Is WOKIT Subang still open or has it closed for good?
Long story short - Yes, WOKIT SS15 is now closed indefinitely.
Thank You For All Your Support!
Before we get into the why, we would first like to say THANK YOU to everyone that has came and supported us throughout the years in Subang. We’ve met so many awesome people come through our doors and the connections that we’ve made over the years. It has been a pleasure serving all of you.
We’ve learned so many lessons from our experience being in Subang that we can now take with us to conquer the world. We are grateful to all of you, as without you, we wouldn’t have gained this experience either.
We’ve had a good run - but it is now time for us to say goodbye to Subang.
But Why?!
We’ve tried our best to keep the doors open in Subang, however there comes a time when we just have to be honest with ourselves and admit that it just isn’t working.
If you’ve been following us, you’d know that in 2019 we had actually moved from our full shop in SS15 to a shared space together with Vanilla Mille Crepe Cafe.
The idea for the move was that we would:
- lower our overheads (savings in rental, utilities and more) and
- we would focus on delivery sales (vs dine-ins). The data seems
We were even featured on BFM Radio for this move!
In hindsight, it was a timely move considering the whole pandemic that hit us all in 2020 - 2021.
Being a delivery-focused restaurant, relying on third-party delivery services, this meant that our margins are pretty low after deducting their commissions (28-30%).
This simply means that for every RM10 of our sale, we would have to pay them RM2.80-RM3, which leaves us with RM7-RM7.20 for every RM10 that we get.
With such low margins, the only thing that could make it work was - VOLUME - and loads of it.
Our fixed costs structure also needed to be low for us to make it.
However, weren’t able to get the volume that we needed and we were still paying the premium rental for our location.
As a comparison, our Bangsar outlet is doing 3-4X times more in deliveries than we were in Subang.
I can go on a long rant as to why weren’t getting the volume - like how our visibility on the 3rd party apps just wasn’t there despite joining campaigns and pouring money on ads, the unpredictable radius coverage and such.
But there’s no point in crying over spoilt milk.
After 4 years of trying to make it work here in Subang, we’ve finally raised the flag and said perhaps this location isn’t what we thought it was going to be for us.
In the end, the numbers speaks for themselves.
At this point in time, we feel that our resources is better spent elsewhere rather than trying hard to make it work here in Subang.
What's Next?
We’re not planning to just sit still after the closure. As mentioned, we are simply re-allocating our resources.
In fact, we’ve already found a new location and have started work on it too.It’s still early to announce it but you would definitely hear about it when things have firmed up even further!