This is the year ecommerce is taking off in Cambodia

When Chhaleta Chharoat and her boyfriend Borey Chum launched Roserb in May last year, there were only few online shopping options in Cambodia.

Most people rely on a site that’s been around since 2009, Khmer24, which is a classified listings site for literally everything: cars, land, fashion, gadgets, and jobs.

Others have come and gone in this fledgling tech space. In 2012, Rocket Internet made a first attempt to establish an ecommerce site in Cambodia, called Shop, but shut it down after just two months. In 2013, marketplace 7makara made a big entrance, but now appears to be in an indefinitive offline mode.

Building trust

Chharoat and Chum started their ecommerce company with a different strategy. They picked a niche – cosmetics and skin care products – because Chharoat was already involved with the distribution of Korean beauty products in Cambodia. She knew from experience that there was demand.

“She complained that when shopping in regular local markets and shops, the service personnel are clueless. They don’t know the products they’re selling and can’t give advice. Sometimes the products are even fakes,” explains Chum.

That’s how they developed the idea for a cosmetics ecommerce site that would offer only quality products and put an emphasis on customer service. Chum built the system himself, and they started Roserb with 50 types of cosmetics items which they purchased themselves from Korea. “Then, one of our team taught himself how to take professional photographs. To this day, every single photograph on the site is taken in-house,” says Chum. The same goes for the design. Chharoat and Chum have an emotional bond with their brand, it’s easy to tell. Apparently, Roserb means “ticklish.”

A year on, Roserb has expanded its product inventory to cover baby products, fashion, jewellery, and accessories, as well as selected packaged food items.

It now offers about 2,000 items. “We purchased the products only in the beginning,” says Chum. “Now it’s on consignment basis with our partners.”

The couple values product quality and a curated inventory over mass. “We test the product before we decide whether to go with it. Usually we purchase a few of them, we test on the site if there is a demand, before taking on the product,” Chum says.

Startup number two

Chharoat and Chum are currently bootstrapping Roserb from their own savings. This is possible due to the modest success of Chum’s first startup. He previously built a software-as-a-servcie venture called Luxurymachine which encompasses a suite of digital tools for hotel management, including bookings and key card system. Family and friends helped him bootstrap that company, and now most hotels in Cambodia use the software, according to Chum.

Roserb’s transaction volume is small, but steady. The startup claims to be shipping 170 to 220 packages per month, at an average value of US$37.50 each.

Ecommerce no longer the sleeping beauty