This meetup included our guest presenters Frédéric from Bombol, Michael and Erica from Reload Media, as well as updates from Shopify and Wave Commerce.

Demo-ing Shopify's New 3D Rendering and Augmented Reality (AR) Experience

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At every Shopify Meetup, Wave Commerce aims to bring a unique opportunity to Hong Kong’s ecommerce community. This time, we showcased Bombol’s products using Shopify 3D and Shopify AR to give attendees a first-hand experience of the value that these features bring to potential shoppers.

Unlocking 1000+ SF Express-Supported Pickup Spots with HK Pickup Options

Once the event kicked off, Wave Commerce also introduced the HK Pickup Options app, which can help Shopify merchants instantly offer over 1000 SF Express-supported pickup spots throughout HK, as well as customized in-store pickup locations, in English and Chinese.

Shopify Updates: Shopify Chat and Shopify POS

Next, Frankie Ng from Shopify introduced the launch of Shopify Chat, which enables merchants to engage with customers in-app to have real-time conversations that answer questions and convert interested customers.

In addition, Frankie also highlighted the benefits of online merchants using the free Shopify POS (available on iOS and Android) in order to test offline sales channels, such as pop-up events. While the Shopify POS does not come with a card reader, merchants can use the app on their phone and accept manual payments such as cash, external terminals, or other designated custom methods.

Finally, Frankie also highlighted that merchants can make use of Shopify Academy to learn from experts on successful ecommerce fundamentals such as SEO, Facebook advertising, Google Ads, Instagram, and e-mail marketing.

Building the Bombol Brand from Hong Kong with the Right Customers

This Shopify Meetup, Frédéric Gooris from Bombol delivered a keynote sharing session on how his team innovated a new product and introduced it to the world from Hong Kong.

Frédéric introduced the Bombol Bouncer chair for babies to toddlers and how it captured an untapped market for indoor and outdoor baby infant products. Frédéric shared how the team created a foldable booster chair that was like “a sofa in your bag” that was so light even young children could carry, but so sturdy it could balance a weight-lifting pole. The challenge, however, was introducing this product to the world in competition with established baby brands.

To do this, Frédéric walked us through the team’s exploration of new sales opportunities: in restaurants and hotels. Since the pop-up booster is the size of a book, it fits on restaurant shelves alongside menus, making it an ideal fit for leading global hotel brands such as JW Marriott, Park Lane, Sheraton, and W Hotels. By supplying 5-star hotels, Bombol was able to reach customers who were introduced to the brand by service staff.

How to Find an Audience and Meet Their Expectations from Reload Media

The final presentation by Michael Chen and Erica Magbanua from Reload Business Group provided attendees with strategies to apply the successful customer discovery journey that Bombol demonstrated. The presentation gave three concrete steps to break into the global market:

1. Finding your audience
2. Meeting their expectations
3. Getting your brand noticed

Finding an audience can be daunting in the global digital arena. To do this, the Reload Media team broke down this step into checking where site visitors are coming from, deep-diving into customers’ lifestyles and product interests, and doing research on their keyword usage. To do this, merchants can use keyword research with Google Adwords by region and targeted Facebook audience profiles.

To meet customer expectations, the team highlighted the “hard requirements” and “soft requirements” of selling internationally. Hard requirements include legal regulations, shipping and returns, payment gateways, and language localization, while soft requirements refers to building customer confidence in a new brand. Ultimately, the ecommerce experience must be designed to meet customer expectations through attention to product presentation, social media presence, and an intuitive store design.

The last tips on getting a new ecommerce brand noticed include organic outreach, generating first reviews to build customer trust, prospecting and retargeting campaigns, and finding lookalike audiences to seek new customers.

After the presentations, the presenters stayed to network and exchange ideas with event attendees. Many attendees who are in the ecommerce sector also networked to share experiences, as well as inquire more about Shopify AR’s implementation and capabilities.

Every quarter, Wave Commerce organizes a Shopify Meetup in Hong Kong to share industry knowledge and experiences from Shopify merchants and ecommerce experts. Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter to get our next meetup invitation!

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