Chua: For 2023, the company will be looking to enhance capabilities across logistics and payments.
PETALING JAYA: Malaysia’s number one shopping application Shopee Malaysia is keeping its pedal to the metal in terms of coming up with avenues and initiatives to enhance the business growth of its sellers, while looking ahead with optimism.
The company, which is part of Singapore's Sea Limited, has in the past year launched several exercises to equip sellers utilising its platform.
This includes conducting more than 560 daily classes and camps to train its sellers, as well as organising events across six states in the country for knowledge sharing purposes.
On top of those assignments, there were also collaborations with government agencies such as the Malaysia Digital Economy Corp (MDEC) on the set-up of DE Dagang – which stimulated sales for 150,000 Malaysian sellers – as well as with the Domestic Trade & Consumer Affairs Ministry that provided business tools and equipment worth over RM80,000 to assist the digital transformation of rural merchants.
Shopee Malaysia director Chua Cheng Xun, speaking at the Shopee Seller Summit 2023 here yesterday, revealed that for 2023, the company would be looking to enhance capabilities across logistics and payments while prioritising brand protection.
This is coupled with efforts to maximise customer lifetime value by building cross-category synergy and deepening buyer-seller connections.
Specifically, Shopee Malaysia will be launching its Shopee 360 Marketing Solutions, targeted to engage businesses with influencers and key opinion leaders to build awareness, engagement and conversion strategy.
He said: “In today’s eCommerce landscape, customers often pay close attention to what a seller stands for and does by checking out what influencers and affiliates say about a brand.
“The Shopee 360 Marketing Solutions will provide our sellers with a comprehensive, end-to-end platform marketing solution.
“This includes a range of tools and services to assist sellers improve their visibility and sales.”
Moreover, Chua said Shopee Malaysia would continue to “invest heavily” in all necessary areas to ensure its sellers have the highest chance of success, while also focusing on coming up with new campaigns to continue drawing shoppers to the platform.Head of digital industry development and chief strategy officer for MDEC, Datuk Fadzli Abdul Wahit, who was also present at the event, projected that the digital economy is expected to contribute to 25.5% of Malaysia’s gross domestic product (GDP) by the end of 2025.
The government has long recognised the importance of eCommerce towards the growth of the country’s digital economy and has developed and implemented the National E-Commerce Strategic Roadmap (NESR) as a whole-of-nation collaborative approach between the public and private sectors, since 2017.
“We are now in the midst of NESR 2.0 which is the overarching roadmap to catalyse the growth and innovation of the eCommerce ecosystem in Malaysia from 2021 to 2025,” he said.
Additionally, Fadzli reported that based on the statistics published by the Statistics Department, the income from eCommerce transactions has grown from RM447.8bil in 2017 to exceed RM1 trillion, for the first time in 2021.
The trajectory for growth continued, he said, with income from eCommerce transactions reported at RM1.16 trillion last year.
This is as the contribution of eCommerce to GDP has also grown steadily.
It had risen from 6.1% of GDP in 2016 to 13% in 2021.
Meanwhile, head of marketing for Shopee Malaysia Kenneth Soh said the annual summit event gives networking and growth-focused learning opportunities to the app’s sellers, while feeling confident that the value-based marketing strategies would drive societal and business impact.
The event also saw booth participation of 10 value-based sellers to demonstrate ways to drive unique values through user experience and seamless engagement with customers.
In 2022, Shopee Malaysia reported that it upskilled and integrated more than 250,000 new sellers for digital inclusion.
It also saw 145 new sellers posting in excess of RM500,000 in sales for the first 12 months online.
Director Chua noted that in line with the firm’s ongoing efforts to leverage the transformative power of technology to create an inclusive digital economy, the Shopee Seller Summit functions as a tool provider for sellers to discover strategies for building a sustainable online business.
