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City Music Singapore: How USB mics and Zoom helped it survive COVID
E-commerce and digital channels are now integral to City Music's operations.
SINGAPORE — USB mics and Zoom don't really make natural bedfellows with a decades-old family business largely selling musical instruments. But for 43-year-old City Music Singapore, digitisation saved the company during COVID.
"USB mics were an essential item at that point, and we were lucky to have them in stock when others didn't. We were able to sell so many hundred sets of USB microphones when everybody suddenly realised they needed better mics than the ones on their computers for Zoom calls," said sales director Yeegn Lougn, 47. He is the eldest child of City Music founder Willy Hoe, who set up shop at Peace Centre in 1980.
As retail stores were forced to shut during the pandemic, the company had to turn to digital channels such as livestreaming and podcasting platforms, and produced online content centred around equipment maintenance and usage – they distributed these through social media as well – to market their products.
"We were fortunate that we had a few good years before the crisis hit to buffer us and to survive. E-commerce totally saved us, because there wasn't even much B2B (business-to-business) sales going on at the time, let alone consumer sales," said Yeegn Lougn, who added that the company started selling online in 2009.
City Music managed to retain all their staff without cutting salaries.
Going digital out of necessity proved to be a good move for the future, as it has helped position City Music to engage the younger generation who may not have heard of them, Yeegn Lougn added. Their refreshed business model became part of the strategy to connect with the younger crowd, turning their new outlet into a "hybrid" store that serves as an extension of their online shop.
The new showroom is located at LHK Building on Sims Drive, and the company moved there recently after Peace Centre was sold en bloc. Besides Yeegn Lougn, his brother Hsin Loong, 41, also works at City Music, as its marketing director.
From Yamaha to Casio
City Music started operating in 1968 when Hoe and his mother opened the first store, selling traditional pianos and guitars, at Bras Basah Road. They named their store after an existing bookshop in the same building that was called City Books.
In the early years, Hoe worked two jobs – servicing pianos as a Yamaha technician during the day and returning to his store at night to help out. Eventually, he left Yamaha to focus full-time on his new company. Hoe initially struggled to find his footing in the market as he was competing with bigger players such as Yamaha, his former employer.
The move to go electric – the company started selling Hammond electric organs by the mid-70s – gave City Music the breakthrough it needed. By the 1980s, City Music had expanded into music education and gone into the electronics market. They became the first distributor in Singapore for Casio, a brand better known for its calculators and watches rather than musical instruments back then.
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Competitors looked down on them, Yeegn Lougn said.
"We were snubbed and sneered at by other piano shops because at the time, a piano costs between S$3,000 to S$5,000 and organs cost S$5,000 to S$6,000. That's a lot of money. And then suddenly Casio came up with a keyboard that cost S$700, which was so much cheaper," said Yeegn Lougn. "The other shops were laughing at us, saying that we were selling toys."
City Music got the last laugh though – the keyboards sold so well that they became a mainstay of City Music's inventory for the next 18 years, providing them with the capital needed to experiment with more brands and bring in more products.
"By then, my father was already experimenting to try to bring in all sorts of synthesisers, Moogs and all those analogue synthesisers which no one would even look at at the time," said Yeegn Lougn.
Not just the kids of City Music boss
Having "grown up" with City Music, and always helping out and learning at the shop, it was natural for the Hoe siblings to join the family business. Still, the duo felt a need to prove that they "weren't just the boss' kids".
Yeegn Lougn joined at age 24 in 2000 upon graduating from university with a marketing degree, followed by Hsin Loong in 2007 when he was 25 years old.
Yeegn Lougn shared that they were hands on in "everything", including "logistics, delivery, repairs, setting up systems, sales, marketing, admin, and even setting up guitars". Hsin Loong, in particular, helped to build City Music's website, which eventually formed the basis of its e-commerce division.
Working as brothers in the same business can be challenging, but Yeegn Lougn said "the division of labour is clear".
"Hsin Loong is good with his graphics and creative stuff. I'm good at managing and engaging people. What we've learned is that we are in a 'people business'. It's essential to manage relations, not only externally, but also internally," he said.
As for their father, who Yeegn Lougn jokingly calls "Minister Mentor", the brothers said that it wasn't always easy to impress him with new ideas given his age and experience. However, while he still oversees the business, Hoe has given free rein to his sons to make decisions and try new ideas.
"Even in the most heated arguments that we have, we would fight for the best interests of the company and not for personal gain," said Yeegn Lougn.
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