Castlery’s digital shift turns tables for SG retailer

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Hi there,

Some people would be surprised that Starbucks has 326 branches across 22 cities in Indonesia. In Jakarta, the brand is seemingly present at every mall, every rest stop, and literally every corner. 

Meanwhile, in Greater Melbourne, it has only opened 16 branches. (Even tiny Singapore has 130 Starbucks locations.) More surprisingly, though, is that this is already a major improvement to Starbucks’s disastrous early days in the Land Down Under.

Then again, one sip of Australian coffee and you would understand why people ditch the American chain. (Based on my one visit, I’m partial to Market Lane Coffee.)

The Starbucks experience shows that when it comes to international expansion, success is the exception, not the norm. In this week’s Big Story, my colleague Melissa Goh speaks to the founder of Singapore furniture startup Castlery. Like the coffee chain, Castlery initially had ambitious goals to conquer Australia. The team did not expect to run out of money soon after. 

And yet, out of those darker days, it got its second wind: the US market. 

Its expansion there has led to a 6x growth in revenue for the firm amid the pandemic, bagging it over US$100 million in revenue, according to our estimates. The key to its success? Going digital-only. 

In this week’s Hot Take, I wrote about why Meta has stumbled again with its ecommerce ambitions, namely Facebook and Instagram Shops. What does that mean for social media-crazed Southeast Asia? 

– Putra

THE BIG STORY

Image credit: Timmy Loen

How a SG furniture retailer grew 6x during the pandemic

After struggling in Australia, Singapore-based online furniture retailer Castlery bet on the US in late 2019 – and it paid off.

THE HOT TAKE

As its ecommerce progress slows, will Meta turn its focus back to ads?

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