As people cried over bubble tea being labelled non-essential business and unable to operate during the CB period, pawn shops seem to have narrowly managed to stay open.
Before you start to riot that somehow pawn shops are more essential than bubble tea, there is a very good reason: pawn shops give residents, especially the ones hit harder by the crisis, fast cash.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that pawnshops operate as if nothing happened.
In the case of MoneyMax, a pawnshop and retailer for jewellery, leather goods and watches, more than half of the stores are actually temporarily closed.
And with Mother’s Day approaching, you can expect that this provides quite a conundrum for customers and the industry alike.
Are we going to resort to giving Char Siew as a Mother’s Day present instead of a carefully selected (albeit cheaper in this crisis) necklace just because we can’t buy them somehow? Are pawnshops going to close for good because there are no more customers?
MoneyMax actually had a solution.
Facebook Live Videos With Promotions and Exclusive Sales Items
This is a strategy that was already pretty common for small or individual retailers who might not even have a physical shopfront. They would use live videos to showcase products and interact with the audience.
Now MoneyMax is adopting the strategy for the COVID-19 crisis to solve the problem of not being able to open some of their physical stores.
Here’s a screenshot that might even be mistaken for some random influencer trying to sell goods if not for the MoneyMax logo:
Response for the live sessions seems to be pretty hot. The latest video, their Labour Day Special, gathered 18K views and more than 700 comments.
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Products that were showcased during the session included special bundles and exclusive Peppa Pig coins.
Most of the comments are asking questions related to the products, and MoneyMax answering them directly.
And if live videos aren’t your thing…
Remember: MoneyMax’s Online Store Is Still Operating
According to their online store, any order entitles you for free shipping. Which means that you don’t have to physically go to the stores. They even have a Mother’s Day special:
But you’re not limited to buying products. You can even arrange to sell back products to them:
I guess the joke that COVID-19 led the digital transformation of companies is true.
Even PM Lee mentioned yesterday that how we work is going to be different from now on.