SINGAPORE – Locally-inspired snacks such as salted egg fish skin have found their way into more stores and homes around the island – and even beyond Singapore, to countries such as the United States.

This is all thanks to the digitalisation efforts of local firm Cocoba, which owns the popular brand Irvins, famous for its salted egg goodies.

When the pandemic hit last year, it suffered a sharp fall in revenue as it had to rely mainly on price-sensitive domestic consumers instead of tourists.

As more consumers turned to online shopping during the pandemic, the company responded in force with multiple digital points of sale.

Chief executive Irvin Gunawan said: “In Singapore alone, we now have our own website, as well as a presence on Lazada, Shopee, Redmart and Grab, among others.”

He added: “We opened up many e-commerce channels around the world in order to make it easier for people to purchase our products online. People in the United States can also buy our products on our website and have the products delivered to their homes in a few days’ time.”

The company made such international deliveries possible with partnerships with logistics provider DHL.

“We made all this effort because we saw that the purchasing habits of people are changing. There were very visible shifts in 2020 from customers purchasing from the stores to online buying,” he said.

“If we did not build a good online presence, those sales would have been gone.”

Cocoba intends to further expand into overseas markets with help from Enterprise Singapore.

Read next: Key highlights from Budget 2021 – From household vouchers to GST on​ imported bought online​, here’s what you need to know.

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