ms. Marianne Chuo, Malaysian Country Manager of honestbee, provided insights on their mobile platform for online delivery services. Primarily focused on the delivery of groceries and ready-cooked meals with partnered grocers and restaurants, users are able to place orders through the platform where a trained concierge team (other participating users of the platform) could fulfil and deliver the said orders. The service aims to provide greater convenience to its users by reducing travel time and cost while also enabling income generation for the concierge team from service fees received. Honestbee caters to the Klang Valley and may expand to other regions within the country.

We ended our Corporate Day with Graaab, represented by Mr. Ignitius Ho, who is the Executive Director/Co-Founder. Graaab is a mobile application-based community solutions provider with platform designed to enhance security, communication and convenience in communities. Its platform consists of three mobile applications which interconnect its clients (Property Developer, Property Management), Security Guards as well as AppUsers (Owners/Tenants) with substantially cheaper costs to traditional intercom solutions, at the same time offering better convenience. It was founded in 2013 and has recently pursued for listing on the new LEAP market by Bursa Securities; with new funding to speed up growth, further R&D for new revenue streams as well as penetration into new markets.

Source: Kenanga Research - 29 Sept 2017