How Singaporean Sharon Wong's retail empire Motherswork came of age amid a turbulent retail landscape

At first blush, Sharon Wong is atypical of someone who has recently handed over the keys to her retail empire. The ink may have yet to dry on the deal securing Motherswork’s acquisition by tech start-up The Parentinc, but she betrayed no signs of slackening the reins on her 25-year-old company that purveys products for mothers, babies and children.

If anything, Wong appears to be comfortably installed in the driver’s seat and blistering ahead at full throttle. Soon, she’ll jet off to Vietnam to oversee the launch of a Motherswork store — its first foray under the firm’s Southeast Asia expansion plans.

She attributed this new direction to the pandemic, when travel restrictions put a damper on her progress deepening the company’s roots in China — home to eight Motherswork outposts. “While stuck in Singapore, I wrote a book. I created my own brand called Little Rei. Meanwhile, Vietnam became ready,” said the spry sexagenarian, who christened her latest sortie with the pithy hashtag, #scalingat60.

“Vietnam has all the brands and many stores, but there’s nothing like what we have to offer,” she added, alluding to Motherswork’s experiential concept. The latter was conceived from her own struggles as a working mother wading through a welter of baby products in the 1990s.

“I’d just had my second daughter and my bottles were leaking milk. I asked for help thrice at the store and was crying, but no one could help me,” recounted the mother-of-three, who was then the regional tax and treasury director of American consumer-goods giant Sara Lee.

Then it squalled out to her, Motherswork’s raison d'etre. “I was going to build the perfect store to make motherhood a little less overwhelming,” she said.

AGILITY PAYS

Today, it beggars belief that Wong largely ran her fledgling business remotely, due to her husband’s job posting to the United States. Her hands-on approach is patently obvious and writ-large upon grace notes that are imprinted all over the stores.

Holding court over a softly-lit, marble-counter topped kitchen — the beating heart of Motherswork’s flagship store at Great World City that hosts community events — she brewed me a spot of delicate TWG tea against a gleaming backdrop of HGTV-prescribed subway tiles. Our conversation unfolded to ambient piano music, which — confoundingly — ebbed and flowed to the inflections of her journey.

Digression aside, it has entailed adaptability to build an enduring brand in a crowded market. “Running a business across different countries in the 2000s presented a lot of challenges beyond just being in different time zones. Building and maintaining effective communication was very challenging,” shared Wong. So she “learnt to let go” and relied on her general manager to manage the quotidian tasks, while focusing her energy on sourcing and building long-standing relationships with brands in America and Australia.

In the intervening years, she made inroads in China, where she hit the ground running to keep pace with the cut and thrust of a fast-iterating market. “The Chinese are very smart, and they learn very fast,” she reflected. There were initial missteps, when navigating the country’s nebulous regulations. The company was slapped with a fine for incorrect trademark usage. For Wong, it was an object lesson in pliancy. “You just have to evolve and understand that each market is very different compared to what we’re used to in Singapore,” she shared.

Flexibility also extends to her parenting style, which according to her, is Western slanted rather than emulative of the Asian Tiger Mom. “We wanted to raise happy, kind and empathetic kids,” she asserted.

Hence, when her middle child, Nicola, faltered, two years into her law career, the unstinting mother encouraged her to pursue other passions.

“I said to her, ‘It’s time to let go already. It’s not your cup of tea,’” recalled Wong. “She said, ‘Mom you didn’t raise no quitter.’ But it’s not about quitting. It’s about finding a different journey and chemistry,” she added. Nicola, who she’s described as headstrong and similar to her in character, is now undertaking a post-graduate degree in philosophy and theatre in Melbourne.

But perhaps it was the black swan event of the century — like for most entrepreneurs — that would be the litmus test of her nous.

From the jump, Motherswork’s calling card was embossed with premium products and personalised service, which would explain its brick-and-mortar focus. Then came the pandemic, which rewired consumers' behaviour and minted the fortunes of e-commerce players. You may imagine that a retailer whose business was largely conducted offline would be caught on the back foot, but Motherswork kept on an even keel.

“The funny thing is that COVID-19 happened right after we revamped our flagship outlet. We quickly pivoted to open the store as a fulfilment centre instead of a retail store,” shared Wong. Retail stores weren’t allowed to operate during the lockdown.

She then plunged feet first into the solicitous world of live-streams, personally hosting live selling sessions as well as confessional-style chats featuring a slate of female entrepreneurs including Velda Tan, who was one of the co-founders of Love, Bonito. In one series fronted by presenter Sara Ann Krishnamoorthy, she bantered with her effusive co-host while introducing their virtual audience to products with an air of abstraction.

“I don’t like it. Imagine me sitting in front of my phone every night and talking to people whose reactions I can’t see. I’m a very one-on-one person, you know?” she said, laughing.

Tech fatigue notwithstanding, Wong is certainly no luddite. She let on that Motherswork’s POS (point of sale) system is regularly updated to ensure accuracy. “Because whatever tech you talk about is based on input and if your input is wrong, your data analysis is off,” she said. A pet peeve is web vendors who tout buzzy capabilities such as Artificial Intelligence, while disregarding the practical machinations of running an e-commerce platform — such as online payments and stock syncing.

“So I love the way people say, ‘Oh, it’s just about data.’ Little kid, I know you’re a tech genius, but you guys need to start coming down solid to understand what you’re trying to sell to businesses,” she said acerbically.

She shared that Motherswork has transitioned into an offline-to-online business whose digital sales account for roughly half of its transactions. And its recent acquisition has it teed up to open at least 10 more outlets in the region. According to Wong, it’s a serendipitous pairing, whereby The Parentinc CEO Roshni Mahtani Cheung does not ride roughshod over her hands-on leadership approach.

Over the years, she passed on several offers to acquire her firm. “There are some who came to the table thinking about how little money they need to give to take control of your company,” she said, venturing that her partnership puts her in good stead to continue creating new experiences for mothers.

Motherswork, for all intents and purposes, has matured in tandem with her kids, who are now in their 20s and living abroad. While Wong contends that the two journeys aren’t emotionally intertwined, a casual observer may note that her picture-perfect family can’t hurt her branding either.

The micro-influencer’s Instagram page — much like her stores — is carefully curated, gussied with a gloss of photo and video montages starring her tribe of five. There they are, huddled together against the cold and beaming luminous smiles as their hot air balloon drifts up dreamily over a mist-plumed landscape. And there they are again, goofily jouncing about — in tony, black-tie regalia, no less — to celebrate Wong and her husband’s 30th wedding anniversary.

It’s clear that Wong sells an aspirational lifestyle, the kind that would compel you to splash out on that high thread count, hypoallergenic organic cotton blanket in all five colours while imploring, “Take my money, take it!” Only in this case, it’s for your precious offspring, so it can’t be frivolous, right?