Ezy Fresh Bite
We founded Ezy Fresh Bite in year 2014 July when we were 26 & 27 years old. We did not have any experience in fruits industry. I remembered we even took 1 hour to find "KL Selayang pasar borong" where all the fruits supplier/importer located. Most of the shop owners are Chinese and around 45-65 years old and 90% of workers are men. Maybe we don't look like a "businessman" therefore we were not so welcome from most of them. However, we still lucky to have some friendly supplier to guide us about fruits knowledge.
Recognition
Oriental Daily
We would like to thank Oriental Daily for choosing Ezy Fresh Bite as one of their sharing topic on their newspaper. We feel so unbelievable yet grateful when we received their call because we were just newbie in fruits industry. I though it was a joke when my business partner told me this. We can't believe that our creation and effort was actually recognized by someone although we had just started two years.
http://www.orientaldaily.com.my/s/160848
Bernama TV
In year 2018, again we feel so unbelievable that Bernama called us. This time was on TV news. Oh my god, we felt so nervous because we were not good in talking in front of camera. Life is all about experience and yes this experience was so good.
You may need to visit Bernama News Channel Facebook page to watch this video as we unable to share this video here.
Being able feature on media did not mean success however it did motivate us. Sometimes we do need this kind of recognition and achievement to motivate us not to give up as entrepreneur path is really not easy.
Flower Delivery Reviews
In this MCO year 2020, we were given a surprise gift by Flower Delivery Reviews. It is wonderful to be able recognized by Flower Delivery Reviews as one of "The 9 Best Options for Fruit Baskets in Malaysia". Thank you so much for featuring Ezy Fresh Bite.
https://www.flowerdelivery-reviews.com/best-fruit-baskets-malaysia/
Trusted Gift Reviews
In year 2023, month of June, we were receiving a recognition from Trusted Gift Reviews that we are one of the best shops for gift delivery in Malaysia. It is such an honour. We are grateful and thank you for featuring Ezy Fresh Bite in your website.
https://www.trustedgiftreviews.com/best-shops-for-gift-delivery-malaysia/
Challenges
According to Jack Ma, failure/challenges are the most valuable experience that we cannot buy. We must go through them by ourselves. Challenges will never stop unless you quit. When you have challenges means you have opportunity.
Online Shopping was not a trend yet
In year 2014, online shopping/delivery is not so popular in Malaysia yet. Many people do not trust online products and they prefer to see the actual product themselves, they want to touch and feel it especially fruits.
Many people asked why we are not selling dress since we are female. Carrying fruits are very heavy and not suit for female. Maybe that time we think we are still young so just give a try how it feel to become an entrepreneur, we never think more than that. We have chosen fruits delivery, because one day when we were having fruits then we suddenly asked "how come don't have fruits delivery, how convenient if we can call for delivery and we just sit there and wait for the fresh fruits, no need walk far, drive, find parking and queue."
Investment Cost
As initially, we just think of trying so we did not want to invest a lots therefore we did not ask loan from family or bank. As we only have RM25k, therefore we did many things at our own in order to save cost. We started doing at our home to save rental fees. We printed flyers and put in the office building letter box ourselves. From design, research, account, purchasing, delivering and marketing we all do it at our own. We posted our product on FB groups for free. We did cold calling to companies and email blast. We did some events in shopping mall and companies to get awareness. We had tried many ways just to get people trust us and give us a chance to try our service. When they willing to give us a try, then next thing would be fruits quality assurance. We ensure the fruits to be fresh delivered to them. When they tried, they feel good experience then they will share to their friends and family. Its very hard to build good reputation therefore we treasure every chance we earn. We are grateful that there are customers whom really like our creation and service. Customer appreciation is the biggest motivation for us to continue strive in this market.
Limited Choice of Courier Service
Delivery would be another challenge for us on those days as limited choice of courier service. Therefore, we send the fruits box ourselves. There was one night, Waze suddenly lost function during our delivery, we unable to find the way to customer house and kept customer wait for us. We were so stressed because its already 10pm and customer wanted to sleep already.
Later on, we found one chilled courier service whom have helped us a lots initially. However, we had challenge again after a year. They had been frozen our fruits many times. We had to compensate for all the fruits to customer although it was courier service mistakes but we had the responsibility since we were the one engaged them and we do not want to fail the customer whom trusted us. Since then, we stopped using courier service again until last year finally we have delivery partners to help us out again.
Fruits Are Fragile
This definitely is major challenge. As they are born in nature and go through many process and times only arrive in Malaysia. They are not processed or manufactured therefore they cannot last long and is common to not being perfect and beautiful for every piece. They might have holes caused by the branches. Due to Malaysia weather is hot, sensitive fruits are more easily to spoil.
Have we ever experienced buying bad quality fruits? It is impossible to not having this experience. The worst experience we had before was whole box of fruits were rotten and we couldn't return so we had to threw them away. Its kinda sad was not only felt cheated but the fruits were all wasted. In order to get fresher fruits and reduce the wastage, we only do pre-order. After customer order, we only will take the fruits. We do not want to buy a lots of the fruits and keep in shop and wait for customer to buy. In this case, customer has higher chance to get ripe or overripe fruits. You might think we save more cost not buying more fruits to keep, but we spent more times on travelling just to get fresher fruits for customer and save wastage.
Events, Cut Fruits Service, Fruits Hamper, Office Fruit & Home Fruit Delivery
We have been experienced on events, doing cut fruits, fruits hamper, office fruit delivery and home fruit delivery. But, now we only focus on two category which are office fruit delivery and fruits hamper delivery as we think focus only could have more quality assurance and specialized on particular area.
Two of us woke up at 4am to cut 50 pieces guava and 6 pieces watermelon in order to prepare hundred cups of cut fruits. We finished them only at 11am and rushed for delivery. Cut fruits are really time consuming and we didn't have enough space to chill them so we kept them in ice box. They will not look fresh if they are not keep under cool temperature. Hygiene is also one of our concern. As cut fruits should be consumed once they are cut. However, some of the employees might keep them until late evening or next day.
Fruits Hamper
I'm not even good in wrapping a present so can you imagine I wrap a fruits basket? We think fruits are healthy food, why it is only a gift you would think for patient? Why patient only could have fruits basket? Is it because of the packaging problem? Why fruits basket always only apple, orange and pear? Why don't have berries or peach? So we decided to redesign the fruits hamper.
As basket look traditional styles yet I'm not good in wrapping a fruits basket so we decided to use box. We had been tried again and again on designing the fruits gift since year 2015. In year 2015, we launched our first Mother's day fruits gift and we only have one customer supported us. Although we only have one customer but we are still grateful that we able to sell one and thank her for giving us a chance. We are not giving up, we still try to find out new ideas on how to make it more attractive and look trendy yet more unique gifts like only Ezy Fresh Bite could have.
In year 2016, we launched our first customized fruits gift box, out of our expectation, this fruits gift attracted many young people age 25 - 30. Many of them tag their love ones to buy them fruits gift instead of flower, this response indeed wow us. As we launched this fruits gift near to Mother's day therefore this could be one of the reason help increase our sales. Seriously, out of our expectation, we sold out 100 boxes in two weeks. For others, this number could be very small. Sales revenue did make us happy, but what made us happier was our creation was recognized and favored by the society.
What made me proud was I'm the only one know how to do the wrapping so I couldn't imagine I could actually wrapped 100 boxes on that two weeks and fortunately I still have business partner assisted me. The only two of us, have to collect fruits and checking in the morning and delivering afternoon then back to office packaging in the evening and mid night marketing everyday on that two weeks. We collected the order until we couldn't make it then we stopped because we still prioritize quality instead of quantity and we don't wish to fail customer trust. We were working since 6am in the morning until 3am late night on that two weeks. That was really exhausted but its fruitful weeks. What make entrepreneurship challenge is there's no one could teach you but its also interesting part that you need to think how to solve it and here is how you learn to become independent. We are grateful and thankful to many supported customers, without each of you, Ezy Fresh Bite will not survive until today. Because of you telling us how your friends, family, boss and clients like our fruits gift, that was the motivation push us through this and remind us should not give up easily.
Last but not least, our aim to change the "perspective of fruits hamper is the gift to patient only" was finally changed. Fruits gift are no longer a gift for only patient but this lovely fruits gift could be birthday present, farewell gift, surprise or Anniversary gift and festival like Chinese New Year and Raya gift. Fruits gift suit to everyone include vegan and Muslim friends too.
Below photos are our fruits gift revolution from year 2015 - 2019. Hope you like it. :)
Which one would be your favorite?
Year 2015 Fruits Hamper
Year 2015 Christmas Fruits Gift
Year 2015 Mother's Day Fruits Gift
Year 2015 Fruits Box Deliver to Penang, Ipoh & JB
Year 2015 Fruits Gift
Year 2016 Chinese New Year Fruits Gift
Year 2016 Ezy Fresh Bite Customized Fruits Gift Box Launched
Year 2017 Mooncake Festival Fruits Gift
Year 2017 Christmas Fruits Gift
Year 2017 Father's Day Fruits Gift
Year 2017 Mother's Day Fruits Gift
Year 2017 Chinese New Year Fruits Gift
Year 2018 Chinese New Year Fruits Gift
2018 Hari Raya Fruits Gift
2019 Chinese New Year Fruits Gift
[ First-ever black CNY gift box]
This was our 4 years entrepreneurship story.
We are still very young in this fruits industry therefore there are still far to go and more to learn. Malaysian, don't give up easily, be positive regardless the currency or politics. Change ourselves first before changing the world. Let our action do the talk.
Have a fruitful year ahead, everyone!