TD Tawandang (“TD”), a leading retail technology company, is collaborating with Google Cloud to help conventional mom-and-pop stores reinvent their business operations, overcome competitive challenges, and boost profitability.
TD was launched in 2019 to disrupt the retail landscape and shift the paradigm of traditional retailers. Currently the fastest-growing retail technology company in Thailand, it aims to create business and employment opportunities that raise local communities’ standard of living.
Thailand’s mom-and-pop stores – also known as shohuays – have traditionally been local communities’ retailers of choice for groceries and other daily essentials at affordable prices. They have, however, been overshadowed by fast-expanding convenience store chains that offer lower price points due to economies of scale. These micro-retailers have also been adversely affected by the pandemic, which has led to 61.6% of local micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) experiencing a decline in income.
To safeguard mom-and-pop stores’ livelihoods and elevate their competitiveness, TD offers a profit-sharing partnership model, gives their stores a visual makeover, and provides them with access to its unified TD Retail Platform. The platform is built entirely on Google Cloud’s secure and scalable infrastructure, and advanced analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) technologies. Each refurbished store then features a “Tookdee” logo alongside its original name.
Rearchitecting Business
Through the platform, which includes a smart point of sale (POS) application connected to a full retail distribution network, TD automates stock replenishments and financial accounting on the store’s behalf. Instead of closing their stores to visit wholesalers and manually recording sales transactions, store owners can focus on other tasks like receiving goods, printing out price tags and promotion messages from the smart POS, restocking shelves, and building relationships with their customers.
Tientham Setthasit, Executive Director, TD Tawandang said:
“At the heart of every village and province lies mom-and-pop stores that have befriended their customers and served their communities for years, but many have struggled lately to make ends meet. We’re also seeing individuals who lost employment during the pandemic return to their hometowns and open small retail shops to earn a baseline income. TD was established to ensure that these store owners are fully equipped to grow their businesses and thrive as our economy recovers.”.
“By tapping Google Cloud’s industry-leading technologies and expertise, we have designed an integrated platform that close to 4,000 micro-retailers have been using in the past three years to more than double their daily incomes, while retaining full ownership of their stores and 85% of profits. With more than 100 micro-retailers now joining the Tookdee network each week, we will continue collaborating with Google Cloud to scale reliably, enhance the platform, and deliver more value-added services,” added Setthasit.
Reducing Wastage, Predicting Product Shortages & Reclaiming Lost Revenue
The critical challenges faced by mom-and-pop stores are limited product visibility and difficulty matching demand and supply. Their profit margins are then eroded by perishables expiring before they can be sold or customers’ needs being unmet when desired items are not replenished quickly enough.
“The applications we provide to micro-retailers, while easy-to-use on the frontend, are underpinned by numerous processes on the backend. All of these also produce terabytes of data on a daily basis, which must be effectively organized and ingested for the TD Retail Platform to benefit store owners as intended,” said Ruud Akarapanitsakul, Chief Technology Officer, TD Tawandang.
“Google Kubernetes Engine and Anthos Service Mesh make it easy for our staff to securely pull large datasets for analysis and our software developers to continuously release new features – without causing downtime. This robust architecture enables all aspects of the TD Retail Platform to run in tandem and scale up without issues, even if we were to support 30,000 stores and connect to many more devices.”
