Blogshop – A saturated market in Singapore

Blogshop is a retail business based on the use of blogging platforms. Retailers chose to sell via their blogshops mainly due to the capital involved. As blogging platforms are free, they can allocate a larger portion of their capital on their product offerings. Low cost of blogging platforms also means that prices will remain competitive.

These days, although one can still see blogshops around, a lot others have moved into full fledge e-commerce shops they have higher control, better and more efficient payment method, a good CMS or inventory system. The use of the better CMS and e-commerce systems enables retailers to keep track of their sales and inventory count easily allowing them to focus on sourcing for better offerings for their customers. Providing an even more customized and personal service to their customers.

One interesting observation from the online shopping industry is the man-with-a-hammer syndrome. It is first mentioned by Charlie Munger (Berkshire Hathaway’s second in command) on the Psychology of Misjudgement, which evolved from the saying “To the man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” When simplified, the syndrome just means that, you think of the idea, and very soon, the idea becomes the idea. It became the very idea how you rationalize things. It becomes your perspective, your solution. The solution to this is to expand one’s mental model.

Look at the background of the partner or the owner of the blogshop and you will notice that they often focus too much on their forte and overlook in all other aspect which they are not trained in. Design grads focus on designs, IT grads focus on manipulating figures and optimization, marketing grads focus on 4Ps, so on and so forth. A good solution for them is to combine each and every of their strength to come back as a much stronger competitor to compete in the market.

According to a press release by Livejournal, it stated that over 90% of the blogshops in Singapore earns lesser than 1500 usd per month and that figure will remain as discouraging if these shops fail to work together to come out with a greater aesthetic.