One-stop online shopping service for modern urbanites
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WP GROUP CO, an e-commerce company started up by three young executives, yesterday launched Skybox, a one-stop online shopping service that will deliver parcels between Skytrain stations within one day.
“We have seen average growth of 20 per cent annually in the e-commerce business in Thailand over the past three years,” Apipat Lertritsirikul, chief executive officer and co-founder, said yesterday.
The other founders are Ornchulee Wisitthadakul, chief administration officer, and Thanawat Laithongkam, chief operating officer.
Established in 2013 with registered capital of Bt5 million, WP Group started operating in July of last year.
The e-commerce market involving selling products directly to consumers will be worth Bt182 billion this year. That has challenged the company to invest more, with Bt10 million poured into IT system development to expand online trading volumes via its online shopping system.
Skybox is a new kind of parcel delivery, sending parcels between Skytrain stations within one day. With the “click-and-collect” strategy, this new service can also deliver parcels from Skytrain stations to other places nationwide and worldwide, including bill payments, with a one-stop service.
Skybox is the first and only provider of this type of service in collaboration with aCommerce Co, the country’s leader in e-commerce management company, to increase its strengths in providing goods and express delivery, e-commerce systems and secured data management.
Under the click-and-collect concept, which responds to urban lifestyles, Skybox is cheaper than home delivery as well as faster and more reliable. Customers can shop before noon and collect their products by noon the day after.
This method can reduce the risks of damage and losses. Buyers can return goods immediately.
The service is suitable for those who send parcels frequently and those who are normally not at home during the day. Skybox also offers “cash on delivery” services as a choice.
Skybox has six service points: Victory Monument, Thong Lo, National Stadium, Chong Nonsi, Mo Chit and Ari stations. It is open from Monday-Saturday and closed on Sunday except at Mo Chit Station, which is open every day.
Ornchulee said that by the end of next year, the company expects Skybox to branch out to 100 service points nationwide and 50 points in Asean in response to higher demand for e-commerce trade resulting from full implementation of the Asean Economic Community.
“Next year, we expect to expand our Skybox services to overseas markets such as Singapore, Myanmar and Cambodia,” she said.
“We also aim to become No 1 in goods delivery for e-commerce and plan to go public in 2017.”
The company will develop an application for mobile phones called “ATT Hub” in response to rapidly growing demand in the future, which would help small enterprises sell more products.
This app, which aims at convenience for both buyers and sellers of goods with bill payment and delivery services, is expected to be launched by year-end.
Besides delivery services in Thailand, WP Group also provides deliveries from Thailand to other countries with support from business partner DHL, a leading global logistics group. In the near future, the company would open delivery services for goods from foreign online shopping websites such as Alibaba and Amazon.
“We expect to have about 1,000 shops on our online system, including website shopping online portals, shopping online Facebook page owners and small- to medium-sized enterprises” Apipat said.
The company’s shopping website partners are Ensogo, Coupon, Lazada and Luxola. A wide range of goods and services would be available on the ATT system, including fashions, food and meals and IT products.
