After success in China, homegrown retailer Motherswork takes on South-east Asia

[HO CHI MINH CITY] Sitting in the atrium of high-end Ho Chi Minh City mall Estella Place, Sharon Wong observed that many young mothers there had expensive foreign baby strollers. Through chatting with some of them, she learned that they had brought the strollers into Vietnam through family friends.

“That is the first indication (of a ready market) – when you see a lot of products that are not yet available, but the mothers want them and they have gone through a lot of trouble to get them,” said Wong.

The founder of baby products retailer Motherswork was there for business, not leisure, with Estella Place being one of three premium malls that she visited in her five-day trip.

Upon returning to Singapore, she decided to bring Motherswork to Vietnam. The retailer’s first outlet there opened in Ho Chi Minh City in late April 2024, with a second planned for Hanoi in Q1 2025.

The retailer, which carries maternity and baby care products from over 300 brands, has been active in Singapore for 26 years and in China for 12 years. But Wong is now looking closer to home.

“I realised that China is a very big market and there’s just no way an SME (small and medium company) like us can scale to the next level,” she told The Business Times. “Why wouldn’t I diversify the portfolio and then offer it to more mothers across different countries?”

Motherswork originally aimed to have 30 stores in China. At its peak, it had 14 there, but closed some after the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Today, it has eight stores across the country’s first-tier cities – Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen – and some largest second-tier ones.

“I would continue to be stuck there if it were not for Covid,” she said. China’s pandemic-era lockdowns gave her ample time to slow down and think about other markets.

Wong felt the time was right for Motherswork to return to Singapore’s backyard South-east Asia, which has a fast-growing middle class and many young women ready to become mothers.

Motherswork plans to “take South-east Asia in the next three years”, with stores in the biggest cities of Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia, she said.

Less is more

Vietnam’s birth rate has been falling, but there are still some 1.5 million babies born there each year. According to Grand View Research, in 2021, one in three households there had at least one child under two – the highest rate in South-east Asia.

In 2021, sales in Vietnam’s mother and baby industry reached about 50,100 billion dong (S$2.7 billion).

Yet, this also means that Motherswork faces a crowded market, with leading local mother and baby retail chains such as Con Cung, Kids Plaza and Bibo Mart, though most of them target the mass market. According to market research company Q&Me, there were around 1,000 kid and baby stores in Vietnam in 2022.

However, Motherswork is not competing on numbers. Instead of opening many stores, its strategy is to have just a few “experiential” and flagship ones.

“For us, less is more, because we (provide an) experience,” Wong said. “We just need to make sure we have the infrastructure ready for customers to have access (to our products).”

And while there are many established local players, Wong sees Motherswork as a first-mover in providing retail with these “experiential” elements.

Its Ho Chi Minh City store, for instance, does not feature walls stacked with products. Instead, there are themed spaces that reflect a day in a baby’s life, from the kitchen to the bedroom.

In addition, there is a welcoming sofa space designed for socialising and connecting. Wong has already hosted two community events there, bringing together groups of mothers and entrepreneurs to exchange knowledge and experiences.

Motherswork is also testing a “click-and-collect” model in Vietnam, where customers can place an order online and then collect the products at a store, rather than opting for home delivery.

Giving up control to scale faster

Earlier this year, Motherswork was acquired by Singapore-based tech company The Parentinc, which owns parenthood site theAsianparent and Vietnam’s largest online community platform for women, Webtretho.

This was a decision to “give up control to scale faster”, said Wong.

“My legacy was not just to hold on to Motherswork but to build this community for mums to share their learning experiences all over Asia,” she said. “To do that, I can’t do it on my own.”

As Motherswork expands to more countries, Wong intends to transfer knowledge and management responsibilities to local teams. Eventually, local teams will largely run the business themselves, as is the case in China.

The company employs approximately 120 staff across its markets, with senior management in each market reporting to the regional office in Singapore.

This approach to sharing responsibility is carried out not just across geographies but across levels as well. Instead of insisting on a strict hierarchy, the approach in Motherswork is for leaders to be on the ground and talk to every staff member, from the most junior to senior ones, said Wong.

“After 26 years, the culture of the company is that you are very hands-on all the way from top to bottom,” she added. “That’s the only way you can do it. Otherwise, I don’t think you can survive.”