Looking for startup advice from offline bakery store to online bakery store?

A few things that I worried about the startup

Payment, do I need to register/create a bank account(Bank UEN) and have a new phone number for paynow/paylah payment gateway?
Do I have to register the existing business again and pay taxes? (Licensing etc especially selling food online)
Should I open an e-commerce platform or should I use a free platform like Facebook & Instagram?
Advice on where can I get tied up B2B delivery platform?
Lastly advice on marketing & advertising

1

Discussion (1)

What are your thoughts?

Learn how to style your text

PolicyWoke

02 Jan 2021

Turbo-charge Your Savings with REPs at PolicyWoke

Hi Jia Jin,

As a business owner myself (PolicyWoke) with software engineering background, I can share the following inputs from my own experience, which may help you in your online transition:

If you already have an existing business bank account that you have been using for your offline store, you should be able to use it for your online one, assuming you are not going to incorporate a new business entity for your online one. If you do not have any business bank account, you may open one from any local banks, or open an Aspire account which is Singapore's first digital banking platform for businesses. For non-Aspire business bank account, you can setup PayNow Corporate to accept PayNow payments from your customers. For Aspire business bank account, their PayNow feature is developing in progress.
If you existing business is already "Live" and registered with ACRA, there is no need to register again. For tax matters, you may consult an accountant. Feel free to PM us at our Facebook page if you wanna speak with the accountant that we engaged,
Personally I recommend using WooCommerce as a platform to build your e-commerce website because, it gives you the flexibility of the features and the UI of the website based on your requirements. In addition, it allows you to configure SEO (search engine optimisation) so that if configured correctly, your website can be found on Google search results so that your potential customers can find your business online.
A Google search results for B2B delivery platform shows Singapore Delivery Services Pte Ltd (SDS) . Not sure if this is what you are looking for.
Start with organic reach first. For my business, we use our website, Facebook, YouTube and Telegram to get online organic reach. For offline organic reach, we use word-of-mouth method and meet-people during networking events. Then if you need more outreach and have marketing budget, consider engaging a digital marketer. However, you must do your own due diligence on whether the digital marketer you meet, is able to help you generate more sales with net profit after marketing costs.

Hope my inputs help. Take care, stay safe and all the best in your bakery business.

Reply

Save

Write your thoughts