In the wake of Covid-19, a majority of businesses and industries across the board suffered losses that crippled the economy in a matter of months. However, despite a few struggles here and there, some companies that focused on nutrition and self-care continued to endure and thrive.
One such company is PurelyB, a health and wellness digital lifestyle brand and community platform, which offers easy solutions for people to live a healthy and sustainable lifestyle. Not only do they provide digital content across nutrition, fitness, mindfulness, and wellness to help improve everyone’s daily lifestyle habits, PurelyB also offers its own line of Asian health food products based on traditional Asian herbs and remedies. The company works with traditional healers, herbalists, and scientists – bringing ancient remedies that have been passed down through generations to the modern community in a way that’s accessible, appealing, and affordable.
However, when the first MCO hit, PurelyB hit a snag with its key monetisation channel – the arrival of stocks for its signature Pegaga Superfood Blend, due to the fact that its factories, logistic companies, and suppliers had to stop halt operation during that period. At the same time, demand for the product skyrocketed since people became more mindful and health conscious – leading to the selling out of their existing stocks in the early stages of MCO.
“We can’t stop selling, but we don’t know when the factories are going to open!” Jesrina shares. “What we did was a pre-order, with a delivery date that was unconfirmed. We basically said ‘you may get your product in 3 months, but it depends on when MCO is uplifted. And if you don’t, then you’re entitled to a full refund’. For us, we can’t expect them to wait any more than 3 months.”
Support and Empower
Jesrina could also see how people from all walks of life were financially impacted, having lost their jobs or suffered pay cuts – but still wanted to improve their health in the current state of the country. So PurelyB made its product 40% off, and throwing in free delivery to increase accessibility to its customers.
Despite the complications, she noticed that sales just rising, and realised that people just wanted as much health solutions as they could get – which provided a welcome upside to the company during such bleak and uncertain times.
It didn’t stop there though, especially since social impact is a key pillar for PurelyB, who achieves this by employing marginalised communities in the harvesting and creation of its products.
“What more could we do to give back?” she recalls. In addition to the changes made for selling the Pegaga product, the company also donated RM10 from every sale to the Covid Relief Fund of Mercy Malaysia, on top of its normal social activities.
“Nobody just stayed on top the entire time – but what do we do about it?”
The company also took another look at its product, operations, and development cycle, searching for new solutions to make everything more streamlined and efficient. In doing so, PurelyB managed to launch a record of 5 new products by the end of 2020 – making it the biggest year for the company in terms of product expansion.
Another key part of giving back, supporting the community, and expanding its social impact included the launch of an empowerment agents program.
“We would provide digital marketing and sales training for anyone for free,” Jesrina elaborates. “And if they didn’t have a product that they wanted to sell, then they could sell PurelyB products at zero cost, and they just earn the money off every sale.”
From nutrition to self care
While PurelyB had always placed importance on self care, it wasn’t always the main focus. One of the key pivots the company had to make was to transition from nutrition to self care, as the latter became an overarching focus for many people.
“Everyone was dealing with mental issues and emotional issues – and it just put a lot of people in a very unexpected situation,” Jesrina shares. “A lot of the health issues were caused by stress, anxiety, and depression – rather than a lack of vitamins.”
In response to that need, Jesrina and PurelyB launched self care kits that were tailor-made to relax the mind, restore the body, and nourish the soul. The Relax & Restore Self Care Wellness Kit comprised of products designed for such a task – including the signature Pegaga Superfood Blend, a scented candle, natural soap, palo santo wood, a mindful guide e-book, and access to online meditation sessions.
“I believe that resilience is just being unstoppable, not because you don’t have fears and doubts – you have plenty of it – but you continued on and drove on in spite of it.”
Digital content also took on a similar route, with people starting to consume more – and even paying for – online content made for health and self care. PurelyB dug back into its archives to a series of online health programs that weren’t given much hype before, and revived them after the first MCO hit and people’s lifestyle habits began to drastically change.
“We relaunched those health programs and packaged them with our PurelyB health food products,” she explains. These health packages would include digital health programs, where people could benefit from having a virtual health coach to guide them on mindfulness and diet, along with receiving the complementing physical product.
Accept your fears and doubts – but don’t give into them
“I believe that resilience is just being unstoppable, not because you don’t have fears and doubts – you have plenty of it – but you just continued on and drove on in spite of it,” Jesrina expresses optimistically.
To her, true resilience comes from having the strength, courage, and the faith to keep going no matter how far you fall. Only then are we able to really overcome the unexpected and unforeseen circumstances that fall upon us.
“We all fell to some degree in 2020,” she adds. “Nobody just stayed on top the entire time – but what do we do about it?”
To learn more about PurelyB and its offerings, visit their official website here.
Videography by Anson Siau.