Minimarts 2.0: Updating a traditional business

I WAS stuck on an hour-long bus ride in Shanghai two years ago during a tour with retailers from Singapore and decided to make better use of time. I logged on remotely into my store's inventory system to check on stock, realised it was low on Yeo's packet drinks and sent a purchase order to the supplier via WhatsApp.

My fellow minimart operators were surprised. They had done stock taking only one way for decades: counting with their fingers, in person. To find out how many more cans of Coca-Cola to order, for instance. It would mean moving boxes around in tight spaces, before repeating it for all the variants of the popular drink: Diet Coke, Coke Zero, in cans or bottles of different sizes. Very often, there were errors.

It could not go on. This has been an especially tough year for retailers in Singapore, buffeted by the weak Malaysian ringgit, the gloomy economy and disruptive technologies.