Thai SMEs to be encouraged to trade on eBay
EBay yesterday announced a greater focus on Thailand, with the aim of cashing in on the country's high potential for e-commerce growth.
Ekachai Rukachantarakul, eBay’s head of Southeast Asia cross-border trade, said Thailand was a significant market for the company, which has been officially present here since 2009. Ten Thai businesses have sale value more than US$1 million (Bt33 million) per year through selling products on eBay’s platform.
He said eBay was a platform that enabled Thai businesses of all sizes to serve consumers easily and instantly
"EBay is the global platform for retail exporters. Thai SMEs can use eBay as the springboard to tap the global market instantly," Ekachai said.
He said the company would focus on encouraging Thai businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), to conduct e-commerce on eBay’s platform. To get started, sellers should have at least 100 stock-keeping units of their product. Then all they have to do is open an online shop on eBay and list their products.
He said that although many people thought of eBay as primarily a consumer-to-consumer platform, most of its revenue was from business-to-consumer sales.
"Therefore, this year, we will do a lot of marketing and educating the market to know more about the eBay e-marketplace platform. Our challenge is to get people, especially SMEs, to realise that eBay is a B2C e-marketplace that can help them to reach the global market effectively."
Of the six major countries in Southeast Asia, Thailand has the highest number of sellers and the highest total value of trading over eBay’s platform, surpassing Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia.
The top five markets for Thai sellers are the United States, Australia, Britain, Canada and Russia. The top three product categories of Thai sellers are jewellery and gemstones, auto parts, and fashion, including clothing, footwear and accessories.
