Suntory is looking to strengthen its move towards direct-to-consumer (D2C) as part of the group’s digital transformation. As part of this effort, Suntory launched its D2C brand Honki-Yasai Marche in 2022, in a bid to deliver “the true taste of vegetables.” In this interview, we speak to Mr. Aono and Mr. Arimura of the Digital Division at Suntory Holdings about winning strategies in the digital commerce space, and how they are using AnyMind Group’s e-commerce management platform, AnyX.
Interviewee profiles
Yuma Arimura
Digital Marketing Department, Digital Division, Suntory Holdings Limited
Tomoya Aono
Digital Marketing Department, Digital Division, Suntory Holdings Limited
First of all, please tell us about Honki-Yasai Marche
Honki-Yasai Marche is a D2C project to provide an OMO experience for Suntory’s “Honki Vegetable” fruit and vegetable brand, and we aim to make consumers more aware of this vegetable brand by making it the most loved high-quality vegetable brand.
Currently, vegetables have become a commodity, and in distribution, price and production locations are some of the challenges and considerations that consumers take into account. We want to break away from such challenges and provide consumers with the ability to choose a brand that offers the true taste of vegetables and select produce based on the producer’s thoughts and story. This is the intention behind Honki-Yasai Marche. As such, we are strengthening the distribution of Honki-Yasai through a wide range of channels including our own food truck and e-commerce site.
AnyX centralizes data necessary for business growth, including e-commerce channels, advertising, logistics and CRM data.
What were some of the challenges you faced?
Suntory is leveraging on digital commerce for various brands in addition to Honki-Yasai Marche. For each brand that we are distributing, the brand.com site is one of the most important customer contact points and sales channels, but in order to reach our customers in the most effective way possible, we found it necessary to distribute our products through e-commerce marketplaces as well, both domestically and internationally (such as Amazon, Lazada and Shopee), in addition to our brand.com site.
With the increase in digital commerce channels, it would be inefficient to analyze each channel’s effectiveness and manage products on different channels. Furthermore, each brand and area also requires management of social media and digital advertising, further complicating operations. We were looking for an e-commerce management system that would eliminate the complexity of operations.
What were the deciding factors in selecting AnyX?
We evaluated various systems, and we got the impression that AnyMind was different from other vendors in that the company focused on global development, had its own proprietary platform for digital commerce, and was strong in data utilization. This is why we chose AnyMind as our partner.
In terms of AnyX, the platform enables us to centrally manage not just sales channels, but also advertising effectiveness and logistics, and to analyze each item in a horizontal way. We selected AnyX because we felt it could solve our issues.
The initial setup took only a few minutes!
Benefits of introducing AnyX with overseas expansion planned for the future
How is your experience like using AnyX?
The first thing that struck me was that it is very easy to use. The initial setup for each e-commerce marketplace connection was completed in a few clicks, and the reports are lean. We also appreciate the out-of-the-box support for overseas e-commerce marketplace connections. We would like to work together with AnyMind to find a winning formula for our e-commerce ventures.
What do you want to work on in the future?
We have been manufacturing and distributing products targeting the masses at Suntory Group. Therefore, we already have a strong supply chain. We are currently exploring further ways in digital commerce that can be developed only by Suntory, and we would like to grow our brand by combining the assets we have cultivated with the advantages of digital commerce.
