KUCHING, April 25: Shopee, the largest e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia, is keen to collaborate with Sarawak to promote e-commerce among local technopreneurs and empower local sellers.
Its marketing specialist (Public Policy and Government Affairs) Mistika Idris said there are a lot of areas in which they could collaborate with the State that can benefit not only local sellers but also those who do not know their way around the e-commerce platform.
“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 to do with training, empowerment programmes, and strategic CSR (corporate social responsibility) to help those in need and 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, etc. We want to encourage people to keep learning and increase awareness of how to use Shopee as an online platform,” said Mistika after her delegation paid a courtesy call to Sarawak Multimedia Authority (SMA) at its office today.
She reiterated that online business had peaked, especially during the movement control order (MCO) when many businesses went online.
“There has been very encouraging participation from Sarawakians. This was proven during the MCO when their offline businesses were shut down, and they could not continue operating. So, they all came online to continue (their businesses).
“It expanded their business opportunities, and Sarawakian sellers could supply Sarawakian products to the people in Kuala Lumpur, Klang Valley, Perak, and Penang,” she said.
Mistika said online business is sustainable as there is no need to spend money on rental fees and facilities.
“So now, coming out of the pandemic, this is where our digital acceleration comes from; just how much response our local entrepreneurs can get and how their businesses can be transferred online,” she added.
Mistika was responding to SMA general manager Dr Zaidi Razak’s request for Shopee to collaborate with local players in Sarawak as it is part of the State government’s policy to focus on digital economy to propel Sarawak to achieve developed status by 2030. — DayakDaily
