Leading premium retailer of mother, baby and kids products in Singapore and China, motherswork, continues to adapt its business operations to manage the effects of the pandemic to continue serving the community.
motherswork prides itself for not being just a retailer but supports mothers and families as a curator of information and resources essential to great motherhood, and as a provider of convenience and service to mothers who want the best for their kids.
Established in Singapore in 1998 by Sharon Wong, motherswork was created to journey with women into motherhood and beyond; from the precious moments of discovering their pregnancies and holding their babies for the first time to seeing their children off to school, and all the little adventures in between.
Always ahead of the curve, motherswork’s e-store was launched in 2009 and in 2016, the brand launched flagship stores on Singapore based e-commerce platforms – Lazada, Shopee, ishop changi and Redmart. In 2017, motherswork launched on China’s leading business-to-consumer platform for authorised dealers and official brands, Tmall.
During the Circuit Breaker in 2020, non-essential stores were closed and many retail businesses were adversely affected. Seeing that customers continued to conceive and needed baby goods (such as this portable baby cot) but had nowhere to go to research the products for their baby, motherswork introduced Virtual Personal Tours. Customers make an appointment to shop with a dedicated personal shopper virtually, conducted via mobile phones.
This initiative was well received and many expecting parents, concerned about Covid-19 and afraid to leave their homes, booked the tour slots during that period, as well as for the rest of the year. The motherswork Personal Tours take expecting parents around the flagship store to go through the top 9 must-haves, making it a little less overwhelming for first-time parents. Pivoting these in-store personal tours to virtual personal tours, first on Instagram live, then for individuals, comforted many first time parents, lessening their anxiety especially not knowing when the circuit breaker will end.
Next, to connect with motherswork community of mums who are working from home, a series of IG Live sessions across two themes – Meet The Makers to chat with spokespersons from brands and products that motherswork stocks to give a detailed insight on the benefits of the products and Heart 2 Heart, where experts and key opinion leaders discussed common topics in parenting and pregnancy including adoption, infertility and miscarriages; were put together for mothers to tune in via Instagram live. Heart 2 Heart is a journey of learning experiences to help mums manage with different motherhood challenges and that through sharing, women are able to inspire each other, bond and know that they are not alone, building a sense of community and community spirit.
Subsequently, in line with the Ministry of Health’s advisory to maintain social distancing, private shopping slots for small groups were introduced as part of ParTEA @ motherswork, where a 1.5-hour slot would be booked for a group of five to create their baby registry, shop privately with a dedicated personal shopping assistant, enjoy chat time and some refreshments, including Sharon’s famous cookies.
In 2021, motherswork partnered with leading super app Grab, to be its specialty baby store on GrabMart, providing a bevy of the store’s essential products on-demand island-wide.
To reach mothers on all platforms, Sharon Wong co-host the “Making of Motherhood” podcast with new mum and actor, model and singer, Brie Benfell to have open and heartfelt conversations on topics relating to motherhood, things that are not normally talked about including mental and sexual health and wellness.
To create more awareness on sexual health post birth, motherswork is the first and probably the only baby retailer in Singapore to stock sexual essential products relating to feminine wellness and provided information and open discussions on sex after birth.
According to Sharon, “Since the pandemic, we have worked twice as hard, not just to ensure we have products but to continue to reach out and to connect and support mothers through this unprecedented time. And we are still not done. We will also be launching a bi-weekly series of live streams on Facebook to showcase the latest baby products to help mothers select the right products to suit their lifestyle.”
