原本他的梦想，是要在全马开设百家分行。然而当新零售时代来临，他意识到，原来门市的多寡，并非取决零售生意成败的关键；相比之下，做好线上网店与线下门市的整合才是更重要的事情。

相比市面上其他零售品牌，Hairdepot在新零售方面的起步较早。在新冠肺炎疫情爆发之前，Hairdepot便已开始着手为本身品牌开启数码转型之路，进行线上线下整合。

因此在MCO初期，他们已早有准备，销售业绩上升的速度甚至快得让他们应接不暇，仓库也一度来不及反应。

随着MCO结束，各项技术逐渐成熟，Hairdepot的线上业绩，从疫情前的5%，如今已成长至40%。

创办人Jeff杨俊龙告诉Exabytes新零售团队，新零售系统不仅能帮助品牌经营者更了解客户，也帮助他们大幅度地减低行销成本。

Hairdepot助客户了解头皮，寻找适合的产品

让每一名顾客都能拥有健康靓丽，乌黑柔顺的头发，一直都是Hairdepot的坚持。

Hairdepot 17年创立至今，透过专业的头皮检查，为顾客提供差异化的意见，让顾客更了解自己的头皮与头发之余，也能找到最适合自己的产品。

Hairdepot所销售的产品来自世界各地，当中也有大马本地生产的护发品牌。他们的理念是，要有健康的头皮，才有健康的头发。因此，Hairdepot在选购产品原料时，讲究天然、专业。

杨俊龙补充，HairDepot也会为顾客进行头皮扫描，让顾客了解头皮。

“因此很多头发问题，都和头皮有关。比如脱发，可能是头皮缺水、没有养分。我们了解顾客的头皮问题后，才会推荐最适合的产品。”

不说不知，Hairdepot的前身，原本叫做K Care Shop。杨俊龙的母亲原本也是一名发型师，过去他们以半零售半发廊的方式经营这家品牌。

直到当他们的第8家门市开张时，他们开始意识到，大部分客人都无法从招牌上的店名直接理解他们所贩卖的产品，才开始计划更换名字。

“每一次要解释真的很麻烦，我们想要一个让客人一看就知道在卖什么的店名。所以就有了Hairdepot这个名字，让你一看就知道，这个品牌和护发有关，里面的护发产品应有尽有。”

疫情加速转型

新冠肺炎疫情虽然为企业带来许多负面影响，包括客户无法实体到门市消费，但同时这波疫情也凸显了科技和数码转型的价值，许多企业为了对抗疫情所带来的危机，不得不加速转型，透过科技去克服各种困境。

而这个论述同样适用于描述Hairdepot数位转型的历程上。

实际上，Hairdepot早在2018年杪便开始筹备数码转型，并在2019年初寻求第三方物流公司合作。

然而杨俊龙说，当时大家在这件事情上始终抱持着不急不徐的脚步，因此并没有立即与有关物流公司确立合作关系。

“直到2020年疫情爆发后，销量一下子暴增，Hairdepot因为仓库来不及反应，于是才赶紧联系该物理公司求助。”

“当时的订单真的很多，我们在多方协商下，才终于在MCO实施的6个月后，不再需要自处理包裹。原本我们和物流公司的约定，是一个月大约处理200个包裹，结果到最后是1天1000个包裹。”

坚守初衷；适时改变

对杨俊龙而言，身为一名生意人，最重要的信念，就是无论任何事情，都一定要坚持到底，同时懂得变通，适时地做出改变。

他认为，坚持与改变两者并不冲突。在经营品牌的路上，业者应该坚持创业的目标和初衷，而往往计划永远赶不上变化，因此当挑战和问题出现的时候，就要懂得调整策略，改变经营步伐和方式。

“做企业免不了面对挑战，不可能一帆风顺，所以要秉持信念前进，这是非常重要的事情。”

新零售模式提升效率

杨俊龙分享， Hairdepot在结合新零售之后，他所体会到的益处主要有：

（一）客户管理的优化

HairDepot透过CRM，了解客户的消费习惯，客户平时在线上浏览过的产品，都能掌握的一清二楚。因此，只要有关客户走进门市，店员可以立即知道，客户的喜好，线上产品浏览记录等等资料。

“比如客户曾在线上曾看过什么产品，当时没有立即下单的原因，店员可以基于CRM所提供的这些资料，看看是不是能现场再给客户提供更多的产品资讯，或者更多服务。”

（二）节省营销成本

HairDepot在迈入新零售模式之前，主要是依靠发送手机短信的方式，向客户推送产品信息。

“HairDepot成立这17年来，累积了超过10万笔客户资料。因此，就算每则手机短信低至8分钱，要是一次过发送给10万名客户，那也是一笔庞大的开销，所以过去我们一个月只能发一次短信给客户。”

然而如今落实新零售模式后，HairDepot能透过智慧型手机应用程序，随时与客户保持互动，更直接地与客户进行沟通。

未来展望

透过结合新零售模式，Hairdepot无论在客户消费体验、或者营销，效率有得到大幅度的提升，而这也让他们能更专注地去提高产品的质量。

杨俊龙说，Hairdepot未来的方向，就是要推出更多高质量的产品，并透过更多的第三方渠道贩售。

“我们的目标，是希望让更多消费者能以合宜的价格，与Hairdepot的产品接触。”

杨俊龙补充，他们也计划在近年内透过自动贩卖机的方式，在轻快铁车站、公寓楼下、校园宿舍售卖HairDepot的产品，让民众方便购买，随时都能解决护发问题。

“我们的第三个计划，就是要帮助更多零售商、微商、专业发廊进行代工生产。

HairDepot拥有17年的经验，能为商家们带来有效、稳定的护发配方。透过我们代工生产，商家只需不到4周的时间，就能推出自己的品牌。”

成为我们的零售英雄吧！

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想了解如何成为我们的零售英雄，现在就预览零售英雄官方网站，阅读其他零售英雄的故事吧！

Introduction:

Initially, his dream was to open hundreds of branches across Malaysia.

However, as the NEW RETAIL era had arrived, he realized that a large number of physical stores wasn’t the key to success. On the contrary, the integration of online and offline stores is much more crucial.

Compared with other retail brands in the market, Hairdepot had a head start. Before the pandemic, Hairdepot had already started to digitally transform its brand by combining online and offline stores.

As a result, they were well prepared for change at the start of the MCO. However, even though they are well prepared, the explosive growth became overwhelming, and the warehouse could not keep up with the enormous demand.

With the end of the MCO and the rise of new technologies, Hairdepot’s online sales have gone from 5% before the pandemic to 40% now.

Mr. Jeff Yong, the company’s founder, told the Exabytes New Retail team that the new retail system not only helps brands better understand their customers, but it also significantly reduces marketing costs.

Hairdepot Helping Customers Understand Their Scalp and Finding the Right Product

Hairdepot has always insisted on helping each and every customer have healthy, beautiful, and smooth hair.

Since its establishment 17 years ago, Hairdepot has provided customers with useful and practical recommendations through professional scalp examinations, allowing customers to better understand their scalp and hair and find the best suited products.

Hairdepot sells products from all over the world, including hair care brands and products that are manufactured locally in Malaysia. They firmly believe that “only with a healthy scalp can there be healthy hair.”

Therefore, Hairdepot has always been very professional when it comes to choosing the product materials—which are only natural materials.

Mr Jeff Yong added that Hairdepot will also conduct scalp scans for customers so that they can understand their scalps better.

“So many hair problems are related to the scalp. For example, hair loss may be caused by a lack of water and nutrients in the scalp. After we understand the customers’ scalp problems, we will recommend the most appropriate products.”

Many may not be aware that the predecessor of Hairdepot was “K Care Shop.” Mr Jeff Yong’s mother used to be a hairstylist. In the past, they operated the brand in a semi retail-hair salon manner.

It was not until the opening of their eighth store that they realized that most customers could not understand the products they were selling from their store name, so they started considering a name change.

“It is quite troublesome to explain everything to each and every new customer. We want a store name that allows customers to know what we are selling.

So we came up with the name “Hairdepot,” which immediately tells our customers that we sell hair care products and that they can find almost any hair care product here.”

The Pandemic Accelerates Transformation

Despite the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had many negative consequences for businesses, such as customers’ inability to physically visit a store and make purchases, it has also highlighted the importance of technology and digital transformation.

Many businesses had to accelerate transformation in order to overcome the crisis of using technology.

The same can be said about Hairdepot’s digital transformation.

In fact, Hairdepot started preparing for digital transformation as early as the end of 2018. The company started to cooperate with a third-party logistics company in early 2019.

However, according to Mr Jeff Yong, no one was in a hurry for digitization at that time. Thus, Hairdepot too did not immediately establish a cooperative relationship with the relevant logistics company.

“It wasn’t until the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020 that the sales suddenly increased. Because our existing stock at the warehouse could not keep up with the overwhelming demand, Hairdepot quickly contacted the logistics company for help.”

“We received countless orders at that time. After having discussions with multiple parties, we finally stopped handling parcels by ourselves six months after the implementation of MCO.

Our agreement with the logistics company was to process about 200 parcels a month. In the end, it was 1,000 parcels a day.”

Remain True to Original Aspirations; Making Timely Changes Whenever Necessary 

For Mr. Jeff Yong, as a businessman, the most important belief is that no matter what happens, one must persevere till the end. At the same time, one must be flexible and make timely changes. 

Mr Jeff Yong believes that there is no conflict between persistence and change. On the road to brand management, entrepreneurs should stick to the goal and their original aspirations when starting the business.

However, most often than not, the plan will never catch up with the changes. Therefore, when challenges and problems arise, one must know how to adjust his strategies and pace and change the way in which business is done.

“In business, challenges are norms. It is impossible to always have smooth sailing, so it is critical to move forward with faith.”

The ‘New Retail’ Model Boosts Efficiency

According to Mr Jeff Yong, upon adopting the concept of New Retail, the company experienced the following:

(1) Optimization of Customer Management

Hairdepot uses CRM to understand customers’ consumption habits and find out accurately which products customers usually browse online.

Therefore, when a customer walks into the store, the sales representative can immediately know his or her preferences, online product browsing history, and other relevant and useful information.

“For example, what products the customer looked at on the website and the reasons a purchase wasn’t made—the use of CRM enables brands to collect these data and provide customized information, product recommendations, and services to the customer when he or she steps into the physical store.”

(2) Lower Marketing Costs

Before Hairdepot adopted the New Retail model, it mainly relied on sending SMS to promote its products to customers.

“In the 17 years since its establishment, Hairdepot has collected information on more than 100,000 customers. Therefore, even if sending one SMS costs as low as 8 cents, sending to

100,000 customers at once would incur a huge expense, which means we can only send once a month.”

However, after implementing the New Retail model, Hairdepot can constantly interact and communicate with customers at any time through the smartphone application at zero cost.

Future Outlook

By adopting the new retail model, Hairdepot has greatly improved the customer buying experience. This also includes marketing, where Hairdepot can focus more on improving product quality.

Mr Jeff Yong said that the future direction of Hairdepot is to launch more high-quality products and sell them through more third-party channels.

“Our goal is to allow more consumers to have access to Hairdepot’s products at an affordable price.”

Mr Jeff Yong added that they also plan to use vending machines to sell Hairdepot products at LRT stations, apartment buildings, and campus dormitories in the next few years, so that the public can buy them conveniently and solve their hair care issues at any time.

“Our third plan is to help more retailers, micro-businesses, and professional hair salons carry out OEM production. Hairdepot has 17 years of experience and can bring effective and reliable hair care formulas to merchants.

Through our OEM production, merchants can launch their own brands in less than 4 weeks.”

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