Barbergum is set up by three childhood friends – Julian, David and Stephen from Malacca. The idea of setting up an online business was initiated by Julian during the “Yum Cha” (aka gathering) session back to 5 years ago. Julian works as a market analyst in a well-known research company in Malaysia, he foresees there is a market opportunity for men grooming products in Malaysia.
During the “Yum Cha” session, he initiated and proposed the idea of having their own business for men grooming product. This idea was supported by Steven and David. Since e-commerce is a trend in doing business today, Steven suggested that they should do this business online. After much consideration, they decided to proceed with the idea to start their own online business and then Barbergum is established.
Selling pomade in Malaysia is challenging
However, it was not an easy task. Barbergum encountered a series of challenges when they started to sell pomade online. The grooming products that they sold were so niche at that time. Nobody in the market knew what a pomade was. Furthermore, customers felt insecure to purchase via Facebook.
“ The product (hair pomade) that we sold was too niche. Most of people had no idea what a pomade is. Besides that, it was hard for us to find a place to sell as majority of them preferred cash on delivery. Customers felt insecure to purchase and make payment on our Facebook page. ”
Rise again
Doing business is just like fishing. It requires patience, time and persistence to get a pay off. Although the situation wasn’t by their sides, they remain optimistic and took necessary approach to confront it.
“ We realise that consumers do not know what a pomade is . That’s why we created a website called “pomademalaysia.com” and a Youtube channel “Julian Malaysiapomade” to serve the purpose of education. We took 6 months to 1 years to share the knowledge on grooming tips and what a pomade is. Thank god. Our hard work finally pay off. ”
Other platforms were ineffective
Before Barbergum approached SiteGiant, they had tried different types of local and international e-commerce platforms. However, these platforms didn’t serve the purpose.
“ It took us more time just to upload and update our product description. We had tried both local and international e-commerce platforms to solve the problem. However, these platforms were expensive and not user-friendly. We don’t want to spend huge amount of money on ineffective e-commerce solution. Then, we got to know about SiteGiant from Google search. After several interaction with Jason from SiteGiant and reviewing their customers’ success stories , we decided to try it. ”
SiteGiant – the cost-effective e-commerce platform
After Barbergum had used SiteGiant, it had helped them to manage their online business more efficiently and show obvious improvements on their sales.
“ We had tight budget when we just started our business. SiteGiant platform is very affordable for us. The platform is a ready to use platform and we don’t even need to learn coding to use it. Besides that, SiteGiant marketplace sync feature is user-friendly. You just have to upload your photo and product description just one time and click a button to sync it. Then, it will sync to all marketplaces like Lazada, Shopee and 11 street without having to key in one-by-one. Last but not least, SiteGiant also assists our website to rank higher in search engine for free. When you type “Malaysia Pomade”, our website always ranks number one in Google Malaysia. You just have to pay RM1290 per year for UniCart Pro Plus to get these benefits. Where else can you find it? ”
We will continue to use SiteGiant, and thank you for helping us to grow our business.
It’s an honour for SiteGiant to be part of Barbergum’s successful e-commerce journey. We hope to empower more enthusiastic entrepreneurs like you guys to sell everywhere effortlessly.
