This is the story of MarketFresh and how it came to be.
Hi, my name is Pan. I am the co-founder of MarketFresh.com.sg. MarketFresh is an online wet market. It is based out of Tiong Bahru Market where I have been a fishmonger for more than 10 years. MarketFresh officially began operations in June 2017, but not before many false starts. This is the journey.
I have been a wet market fishmonger for more than 10 years. I recognised the need to go online a few years ago because of stagnation in the wet market business. People know that the best ingredients are found in the wet markets, but many factors prohibit people from visiting the wet market. Such factors include the short opening hours (usually mornings only), cleanliness (and smell), lack of parking and reluctance to haggle.
An online shop can address these issues perfectly. Thus my first online shop, PansFish.com.sg, was born 8 years ago.
Pansfish.com.sg was my first foray into online commerce and it was a spectacular flop. First, off I only sold seafood on the website. Why bother buying wet market seafood online when you are going to the wet market again anyway to get vegetables and other meats? Secondly, I was excitedly telling my wet market customers about my amazing new website. This cannibalised my wet market sales. My existing customers who would come down to the wet market themselves now wanted me to send their seafood to their homes. This incurred additional costs and time while providing zero increase in sales. Thirdly, I knew nothing about programming or design or online marketing or social media or search engine optimisation or ... you get the idea. This genius idea of mine was shuttered in six months.
This failure kept me off online commerce until I met MarketFresh's co-founder 3 years ago.
The Story of MarketFresh
