Thai SMEs to be encouraged to trade on eBay

[webfact]

EBAY
Thai SMEs to be encouraged to trade on eBay
Asina Pornwasin

BANGKOK: -- EBay yesterday announced a greater focus on Thailand, with the aim of cashing in on the country's high potential for e-commerce growth.

Ekachai Rukachantarakul, eBay's head of Southeast Asia cross-border trade, said Thailand was a significant market for the company, which has been officially present here since 2009. Ten Thai businesses have sale value more than US$1 million (Bt33 million) per year through selling products on eBay's platform.

He said eBay was a platform that enabled Thai businesses of all sizes to serve consumers easily and instantly

"EBay is the global platform for retail exporters. Thai SMEs can use eBay as the springboard to tap the global market instantly," Ekachai said.

He said the company would focus on encouraging Thai businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), to conduct e-commerce on eBay's platform. To get started, sellers should have at least 100 stock-keeping units of their product. Then all they have to do is open an online shop on eBay and list their products.

He said that although many people thought of eBay as primarily a consumer-to-consumer platform, most of its revenue was from business-to-consumer sales.

"Therefore, this year, we will do a lot of marketing and educating the market to know more about the eBay e-marketplace platform. Our challenge is to get people, especially SMEs, to realise that eBay is a B2C e-marketplace that can help them to reach the global market effectively."

Of the six major countries in Southeast Asia, Thailand has the highest number of sellers and the highest total value of trading over eBay's platform, surpassing Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia.

The top five markets for Thai sellers are the United States, Australia, Britain, Canada and Russia. The top three product categories of Thai sellers are jewellery and gemstones, auto parts, and fashion, including clothing, footwear and accessories.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/Thai-SMEs-to-be-encouraged-to-trade-on-eBay-30263122.html


-- The Nation 2015-06-26

[jaidam]

This is going to backfire, big time. As soon as Thai people realize they can buy exactly the same goods(or even better quality) for a fraction of the local price, with free shipping/delivery, without even having to leave home.....

Compared to a few fake footy shirt vendors who would probably do brisk trade, assuming they can get past the Ebay mods and copyright laws.

In theory Thailand should ban and block Ebay, just as they do to any other foreign entity attempting to compete with Thai companies.

[davehowden]

As I read it this is about E-Bay encouraging Thai SMEs to sell to the world at large.

Thailand will possibly block Thais from visiting the site in order to buy anything from abroad as that would be "subversive", warranting attitude adjustment perhaps.

[thesetat2013]

Funny ebay doesnt realise the difficultied of importing products through customs here. I have been told waiting times are about a month and if the product is a name brand ot if it is health or beauty products then the customs and tax fees are too much to be worth the effort.

I cant say i know about the difficulties with exports. Maybe another tv member can enlighten us

[zaphod reborn]

Until Thai banks make linking a PayPal account easier, eBay will never catch on in Thailand.

[ezzra]

Funny ebay doesnt realise the difficultied of importing products through customs here. I have been told waiting times are about a month and if the product is a name brand ot if it is health or beauty products then the customs and tax fees are too much to be worth the effort.

I cant say i know about the difficulties with exports. Maybe another tv member can enlighten us

The so called ' free shipping ' means that is most cases you have to wait up to six weeks

for the item to arrive, that if it didn't got lost or nicked on the way, some items will be

opened and scrutinized by the Thai customs and post and fees and taxes will be put

on,

So until the big wigs at EBay and the related agencies will do something about it, it will

be a game of chance sending and receiving goods from and to Thailand...

[sammygood]

is this the great idea for digital commerce, thai businesses should do business with dinosaur e-bay ?

[quandow]

Epic fail in the making. I thought Thailand was on the eBay "no fly list."

[BKKdreaming]

They need to make the same deal that the Chinese did with the USA Post

you can buy stuff shipped from China for less than I can send a small package across my city !

And the packages from China always seem to get here and not damaged,

No reason to push ebay Thailand if they are just reselling Chinese made stuff !

I hope it works out so that Americans and Europeans are not scared to buy from Thailand