When referring to “herbal plants”, we would often think about medicines that are made from natural plants which are good for health and can cure malicious symptoms. These traditional medicines were used by old folks for hundreds of years which we all knew how valuable these natural herbal plants are. When the world changed from analog age to digital age, the old traditional medicines also slowly wilted away like an old tree even though they processed no side effects like modern medicines and were treated as good health supplements.
“Baipho Co., Ltd” has been doing business for more than 100 years under Tangtrongchitr family until present new management of Prapapun Tangtrongchitr, Hunsa Wanamkang, Saipin Tangtrongchitr chose to continue selling the existing green medicine and mandible paint under Baipho brand which still enjoys good reception and are well known across the country. The brand was further developed and going worldwide for GMP certification under new exciting management of Ak-kharaphat Tangtrongchitr, the fourth generation heir with the new brand “Cher-aim” focusing on herbal products.
Moving forward with “Cher-aim”
Akkaraphat Tantrongjit the owner of “Cher-aim” told us that for business, standing still is the same as going backward. The brand has to always create new products to stay competitive in the market and always on the lookout for possibility of expanding market channels for new customers especially inhaler market which is considered to be a very large market. Other brands focus on inhaling technique more than the inhaler being a health supplement product, but “Cher-aim” has different ingredient composure which followed old style medicine creating natural herbal scent and helps nourishing the heart. “Cher- Aim” is made from Agarwood which is known for its heart nourishing property certified by Food and Drug Adminstration.
Making a name
We are developing other products under “Cher-aim” which are
- Liquid Borneol: good for soothing stuffy nose, vertigo, and insect bites without damaging the nostril.
- Yellow Oil: composed of more than 10 kind of herbs, good for rubbing massage to relieve muscle pain.
- Cassumunar Ginger Balm: mainly consisted of cassumunar ginger helps relieve muscle pain.
- Barleria Balm: good for soothing insect bites.
- Red Galangal Balm: relieves inflamed skin.
- Liquid Balm: provides fresh aroma
- Fragrant Camphor: helps refreshing musty odor.
- Cool Balm: provides fresh cooling smell and good for sensitive skin.
- Herbal Compress: composed of more than 10 kind of herbs with the traditional recipe from Wat Pho
Ak-kharaphat Tangtrongchitr
Managing Director
Jisprapat Limited Partnership
“Cher-aim” has no less than 30 different herbal products and still continues to produce new products each year. This year it requested 20 more medical recipes all under “Cher-aim” to promote the brand as quickly as possible.
Effective market penetration
In the beginning, we mainly targeted drug stores because we believed medicines should be sold in drug stores but then we realized that only sick people entered drug stores and the traffic was very little compared to traffic of convenient stores, so we shifted our focus to convenient stores.
However, as convenient stores did not have our products to sell yet, and the strategy to shelf new product in the city was to spread the products in the rural area first to convince the wholesalers in the urban area before we moved to Modern Trade for the next step. At first we did not know how to create brand effectively and we wasted a lot on advertising expense hoping that it will get us customers, but it did not work because customers did not know what herbal inhaler “Cher-aim” was and what was its benefit.
It the end we ended up giving free sample products in front of drug stores. The reception was well received and word of mouth led to repeating purchase.
Modernize the brand image
We got to a point where “Cher-aim” was shelved in many drug stores, convenient stores, book stores such as SE-ED and Naiin which have been selling other products recently. The next step was to look for new market like drug stores in shopping malls and Modern Trade, and we started with Watson to create impression that “Cher-aim” is good in quality and has a high standard.
To be selling in shopping malls requires another change which was re-designing the packaging to look modern and trustworthy. We kept the white and green color to keep the natural herb meaning and finally we were able to put “Cher-aim” on 7-11 and got a lot more sales volume to accomplish what we planned to do from the beginning.
Change to digital age
In present everyone is using mobile phone like parts of our body to search product, update news, and take time to decide which products to buy online. We spend more time reading product reviews and conveniently buy the product online. Shopping mall would be a place where we actually see the product before deciding to buy it online. Everything has changed and become much more convenient.
“Cher-aim” has been made available through online shopping platforms such as Shopee, Lazada, and others to support our new online lifestyle in this digital era.
Going abroad
We began our expansion from neighboring countries like Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam 10 years ago before moving to larger market in China. We invested together with local China investors to export our products to China and everywhere we went, we had marketing plan for online media, using local social media influencer, visiting stores and finding distributors whatever that was suitable for the specific country. We expanded further to Middle East like UAE, Oman, Bahrain and we also do OEM for clients from many companies which led to increase in sales volume. Then Covid-19 came and we could not travel abroad so we re-strategized by creating online promotions and ship our products through our dealers to our international distributors instead.
Currently we do marketing for our international distributors or the marketing is done by the distributor to increase sales volume and to become well known for the public. This is especially important for China as we have no less than 10 million Chinese visitors each year and commonly they are aware of the fame of Thai herbs. Other international visitors also come to Thailand and visit local massage parlors and by doing so learned about Thai herbs and their medicinal properties and often bought back inhaler from Thailand as souvenir so the international marketing becomes much easier than it used to be in the past.
“When facing common problem, if we try to survive alone without caring about others, we wouldn’t survive for long. Teamwork is important and even though it might be harder but in the end we all survive longer including our employee, customers, and our creditors” Ak-kharaphat Tangtrongchitr
Changing strategy for Covid-19
Our market segment was 80% domestic and 20% international which was on the rise but when we were hit with Covid-19, our international share dropped drastically. However, we were not affected much as majority of our business was domestic. As for international business, we changed our strategy to support our distributors more as we understand everyone’s situation and give them flexible credits to let them know that we are there right beside them during the tough time. On the other hand, we reduced our local marketing events and shifted more toward online during the pandemic which resulted in respectable sales volume.
We saw a large growth from online sales last year mainly from bulk purchasing whether for merit making events or other events. The limitation to traveling also resulted in more online purchasing so we took this opportunity to improve our online marketing as well as introducing new products for customers under brand “Cher-aim” Thai herbs by Thai people.