Singapore — Sisters Nealda and Eva Sahib started a business in Singapore in 2016, offering gift-wrapping services. They hoped to emulate the success of such services in Japan and South Korea.Their venture, which they had started almost as a hobby, morphed into a plan to transform it into an e-commerce business—creating and selling scaleable products globally.
Nealda describes their customisation platform as “user-friendly, fast and fun-to-use, built on modern and stylish web pages that are responsive both on desktop and mobile”. Then they ground to a shuddering halt with the initial restriction of gatherings to 10 people, then came the Circuit Breaker on April 7, 2020, which effectively closed all of Singapore.Even on June 1, 2020, when the Circuit Breaker was lifted, when in-person marriage solemnisation was once again allowed, no more than 10 people could attend.
Instead of paying a premium for small orders, many of the might-have-been customers turned to free design software and printed their own wedding cards. Unwilling to give up, the sisters decided to put into practice a business idea in art, lifestyle and home decor, which had been brewing for some time.
The sisters said they chose to produce Gift Element’s own original artwork to offer peace of mind to customers that no external art intellectual property was being violated.