You might know Smooch The Label as one of Singapore’s leading online retailers for women’s trends and fashion. Here, we put a face behind this successful local business: meet Sarah Lim, the brand’s owner and co-founder.

Smooch The Label has come a long way since its humble beginnings in 2009. However, the poised owner of this online business confesses that success hasn’t been all that easy.

“Smooch is all about creating a parallel universe where Smooch customers can shop for the latest runway trends without having to spend a lot of money.”

Trader by day, entrepreneur by night

Smooch The Label, which started out as Across The Bloody Universe in ‘09, was the brainchild of Sarah Lim and Mery Lordianto, good friends from their university days.

These 2 best friends had always wanted to start something fun together, and Smooch The Label proved to be the perfect fit. “My first customer was someone from Australia who took a liking to a $99 tutu dress,” Sarah recalled, “when we started receiving more than 20 orders of the same dress. It was at that moment when we realized that this can be a promising business opportunity.”

Being a trader by day, trading equities on the Australian Stock Exchange with a proprietary firm, meant Sarah had to be in the office between 6am to 2pm—and being the only female on the trading desk made her look forward to girly afternoons spent with Mery, sourcing and bouncing ideas for the shop.

The founders of Smooch The Label identified a gap between luxury and high street fashion. Highly coveted designs found on the runway seemed to be a pipe dream for many women—but were unaffordable to most. “We wanted to bridge the chasm by providing affordable and high quality apparels that are fresh off the runway,” shared the two business owners, “and the answer to this is to launch our in-house label: Smooch.”

She almost gave up on Smooch The Label

Being the owner of an online retail store isn’t just all about the glitz and glamour. Take away the pretty clothes and all you have left is hard work and dedication—and that’s just to stay afloat in this cut-throat industry. Barriers to entry may be low, as proven by the large number of blog shops in the industry. But turning the online retail business into a successful one takes more than just a keen eye for fashion. Building good relations with suppliers, having quality and unique apparels, and maintaining good customer service are key factors behind running a successful online retail store.

“Forsaking weekends and sleep are just some of the sacrifices I make. What most people don’t see is that running your own online retail business is pretty much a 24/7 job,” Sarah lamented. “But everything is worthwhile when I see people posting an #OOTD by Smooch.”

After Mery migrated overseas in 2011, it was all down to Sarah to continue Smooch The Label. Sarah loved her day-job and with the support of her parents and friends, she decided to commit solely to her own business. It made sense to eliminate email-based queries and upgrade to a shopping cart on a new domain, which was www.smooch.com.sg at that point in time. By 2012, however, the business was raking a loss of close to $40,000 due to an inefficient checkout page.

With her budget of $899 a month, a local hosting company was not able to support the website’s traffic on a “.com.sg” domain, making it difficult for customers to add items into their shopping carts and proceed with checkout. Dead buyers meant that customers were not paying for their items via internet banking after checking out, and that left Sarah with many dead stocks. “It was like watching money pile up.” She contacted several web design firms but none could commit to designing a new website within the short timeframe.

Sarah decided to give it a shot with Shopify, which provided the ease of Paypal Checkout Express at a low transaction fee, without the hefty price of $5K for a new shopping cart. She particularly liked Shopify’s ability to sort items by collections, which fulfilled the requirement of Smooch’s weekly launches.

Switching over to Shopify proved to be the saving grace of Smooch The Label as sales revenues have tripled since 2012, thanks to a fuss-free shopping experience for the customers who greatly appreciated a new, user-friendly checkout page.

Smooch The Label’s customer base has since grown steadily over the years, even expanding into the overseas market. The brand has even had customers who were willing to pay relatively exorbitant shipping fees just to get their hands on the latest Smooch The Label designs.

Rebranding Smooch The Label as a high-end fashion online store

Smooch The Label serves a niche group of well-heeled clientele between the ages of 24-36 years old, allowing Sarah the creative freedom to source for work wear, casual wear and cocktail attire below the price of $50. Sarah personally sources for designs that are befitting of the brand’s fashion-forward image, drawing inspiration from fashion blogs and magazines from around the world.

Keeping up with the latest fashion trends is a must for the fashion industry, but it is more than fashionable clothing that sets Smooch The Label apart. “Smooch the Label strives to be the first to present a new trend for the other blog shops to catch up on it,” shares Sarah.

She sees Smooch as a platform for her to sell an idea or concept more than apparels. “You can sell a $30 dress, but if you add your personal touch by suggesting how to wear an item, that’s value-adding to someone’s fashion quotient and shopping experience,” Sarah shares. Giving outfit recommendations and sharing tasteful opinions encourages customers to go back to your store to buy more products; it also establishes trust and helps build a relationship between the customer, the business owner, and the brand.

It’s all about finding the right formula

When asked if Sarah had any long-lasting advice for future entrepreneurs, she mentioned that presentation is the key to a successful online store. Tried and tested techniques include good photography, having the right model to translate the concept behind each collection, as well as thinking of fresh new themes and trends to excite with your customers.

Aside from thinking of new designs, social media is also a very important way to engage with your customers. With so many shops out there, throwing giveaways and promotions, showing behind-thescenes images, and sharing happy, brand-related quotes are great ways to give a voice to your brand and make it stand out from the competition.

“Being a business owner is very rewarding & humbling,” shares Sarah. “Hard work directly translates to monetary rewards, but it’s a whole new ball game where you have to be disciplined and mentally prepared to accept responsibility for your own mistakes & customers’ expectations of you.”