eBay focused on empowering local SMEs
Hajar Umira Md Zaki
Ebay was one of the pioneers of e-commerce plaforms, having created a website that serves as a marketplace for numerous kinds of products since 1995.
But as consumer habits shift throughout the decades, the need for the platform continues to evolve to meet the demands of consumers and empower Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to expand their market reach globally, was profound.
Ebay Southeast Asia and India regional general manager, Vidmay Naini said eBay at this moment were focusing on the importance of the SME companies in Malaysia as they were considered as the backbone of the economy.
“SMEs are the backbone of this economy, close to 97.2 per cent of the total establishment are SMEs and close to 38 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is contributed by them.
“This is a huge block and right now they are focusing on many other main domestic businesses. What eBay specialises in Malaysia and the region is to help SMEs’ export to the world.
“We provide them with enough technical as well as product knowledge to know what kind of product sales need to be different in the market that we have,” he said.
Aside from the product knowledge, eBay also provides the infrastructures and support by enabling shipping, enabling the use of tools, and ensuring that the SMEs were under the right guidance for them to increase their market share.
“We believe that SMEs in Malaysia indeed plays an important role for our growth and the opportunity is immense.
“The biggest challenge that we currently face is the awareness that SMEs can export to the world in a cost effective manner and eBay is there to support them.
“This awareness is not there with most SMEs and our endeavour is to increase this awareness and to gain engagements with government agencies or the other agencies that expand and increase their wideness of export,” he said.
Naini said, throughout the e-commerce industry what should be taken into account was to understand and distinguish that eBay is now export on the internal export focus.
On top of that, it’s important for the sellers to understand various laws of the land as well as how to export with wise documentations and limitations.
“That’s why at eBay we provide additional knowledge and support that will benefit you to export to the world,” he said.
