Malaysia Week 2019 exceeds targets, open doors for SMEs to China's booming e-commerce market
Malaysia Week 2019 exceeds targets, open doors for SMEs to China's booming e-commerce market
It may be a best selling brand in its category in Malaysia but chances are that Annie Choong, from Boh Plantations Sdn Bhd has never experienced what just hit her in China during the just concluded second annual Malaysia Week held on Alibaba Group’s various online platforms. First launched in 2018, Alibaba, in collaboration with the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) and government agencies including Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) and Malaysian External Trade Development Corporation (MATRADE) launched Malaysia Week to promote Malaysian goods. This year it expanded that effort by enlisting the support of China's top key opinion leaders via its Taobao Livestreaming platform. A sort of e-commerce meets live-streaming, the platform exploded onto China’s hot e-commerce market in 2016 with a 2018 Deloitte report forecasting the Chinese live-streaming market to be worth US$4.4 billion (RM18.38 billion) in 2018, with viewer numbers topping 456 million. Malaysian merchants taking part in the Malaysia Week just got a taste of this power, including Choong, who is Boh Plantations e-commerce international business manager. Call it the online version of whiplash. For, in a mere 3 seconds or 3000 milliseconds, 3,000 units of Boh Tea packs were sold. Choong and Boh Tea will never know how much more they could have sold because they only brought 3,000 packs to China. “All our stock for the week is gone, in seconds," rued Choong. Yet Boh Tea’s caution is understandable as the brand has tried to penetrate China, the old fashion brick & mortar way, to push its The Tarik, but failed to make any inroads. “We tried for many years through the offline way but it didn't give us the desired results,” she says adding, “In Malaysia we are 90 years old but in China we're a startup.” Boh Tea switched to an online strategy last year but clearly the buzz created around the just concluded one week Malaysia Week campaign has worked wonders for sales. And that is exactly the impact both Alibaba and the Malaysian government are hoping Malaysian companies experience in their China sales push, especially our small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which have been nervous about the government opening up the Malaysian market to Chinese SMEs through the Digital Free Trade Zone (DFTZ) initiative that went live in Nov 2017. DFTZ itself is the first part of the execution of Alibaba’s eWTP (World Trade Platform) which is Jack Ma’s vision to bring the world closer together through e-commerce. With e-commerce thriving in China, tapping into its massive 1.3 billion e-commerce market provides Malaysian SMEs an unparalleled growth opportunity. That is the undisputed fact that came across at the just concluded Malaysia Week on Sept 22 in Shanghai, China. At the closing event, Darrell Leiking, the Minister of International Trade and Industry, highlighted that, "Malaysia Week aims to promote Malaysian brands and products to achieve sustainable export via the Alibaba ecosystem." Darrell points out that Malaysia Week has helped in positioning the country as a top of mind destination by showcasing more than 100 Malaysian brands ranging across more than 800 products to not only China market, but also to global markets. Meanwhile, the chief operating officer of MDEC, Ng Wan Peng, drew similarities between the eWTP and Malaysia's DFTZ saying that the vision of both is to help companies export using digital technology. "Alibaba has done a lot to help Malaysian SMEs improve their competency and know how to win business online. This partnership will enrich the ecosystem further," she predicts. Eric Jing, board member and partner of Alibaba Group and chairman of Ant Financial, also expressed his confidence. “The Alibaba Group is proud to partner with the Malaysian government and host the second edition of Malaysia Week. Since the announcement of eWTP, we have made significant progress and continue to support Malaysia’s efforts on many fronts.” He highlights the deep cooperation with the Malaysian government that has helped them create an enabling ecosystem that, “not only allows Malaysian merchants to grow their business right now, but also reap long term benefits that await them in future.”
