KUCHING: Shopee, widely regarded as Southeast Asia’s largest e-commerce platform, is eager to work with Sarawak to boost e-commerce among local technopreneurs.
Mistika Idris, Shopee’s Marketing Specialist (Public Policy and Government Affairs), said this when her delegation paid a courtesy call on the Sarawak Multimedia Authority (SMA) at its office, yesterday.
“There are a lot of areas of collaboration with the state. There is a lot of collaboration not only given to the local sellers but also to those who do not know the e-commerce platform, that anyone has access to Sarawak online,” she said.
Mistika stressed that Shopee also provides services to those who wish to do online business.
“Our collaboration is to empower local sellers. So we do that in many different ways. We continue our learning from past years, whether it is something to do with training, empowerment programmes and strategic CSR (corporate social responsibility) to help those in need and also to train those who do not know how to upload their products online to Shopee.
“That’s the kind of things which we provide for free. Shopee provides trainers, modules, basic, intermediate Shopee line classes, Shopee ads, and many others.
“We want to encourage people to keep learning and increasing awareness on how to use Shopee as a (online) platform,” she added.
She reiterated that online business peaked especially during the Movement Control Order (MCO) when many businesses turned online.
“It has been very encouraging participation from Sarawakians. This was proven during the MCO when their offline businesses were shut down, they were not able to continue operations. So, they all came online to continue (their businesses).
“It opened up the business and Sarawakian sellers were able to supply Sarawakian products to the people in KL, Klang Valley, Perak and Penang. So they are able to meet much more customers.
“So it opened up the whole new opportunity for them,” she said.
Mistika said online business has been sustainable as businesses do not have to spent on rents and facilities.
“It has been very encouraging and sustainable because they don’t have to pay for rent and facilities and all of them (profits) can be put (back) into their online businesses.
“And now in the post pandemic period, online business has accelerated tremendously.
“So coming out of the pandemic now, there is where our digital acceleration comes from, just how much response our local entrepreneurs can come in and how their businesses can be transferred online,” she said.
She said this in response to SMA General Manager Dr Zaidi Razak’s request for Shopee to collaborate with the local players in Sarawak as it is part of the state government’s policy to focus on digital economy in order to propel Sarawak to achieve a developed status by 2030.
Meanwhile, Zaidi stated that the state government’s growth of the digital economy prior to the pandemic proved to be vital when it struck Sarawak in 2020.
“There has been a high number of participants from Sarawak in online businesses after the digital economy was introduced before the pandemic by our Premier Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg,” Zaidi said.
