NOT one to sit idle, Mindy Jassal who took the leap to retire early late last year turned her passion for cooking into a business.

The mother-of-three likes to cook dishes from recipes passed down by her great-grandmother and share her food with family and friends – who encouraged her to turn her hobby into an online food business.

And the orders came pouring in.

The founder of My Granny’s Food would fulfil orders herself – with the majority of her customers living some 10km from her home – and relied on word-of-mouth before venturing onto social media, with most orders from return customers.

Mindy Jassal found new customers.

But with the movement control order (MCO) earlier this year, sales started to drop significantly.

Upon a visit to Maybank to open a business account, and a suggestion from a friend, she was introduced to Maybank Sama-Sama Lokal – which kick-started the budding entrepreneur’s journey with new customers via the platform along with large orders from clients requesting her products as door gifts for weddings.

The 42-year-old saw a surge in orders during the holidays like National Day and the need to outsource deliveries to a trusted on-demand delivery service provider like Lalamove as a labour-saving exercise.

Despite uncertainties, local businesses are still able to thrive in difficult times with brands such as Lalamove and Maybank sharing their platform and expertise to assist them.

Joining forces in May 2020, the Lalamove on-demand delivery platform collaborated with Maybank’s zero commission ecommerce platform, Sama-Sama Lokal, with a National Day-theme “Sehati Selokal” campaign – with the aim to encourage sales among Sama-Sama Lokal’s merchants.

The campaign ran exclusively on the Sama-Sama Lokal platform on Maybank’s M2U app during National Day, which offered free deliveries by Lalamove and additional ongoing discount by Maybank.

The platforms helped to increase Zen Thian’s sales.

According to Lalamove Malaysia managing director Jane Teh, the brand is committed to supporting the local business community with its digital logistics solutions and shares the same sentiment with the bank’s platform to encourage Malaysians to support local businesses.

Maybank head of virtual banking and payment Kalyani Nair added that Maybank is happy to be a part of the Sehati Selokal campaign, which shares the same values as Sama-Sama Lokal and encourages Malaysians to throw their support behind local businesses by making purchases.

Alongside Mindy, other local entrepreneurs shared with StarTV their experience with Lalamove and the Maybank platform.

Syarifuddin Sahrom saw that his orders had doubled.

One of the first few people to join the platform last year, Seha Kitchen owner Syarifuddin Sahrom experienced a 50% drop in sales during MCO. Now, he credits the Sama-Sama Lokal platform and Lalamove for his orders being doubled.

Syarifuddin extols the services for creating a platform where the advertisement and promotions are not borne by the merchants.

Meanwhile, Zen Thian who left her corporate job last year turned her kombucha-making hobby into a business called Zenboocha.

She is happy to note that her customers gift their loved ones her products during these challenging times.

She says that Lalamove and Maybank Sama-Sama Lokal have helped to increase sales as the commission-free platform and promotions are heavily subsidised by the brands to further assist local merchants to stay afloat.