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Excerpt

How One Phone Call Birthed a Highly Successful Fulfillment Center

Would you start a business with just one phone call? Charles Sy started StratQuad in a whim. Learn all about his decision in this podcast!

How did being a traditional online seller take you to the journey of starting up StratQuad?

Charles sold items online under the name of Cotton Depot. His primary products were bedsheets under the brand of sleep essentials. While continuing his online business, his sibling called him and offered him a business opportunity. His sibling proposed starting up a fulfillment center because it was growing really well in the U.S.

After fleshing out the idea more, they talked percentages and also agreed on the amount they wanted to invest in it.

Did you do intensive research before putting up this business?

Charles and his sibling have seen the business grow in other countries. Ecommerce is quickly growing and there is a market for the service that they want to put up. The only thing that they didn’t know was whether or not the market would use their services.

Charles never did a feasibility study. He just trusted his gut feeling that it will work. And that eventually led to StratQuad. It started in August 2018. During the time, they were only fixing things up. They had their first customers in October 2018.

What is Strat Quad? What do you do?

Strat Quad is a fulfillment center that caters to all e-commerce platforms. They are integrated with Lazada, Shopee, Zilingo, Zalora, Shopify, and Woocomerce. They are the ones that process the orders of online sellers. They started as a back-end solution for e-commerce websites. Now, they also provide importation services they can also provide free delivery services for shipments above 3CbM. 

They’re clients also have the option to not have their items delivered to their doorsteps and instead let the Strat Quad team distribute the merchandise for them. 

The eliminate the difficult part of being an online store which is to deliver the items

How do people find out about this service?

Right now, Charles relies on word of mouth. Currently, they are already partnered with the big platforms and they’re supportive of the relationship. Strat Quad aims to make starting an online store as simple as it can be for those who make use of their services. 

What is your pricing model for Strat Quad?

Strat Quad starts at PHP8,500.00 per CbM. Within the website, there’s a simple form that you need to fill out to import certain things that you’ve already delivered to their warehouse. If the shipment is below 3CbM, then it can be delivered via Lalamove to your address

Why would people want their merchandise to be delivered to them when it’s easy to have you store and fulfill their orders?

This is something that Charles also doesn’t understand. Some people don’t want to surrender their headaches to someone else. He thinks it’s because these people still want to save some money, but it’s a real mystery.

Some clients only want fulfillment, and some of them want to handle their importation. Each has their own preference. 

That being said, Charles still opens their services to anyone who wants it. The important part is that their clients can focus solely on selling.

Do your clients still need to contact you whenever there’s a sale?

Lazada and Shopee have seller centers. Sellers can choose to put the StratQuad email under Orders and Fulfillment and Charles will gain access to all the information needed to receive, deliver and fulfill those orders. 

How much do they pay? Why don’t some people do this? 

Charles charges PHP750 per month for 1.5CbM. For comparison, 3CbM is around the same space as an L300. That’s a lot of space for just PHP1500 a month. With regard to value per money, it’s incredibly worth it.