One cannot accuse the Selangor state government of not taking digital serious, especially when it comes to encouraging, urging and pushing its Small, and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and Micro Businesses.
Barely three months after a successful two month E-Bazar Raya Campaign, a collaboration between the Selangor state government and e-commerce platform Shopee where the state allocated almost US$243,000 (RM1 million) in vouchers to Selangor registered merchants, which catalyzed US$2.85 million (RM11.7 million) in sales, benefiting 8,400 merchants, the state is now looking to create a much bigger impact with tomorrow’s Nov 11 Single Day Mega Sales as the main attraction.
This time it has doubled the support with RM2 million worth of discount vouchers. Again, the initiative is targeted directly at SMEs and micro businesses in Selangor, encouraging them to embrace digitalization to survive the challenging business environment caused by Covid-19.
Partnering with Shopee and Lazada, the state expects 10,000 merchants to benefit from the voucher campaign. Merchants with registered Selangor addresses are urged to participate through the Selangor Information Technology and E-Commerce Council (SITEC) website. This includes existing e-commerce merchants from Shopee and Lazada as well as traditional merchants who want to start selling online.
Running from 26 Oct to 26 Nov 2020, the campaign is coordinated by Invest Selangor Bhd and SITEC.
Specifically for the Selangor E Bazar 11.11 Days initiative, Shopee and Lazada have organised a special microsite on their respective platforms. Both Shopee and Lazada University are providing free training for merchants to improve their marketing skills. This is crucial to assist merchant to improve their reach and sales.
“Selangor is the only state that has launched two major online voucher campaigns back to back to accelerate the digitalisation of SMEs during this critical moment,” says Teng Chang Khim, Selangor State Executive Councillor for Investment, Industry & Commerce and SME.
“While it might be overwhelming for traditional business and small businesses trying to find their footing in the digital space within a short time, the business owner must possess the right mindset to adopt the best practice, in order to compete in the new norm,” Teng urges.
Meanwhile, Ian Ho, Shopee’s regional director says that following the success of the earlier Selangor E-Bazar Raya, “it is only natural for us to continue the momentum with the Selangor government for the Nov 11 Mega Sales.”
He expressed optimism that the Selangor E-Bazar 11.11 will generate good results for Selangor entrepreneurs and contribute to the economic prosperity of the state.
Leo Chow, CEO Lazada Malaysia notes that more than 320,000 SMEs have joined their platform with increased registration of new local e-seller by over 200% during the first half of the year. As a result, he says, “Lazada has become a major destination for local entrepreneurs to make sure their business is future proof by selling online.”
With an estimated one third of Malaysians buying online through the platform every month, Leo says, “we look forward to continuing working with SITEC through the Selangor E-Bazar campaign, and assisting Malaysian to save money.
But beyond saving money for Malaysians, the real goal is to help merchants increase revenue and create a multiplier effect across the supply chain as well. In this regard, it is worth noting that a study on the impact of the E-Bazar Raya campaign revealed that this initiative generated about RM341.5 million in ripple effect to SMEs. This included economic, socio-economic and branding effects that created positive impact towards the merchants including their offline operations, job creation, online customer traffic, publicity, social media exposure and more.
To be noted is that this represents a massive 341x return from the RM1 million allocated by the Selangor State Government for the campaign.
Source: https://www.digitalnewsasia.com/digital-economy/spearheading-digitalisation-selangor-govt-allocates-us730k-e-bazar-boost-smes