I had a lucky break bumping into Taiwan E-commerce Godfather, Mr Jan Hung-Tze (詹宏志) on a recent PayPal Event in Singapore not too long ago.
詹宏志 and I
In case you don't know who's Mr Jan Hung-Tze, he's the founder of Taiwan largest and publicly listed ecommerce mall - PC Home Online (http://www.pchomeonline.com.tw/), it also serve as a platform for over 8800 online stores (3rd party merchants) at its online mall, in which very recently they just spin it off becoming another public listed company.
PC home stores division spin-off as a new listed company
Mr Jan is already a legend, he is way much more than what I can describe in this short paragraph. He has done it successfully as an author, an editor, a commentator, both a movie producer and publisher of highly successful magazine, and most of all, an entrepreneur who never hold back when it comes to sharing his experiences and thoughts!
Not every company need to hire models to promote
I consulted him, Why is it that e-commerce has been prosperous in Taiwan, while Malaysia, which has the almost identical population and Internet usage, has been lagging behind?
After 5 seconds of pondering (he is known for lighting quick and sharp mind), he share his thoughts in a summary. Below are Top 3 reasons why:
Languages - Just imagine, if you eStore would like to serve the need for the majority of Malaysian, you actually need to have pretty solid contents available in 3 languages (namely English, Malay and Chinese) describing your product, shopping guide, shipping are coverage etc. Ideally, your customer service team handling the phone calls and emails should have this capability too. Now this is not something easily achievable especially for the small business.
As for Taiwan? It's one language rules it all - Traditional Chinese (簡體字). For Malaysia, it's 3x the efforts.
The same goes for China (Simplified Chinese) , US (English), Thailand (Siamese) and Indonesia (Bahasa Indonesia).
To get them to buy, you gonna speak their language
Lacking of Infrastructure - There are 4 key components in the e-commerce infrastructure - They are Traffic（流量), System／Platform（平台), Payment (金流) and Delivery / Fulfillment (物流).
Lacking any single one of these, online shopping will fail.
These 4 major components already exist in Malaysia, and it's getting better by the days. The most challenging would be marketing (driving traffic) and fulfillment. And ultimately, how to weave it all together.
For e-commerce to enter hyper growth, the key is to get mass consumers to buy online. To achieve it, each of the 4 segments must grow in tandem. Take this for eg, even if customers can easily place order, checkout and pay online without a hitch (aka great online shopping experience), but it still would NOT work if they need to 14 days just to receive the goods, get the idea?
In Taiwan, some of the innovation in delivery service we can learn and adapt
- The courier company not just helping you ship, they can take payment too! (Cash or Credit Card)
- Online shoppers can send their orders to nearest convenient store, make payment and pick up on the spot.
- Online shoppers can pay for their online orders at nearest convenient store with a slip generated by the online store, and then website owners will be notified payment made and they can ship the goods to designated place.
- You can even ship fresh, perishable foods, the trucks are equipped with cold storage able to keep at -18 Celsius (freezing cold) or 3 Celsius (keep cold)
- How about this? A fast-track, point-to-point, environmentally friendly delivery service in town area by cyclist?
Do you know that Pizza Hat Malaysia can actually
do a credit card payment on delivery
do a credit card payment on delivery
Besides, there isn't a single Malaysia website providing a real "all-in-one estore solution" which combines the entire eStore system, credit card payment, delivery and traffic. Eg in Taiwan, Pchome starts as a portal morphing into an online B2C retailers. They started off with drop shipping and eventually build warehouse to keep stock and ship direct. How do they build traffic? Pull over from their portal of course!
In 2005, realizing there's only so much SKUs you can carry, they started to bundle all the services and enable 3rd party merchants to setup a webStore within to promote and sell their products too, and it greatly enhance the selection of products and of course, broaden the customer base too. It marches forward ever since.
(note: Amazon, undoubtedly, has the fastest growing marketplace for 3rd party seller)
Do u know foods are one of the top selling products online in Taiwan?
above picture shows you why. :)
above picture shows you why. :)
No Leading Online Retailer - Yes, we are talking about non-existent of Malaysia Amazon. For every market, it's important to have a sizable and reputable online retailer (selling physical products). Why? Because they will set a benchmark standard for online shopping experience and customer service, and they will be an eg to follow for the rest.
AirAsia is investing in it, Lelong is also beefing up their own b2c offering via Superbuy aiming to become the real Malaysia Amazon, Off-line retail giant Jusco Malaysia is reportedly working on an ecommerce site too. So will anyone of them be the upcoming Malaysia Amazon?
If you judge by available resources alone, AirAsia Megastore has all the strings to pull this off. AirAsia has the traffic, payment and an existing pool of customers already bought air tickets online.
The questions are, will they have the right people to pull this off? Will their brand ever be perceived as a trusted online retailer? Is Tony committed enough?
Time will tell... What do you think? Share your thoughts!
Must-not missed links on his sharing!
與詹宏志面對面－網海餘生六講
詹宏志談台灣Internet創業與資本市場
台灣電子商務的紅海與藍海戰爭
