Department drives e-marketing

The department's director-general, Kanissorn Navanugraha, said the e-market place system allowed businesses to register at www.dbdmart.com to provide their products and services, free of charge. It intends to create confidence among both businesses and customers so that they will be encouraged to offer their products and services through modern business channels.

The director of the department's Business Promotion and Development Bureau, Somchart Sroythong, said that the online business of about 6,000 websites was now registered on the system. Thailand has a total of more than 20,000 websites.

Next year, the department plans to focus on encouraging business-to-business transactions.

Online marketing in Thailand currently leads to business transactions worth Bt420 billion per year. Seventy per cent of this comes from business-to-consumer transactions and the rest from business-to-business transactions. The online-business market is growing every year.

"The department will help local business to attract overseas customers by taking part in an international market place, so this it will help the economy as a whole," Somchart said.

Thailand e-Commerce Association vice president Worawoot Ounjai said his organisation was encouraging customers to purchase goods and services online by negotiating with banks to provide online transaction services for their customers via mobile phones.

"Goods and services purchased in online transactions represent only 4 per cent of gross domestic product in Thailand. People in developed countries purchase goods and services and pay fees totalling 10 to 12 per cent of GDP. Therefore, there is a gap in the market that invites customers to pay service fees and buy products via online channels," he said.

Somchart said Thailand now had about 15 million Internet users and only 400,000 of them had experience in purchasing products and services via the Internet. This offered an opportunity with high potential for driving e-marketing.