Sanook launches online marketplace in Chiang Mai
Sanook.com is introducing chiangmai.dealfish.co.th, an online marketplace for buying and selling products and services exclusively for people in Chiang Mai and elsewhere in the North.
“Dealfish.co.th is the most convenient locally focused person-to-person community marketplace in Thailand that Sanook officially launched in February,” said Tiwa York, Sanook Online managing director for e-commerce. “After its introduction, we received a good response and we saw that there was an opportunity to expand the market by focusing on the major provinces of Thailand, beginning with Chiang Mai at chiangmai.dealfish.co.th.
“The reason we chose Chiang Mai as the first province in the expansion of dealfish.co.th was that we had analysed Internet users’ behaviour and found that apart from Bangkok and its neighbouring provinces, people in the Chiang Mai area used the Internet the most. Hence we saw that an expansion of dealfish into the local market would best respond to the needs of local users, so we combined products and services for local sales in the Northern area to provide convenience for people in Chiang Mai and in other provinces in the North.
“We envisage that in the future when 3G is available nationwide, this will be a factor in stimulating the further growth of e-commerce,” Tiwa added, referring to third-generation wireless broadband.
“Nowadays, Thais’ buying behaviour has been changed a lot, with the use of online services increasing with the popularity of mobility devices. The number of mobile or smart-phone users now exceeds 10.4 million units [according to the National Statistics Office], while the number of people who access websites using mobility devices has increased by about 19 per cent over the past six months. We see this as a great opportunity to expand the e-commerce market of Sanook into the provinces.”
Currently, dealfish.co.th has about 200,000 listings, with 4,000-5,000 new ones posted every day. There are 270,000 daily visits to the site with 2.8 million page views per day.
It also provides other services to create opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises with a Facebook fanpage and with the development of a Dealfish Store application.
