How Pharmex Healthcare Went From 45 to 1,157 Orders a Month
A Singapore health-and-medical retailer, a regulated category, and a marketplace presence starting near zero. Here's exactly how it scaled — the methodology and the 12-month timeline.
Disclosure: This is a real Atsell client engagement. The headline figures — 45 to 1,157 orders a month, SGD 30,000+ monthly revenue by Month 12, +205% average month-on-month order growth — are Pharmex Healthcare's actual results. As with any case study, outcomes depend on category, starting point, and timing; treat this as a methodology you can evaluate, not a guarantee.
The starting point
Pharmex Healthcare is a Singapore retailer in the health and medical-supplies category. When the engagement began, the marketplace presence was minimal — roughly 45 orders a month — and the category itself is one of the harder ones to grow on Shopee and Lazada. Health and medical-adjacent products carry extra platform rules, restricted-claim policies, and, in Singapore, HSA considerations that can get listings suppressed or removed if handled carelessly.
In other words: this wasn't a viral, low-friction category. It was a compliance-sensitive catalogue that needed to be built properly before it could scale at all.
The methodology, in three phases
We run marketplace growth in phases rather than all at once. You cannot advertise your way out of a weak foundation, and you cannot scale a store that platforms keep flagging. So the sequence matters.
Phase 1 — Foundation (Months 1–3): build it so it stays live
The first job was a clean, compliant store. Our operator (Lirong) set up the storefront from the ground up: account and brand-portal configuration, category-correct product structure, and listings written to be discoverable and policy-safe.
- Compliant listings. Health products live or die by their claims. We wrote titles and descriptions that rank for how buyers actually search, while avoiding the restricted health claims that get listings pulled.
- Catalogue architecture. Variants, bundles, and categories structured so the whole range was navigable and each SKU had a clear job.
- Trust foundations. Store branding, shipping and returns set up correctly, and customer service standing by — because early reviews and response speed decide whether a new store gets search visibility at all.
This phase rarely looks dramatic on a revenue chart. It's the part most brands skip — and then wonder why their ads don't convert.
Phase 2 — Traction (Months 4–8): make every listing earn its place
With a compliant foundation live, the focus shifted to conversion and visibility.
- Listing optimisation. Iterating titles, images, and attributes against real search and conversion data — not guesses. Small changes to a title or main image move conversion more than most brands expect.
- Marketplace ads. Shopee Ads and Lazada Sponsored Solutions introduced deliberately, ROAS-tracked and reviewed weekly, scaling spend only behind listings that were already converting.
- Customer service and reviews. Sub-10-second response times protected the shop rating and, with it, organic search ranking — a compounding loop that health buyers, who ask a lot of pre-purchase questions, are especially sensitive to.
This is the phase where the order count started climbing steadily rather than sporadically.
Phase 3 — Scale (Months 9–12): campaigns and category depth
Once the fundamentals were compounding, we pushed volume through the platform's own machinery.
- Mega-campaign participation. Proactive nomination into 9.9, 11.11, 12.12 and category campaigns — where, as an official platform partner, we see nomination windows early and prepare stock and pricing in advance.
- Voucher and bundle strategy. Structured promotions that lifted average order value instead of just discounting.
- Category expansion. Broadening the live, compliant range so the store captured more of the demand it was now ranking for.
By Month 12, the store was doing over SGD 30,000 a month and had peaked at 1,157 orders in a month — from a standing start of 45.
Why it worked
Three things, none of them a growth hack:
- Compliance first. In a regulated category, staying live is the whole game. A suppressed listing converts at zero.
- Sequence discipline. Foundation before ads, ads before campaigns. Skipping steps is why most marketplace pushes stall.
- Ownership of the full funnel. Listings, ads, customer service, and campaigns were run by one team measured on orders and revenue — not handed to an agency measured on impressions. When conversion dipped, we fixed the listing; when response times slipped, we fixed the roster.
In the client's words: "Thank you for the great support rendered to us for the past 6 months. Lirong helped us set up everything on the platform from zero to where we are today." — Eric, Pharmex Healthcare
Is your category like this one?
If you sell health, supplements, or any compliance-sensitive product, the Pharmex playbook is directly relevant — see our health supplements ecommerce management service, or the deeper vertical guide on selling health supplements on Shopee and TikTok Shop. If you're weighing whether an enabler is worth it at all, start with what an ecommerce enabler actually does.