Singapore designers, retailers link online

Reaching broader potential customers is now an easy thing for Singapore’s designers and retailers.

Travelshopa (http://www.travelshopa.com), the first and only online community dedicated to local designers and retailers, is now changing the way shoppers discover local stores and brands.

Travelshopa connects local retailers and designers across fashion, gifts and homewares with global shoppers. Whether shoppers seek bricks-and-mortar, online or pop-up stores, or exclusive shopping events, the search-based site helps them discover a comprehensive selection of established and emerging local designers and retailers in their home-city or travel destinations.

While all shoppers can browse more than 180 profiles of registered businesses in Singapore, registered Travelshopas enjoy the added benefits of following their favourite businesses, creating their own unique shopping trips and accessing exclusive content through weekly newsletters. Travelshopas will eventually be able to interact with one another as well as registered businesses, and contribute reviews to the online community.

Travelshopa is a highly-curated and primarily invite-only marketing platform, which offers registered businesses the opportunity to promote themselves to a highly-targeted audience of shoppers. The Travelshopa team selects and approves each registration, and businesses can then choose the package that suits their desired level of involvement.

Each business is provided with a login to create and update their profile, upload event information, create image galleries and monitor statistics via a dashboard. It is through their presence on Travelshopa that registered businesses generate leads and leverage Travelshopa’s wide range of marketing, advertising and content solutions.

Current registered businesses include some of Singapore’s most respected labels and stores as well as the fastest emerging brands and newest stores in town.

Founder and MD, Renée Lodens, says she aims to put the spotlight on the growing number of independent designers and retailers, showcasing amazing local talent and providing practical support to local businesses.

Renée comes from a strong background in strategic marketing and is passionate about supporting local businesses. With 10 years’ of B2B and B2C business development, marketing and consulting experience under her belt, she set out to build Travelshopa from scratch, on her own, in mid-2012. By its official launch on October 31, 2013, Travelshopa had grown from a solo effort to a five-person team.

“Travelshopa was born out of a gap in the local shopping scene. There are plenty of sites, books and brochures that promote food and beverage, accommodation or what to see and do, but few resources that go into the details of shopping,” said Lodens.

“As an avid traveller and resident in a new city, I saw the need for a platform that had readily available information about the local shopping scene for both local and global shoppers.“

Since starting out as a blog in November 2012, Travelshopa has seen double-digit monthly growth in terms of unique visitors and page views.

While a large part of Travelshopa’s content is now Singapore-centric, the online community site is in the process of expanding into other cities throughout Asia Pacific, and is continuously adding features to promote a rich user experience.

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