SMEs to get online boost via eBay

The parties signed a memorandum of understanding yesterday. Under the one-year programme - "Empowering SMEs through e-commerce on eBay" - the US company will sponsor training for SMEs so that they know how to go online via its electronic-commerce platform.

SMEs will be trained on joint marketing, promotional and educational activities through seminars, workshops and in-depth consultation on e-commerce development.

IDP director-general Pramode Vidtayasuk said SMEs registered with the department would take priority, joining the programme free of charge. The IPD expects more than 1,000 SMEs will take part this year.

Under the plan, the department will recruit about 300 SMEs to take part in seminars each quarter. The first round was held yesterday in Bangkok and the rest will be arranged in the four regions of the country.

"The department will also play a coordination role to expand this kind of collaboration to other governmental departments, such as the Business Development Department and the Department of Export Promotion," said Pramode.

An IPD survey found that 35,000 business operators were interested in joining the eBay scheme. About 8,000 of them are SMEs, which expressed the intention to invest Bt18 billion and recruit 32,000 employees.

"Working with eBay helps Thai SMEs to take expand their business with e-commerce easily but safely," said Pramode.

Oliver Hua, eBay Greater China and Southeast Asia's chief operation officer, said Thailand represented a great country for eBay in terms of both the number of seller members and trading value, which grew by 22 per cent last year. The number of Thai sellers on eBay has grown by more than 50 per cent annually, he said.

The company aims to help many more Thai businesses, especially SMEs, to have an advantage via its e-commerce platform. The platform, Hua said, was not only equipped with technologies and systems facilitating SMEs to easily set up and run their online business quickly, but also came with the huge potential market prospective of 86.3 million active members worldwide.

"Thai products themselves are distinctive and unique. The dominant product categories are jewellery, automobile parts and clothing. Thai sellers on eBay are very active and competitive. The total trade value of Thai sellers is many millions of baht per year. This latest collaboration between eBay and the Thai government organisation will increase the capacity of Thai SMEs through e-commerce," said Hua.

"Amidst the economic downturn, e-commerce will support SMEs in terms of marketing and expanding their customer base across the world. In addition, this will be another alternative for reducing their marketing expenses."

He added that eBay would come up with 20 service providers to help SMEs expand their businesses through e-commerce this year.

To encourage SMEs to start selling their products with eBay, the company will waive insertion fees for the first 100 listings and selected features and provide a discount of up to 25 per cent on fees for the first 100 payments received via its affiliate company, PayPal.

Currently, eBay has a presence in 39 markets around the world and more than 50,000 product categories and 113 million listings.

In the final quarter of last year, eBay's marketplace business unit recorded US$1.27 billion (Bt44.7 billion) in revenue, about 55 per cent of which came from markets outside the US.