How home-grown fashion retailer cuts costs, speeds up overseas growth with grant-supported e-commerce solution

Straits Times

2 days ago

Faced with delays each time they entered a new market, SaturdayClub found a smarter way to scale globally – without the usual wait
Mr Ying Tze Her (pictured with digital marketing lead Tyan Tan) says SaturdayClub has seen significant growth since adopting a new e-commerce platform. PHOTO: SPH MEDIA
Two brothers, Ying Tze Her and Justin Ying, dreamed of building their fashion brand into a global online business. Expansion was slow as it could take at least six months to enter a new market.
But that changed when they adopted an
e-commerce solution that allowed them to tap into a new market in just one day.
Founded in 2012, SaturdayClub is known for its contemporary womenswear and has built a loyal customer base in markets such as South-east Asia, Japan and the US.
Yet behind the scenes, growth was anything but smooth. Until 2023, the team struggled with complex, slow processes to enter new markets.
Outdated technology held it back too. The company also regularly faced website crashes during peak sales periods, frustrating loyal customers and losing valuable sales opportunities.
After setting up in six markets and juggling separate systems, the team realised it needed a more efficient way to scale. They decided to implement a pre-approved e-commerce solution available through
IMDA's Chief Technology Officer-as-a-Service (CTO-as-a-Service) platform , which offers up to 50 per cent grant support.
This enabled SaturdayClub to finally establish a reliable website, a wide range of payment options, and the ability to quickly enter new territories – making it easier to grow globally and to provide better customer service.
Operational challenges and expansion roadblocks
Previously, if the brand wanted to make its products available in a new market, the process was tedious and multi-layered.
Besides taking at least six months, it would have cost the firm close to $100,000 and involved complex administrative processes that required the team to personally travel to each market and hire dedicated development teams to handle the back-end operations.
Chief operating officer Ying Tze Her explains: 'You have to set up a local entity, find somebody you can trust to be a director, create local bank accounts, travel there to oversee the set-up, hire local technical staff to manage the systems, and then you're able to start selling the clothes online.
Now that SaturdayClub has adopted the new e-commerce platform, Mr Ying says that entering new markets takes just a day instead of six months. PHOTO: SPH MEDIA
'All of this takes significant time and money before you can even serve your first customer.'
Beyond the complexities of market entry, SaturdayClub's outdated e-commerce platform created numerous operational headaches that severely limited its business potential.
During every sale event, the entire team had to be on standby as the employees' inboxes would be swamped by customer queries and complaints.
Mr Ying says: 'If there was a lot of customer traffic coming in, the site would start to lag and become unresponsive.
'It would end up clocking duplicate orders and then we would have to cancel those orders because we ran out of stock.'
These inventory inaccuracies led to overselling situations, leaving customers unhappy when their orders could not be fulfilled.
Mr Ying adds that many customers never returned to shop again, representing significant lost revenue.
'When we ran mega sales previously, it was very hard to get any sleep. We had to put the whole team, including myself, on standby to answer customer queries,' he explained.
Staff became stressed and demoralised from dealing with frustrated customers, while the company's reputation suffered from unmet customer expectations.
These delays would worsen on weekends, when sales events typically drew the most traffic but developers were not available to fix issues promptly. This meant that the company was forced to hold such sales during weekdays instead, just to ensure the developers were available to be on standby to fix any technical problems.
Reliable e-commerce platform transformed operations and sped up global expansion
With the new
e-commerce platform , SaturdayClub can enter new markets in just one day as the platform automatically adjusts the website for each country, changing the language, currency and payment options.
The team simply needs to select a target country, and the platform automatically generates a localised website.
Ms Tan monitors live data across SaturdayClub's global markets. The analytics capabilities allow her to optimise ad spend and identify high-converting products instantly. PHOTO: SPH MEDIA
The customisable solution allows SaturdayClub to apply its brand language, preferred fonts and visual identity while the system guides the team through the essential requirements for establishing an online shop in that market.
The platform automatically scales server capacity based on demand, ensuring smooth operations during sales events without requiring staff intervention.
This means that the team no longer needs to be on standby during major sales, freeing them to focus on business growth rather than firefighting technical problems.
Increased efficiency, sharper insights and faster service
The customisable solution allows SaturdayClub to apply its brand language, preferred fonts and visual identity while the system guides the team through the essential requirements for establishing an online shop in that market.
The platform automatically scales server capacity based on demand, ensuring smooth operations during sales events without requiring staff intervention.
This means that the team no longer needs to be on standby during major sales, freeing them to focus on business growth rather than firefighting technical problems.
Growing customers across multiple countries
Since implementing the platform in 2023, SaturdayClub has expanded from six to 23 markets within a short span of two years. With integrated payment systems in place as well as automated content set-up, SaturdayClub now offers country-specific clothing options that help drive strong growth.
'In Malaysia, we experienced a 38 per cent growth once we went live with the new platform,' says Mr Ying. 'This was because we could now offer localised payment systems like bank transfer.'
A customer browsing SaturdayClub's website, which Mr Ying says can now be localised for new markets in just a few clicks. PHOTO: SPH MEDIA
In Singapore, he shares that the brand has implemented the buy-now-pay-later option, which contributes to 20 per cent of the market's revenue.
The
e-commerce platform also provides benefits beyond traditional physical stores, offering 24/7 shopping without being limited by shop size and enabling easy product sorting by features like colour or style.
With the streamlined operations and reliable infrastructure in place, SaturdayClub is now exploring leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities for enhanced personalisation.
'We're looking at using AI across all our different functions, such as customising our recommendations of clothes for our customers in their language,' says Mr Ying.
For small and medium-enterprises (SMEs) wary of dipping their toes into e-commerce, Mr Ying advises: 'I always tell other SMEs to step out of Singapore because the market is so big out there. We managed to stay afloat during the pandemic thanks to our diversified markets. Lockdown timelines varied by country, and we could rely on regions where operations were still open to sustain our business.'
With the right platform, global expansion now takes just a few clicks instead of months of complex setup processes.
Want to boost your online presence and expand into multiple markets quickly without stretching your budget, just like SaturdayClub?
Explore e-commerce solutions on CTO-as-a-Service and enjoy up to 50 per cent grant support.