We at Floofybutts Club have been considering expanding beyond Singapore’s boundaries for a few month since latest 2025. As with many businesses, expanding beyond local borders bring about alot of risk-taking and uncertainty we weren’t too comfortable with initially.
However, seeing as many successful businesses had to expand beyond borders, we decided to look for some low-hanging fruit event to get our feet wet before diving head first with no prep.
The Ideal Event for our current circumstance
The Rows Market appeared on our radar as an Instagram Ad. It’s a community pet-event held in Johor Bahru (JB), spanning just 3 days, in the outdoors. What sealed the deal: ~200 RM booth price: much more affordable that events in Singapore. We eventually decided to take it on as our first physical marketing effort and a test-drive before commiting to the bigger events like OhMyPet Pet Expo.
Some fun facts
Similar to how a first-time business owner does their first in-person event, we also initially felt like outsiders. That unease that people were there for everyone but us hasn’t been felt since we did Good Pet Fair in 2024.
The feeling of being a first-timer in their community is further emphasised when we had to introduce ourselves with a fuller elevator pitch; having to bring up that we illustrate everything they see and we take custom commissions too!
On a lighter note, the heat index is definitely higher at that part of JB. That stifling feeling, especially after rain, is unmatched with anything we felt in Singapore. Second night, hundreds of inch-long rain flies swarmed everyone’s booths. Even managed to get into the food vendors’ fridges! We trauma-bonded with the other vendors, good way to break the ice I guess haha
Conclusion
We were initially stumped by Friday’s and Saturday’s crowd. Turns out, it’s not entirely an us problem since Friday is still a working day, and both Friday and Saturday were rainy days. Sunday had a decent crowd and we managed to be profitable!
We learnt some things along the way but ultimately it gave us the necessary confidence to financially commit to Oh My Pet Expo 12-14th June 2026 @ MidValley Southkey. With a 3x6m booth, it’ll be our biggest yet and hope to leave a deep first impression for our first official launch in Malaysia!