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Alibaba.com: See the Opportunities for B2B Trade during the COVID-19 Pandemic

By
Justin Chong
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0

Alibaba See the Opportunities for B2B trade during COVID-19 pandemic

COVID-19 has caused many problems for most of the world over the last year and a half. This pandemic has caused many small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) focusing on B2B to suspend or halt operations.

To increase their chances of survival, many of these businesses will start to turn to new systems and methods. The best strategy is to go digital with the aid of an online B2B marketplace like Alibaba.com.

Today, we will look at how the B2B trade has fared throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. We’ll share all the challenges that B2B SMEs have faced due to COVID-19 and look at a few features Alibaba introduced to assist SMEs through this difficult time.

Overview: B2B Trade throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has harmed B2B. We’ve seen many shutdowns and pauses generate a slew of problems, forcing distributors to get innovative to keep things going.

Let look at a snapshot of COVID-related shifts and changes in the B2B space since the start of 2020:

  • Lockdowns around the world due to the fast-spreading of COVID-19 caused supply chain disruptions and shortages.
  • Digitalisation became an essential force to help the B2B trade survive in the market.
  • B2B e-commerce platforms such as Alibaba became essential for B2B trade.
  • Digital sales procedures have been as successful or more effective than traditional sales processes for most B2B SMEs.1
  • India, one of the world’s top manufacturing countries, experienced a deadly spike in cases, causing new supply chain disruptions. 2
  • Over 80% of B2B buyers have made online purchases on a weekly or monthly basis.
  • Supply chain optimisation has become more important than ever.
  • More than 85% of B2B SMEs are now confident about the futures of their business.

4 Challenges B2B Businesses Faced during the Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic presented numerous problems for B2B firms, but there are a few underlying concerns worth mentioning. Some of these difficulties have been rectified to some extent, but the consequences are still being felt today.

In-Person Interactions Halted

Although doing business over the internet is feasible, most B2B trading used to be done in person at trade fairs and other such events. E-commerce was largely employed in the B2C market before the pandemic, but B2B systems were not often set up for online sales.

Lockdowns were a perfect solution to limit the spread of the coronavirus and “flatten the curve” because it is such a dangerous disease. Therefore, in-person events could not be held and were cancelled. These cancellations put B2B buyers and sellers who were used to making connections and forming partnerships at in-person events in a tight spot.

If businesses weren’t able to move online, the situation could’ve been a much bigger issue. However, many B2B SMEs adapted and adopted e-commerce to keep things running.

Supply Chains Disrupted

The outbreak of COVID-19 caused several factories to shut down to prevent the spread of the virus and protect workers. Some factories had to close for weeks or months, such as in Malaysia when MCO, MCO 2.0, and FMC0 was launched. Naturally, this production snafu resulted in many manufacturers’ operations being held up, causing severe supply chain disruptions.

Even if most of the globe has returned to some sort of normalcy, we are not out of the woods yet. In fact, a recent spike in COVID-19 cases in India has created new supply chain disruptions. Some Indian states have implemented tight shutdowns, forcing factories to close for the time being.

These shutdowns affect not only India but also many other countries because India is one of the top manufacturing nations. Although the manufacturing industry has invested in other countries, all the needs in the market are yet to be fulfilled.

Raw Materials Prices Increased

Shortages of raw materials also caused price increases that have affected wholesalers, manufacturers, and buyers across the board. It’s simple economic theory: When demand increases but the supply is reduced, the result is a shortage of raw material in the market.

Paints, coatings, polyurethane, foams, adhesives, glues, epoxy resins, and other similar products were among the most severely affected. The average price of these resources has increased due to decreasing supply and stable demand.

Many shortages were caused by materials used in packaging. Because most items require packaging, this shortage was particularly problematic. It impacted both buyers and distributors in almost every business.

Freight Rates Increased

Freight rates were another notable challenge presented by COVID-19. Air and ocean are the two most popular types of freight in international trade, and they also faced issues as a result of COVID-19.

Passenger planes carry most air freight, so when travel restrictions were imposed, and the number of commercial flights dropped considerably, air freight options were scarce.

Consumer spending shifts during the pandemic caused retailers to rearrange their inventory accordingly. They sourced more units than usual, and trade between Asia and North America significantly increased. Boats that regularly transport cargo on this route could not return quickly enough to pick up more loads, resulting in yet another scarcity.

The limited supply and increased demand also caused freight costs to increase. Distributors and retailers were in a difficult position because they needed to either absorb the extra costs or raise prices in the midst of a worldwide economic downturn. Each business was given the freedom to choose the option that made the most sense for them.

6 Ways Alibaba.com Supports B2B SMEs

Alibaba understands all the challenges faced by B2B trade and has stepped up to the plate to provide additional support to get through this pandemic. In addition to its regular feature offerings, it also amped up its tools designed to facilitate online trade to accommodate the rapid need for digitalisation in the B2B space.

Let’s look at the six features available to sellers on Alibaba.com and the key points you should onboard from Alibaba.com for global trading.

Frequent Online Trade Shows and Expos

When the pandemic started, the Alibaba team put a lot of effort into hosting online trade shows and expos as frequently as possible. They created a platform for buyers and sellers to connect, network, and make deals.

Alibaba not only offers general events for buyers and sellers in all sorts of industries but also organises industry-specific events. Some events are export-specific and geared towards sellers who want to tap into foreign markets. For example, this year, in addition to the annual promotional exhibitions March Expo and Super September, Alibaba will hold ten other holistic or category-specific online trade shows for leading categories such as apparel, home and garden, and beauty and personal care.

As a result, Alibaba.com has already seen a significant increase in transactions at a tradeshow in March. Sales increased by a staggering 50%.

Alibaba also rewards high-quality vendors and professional buyers with benefits. For example, qualified members can enjoy breakout areas for more intimate meetings. This simplifies the process of locating outstanding items for both consumers and sellers.

Enhanced Global Gold Supplier (GGS) Membership

Alibaba rolled out more perks for GGS members this year. Qualifying, highly rated sellers have access to enhanced features to grow and propel their businesses.

The update features include an improved onboarding process that allows vendors or sellers to publish and set up smart tools. It also features post boosting, which is designed to enhance product visibility and conversions by up to 15%.

The enhanced membership also comes with resources and educational materials to help sellers streamline and optimise their responses to inquiries to help them close deals.

*Interested in learning more about Alibaba’s GGS? Visit our product page here.

Localised Team Support

In the last year and a half, the Alibaba team noticed that many B2B SME owners and operators have had to navigate totally unprecedented circumstances with very little guidance. Therefore, Alibaba has increased its available support. The team is educated and trained to help owners and operators make the best choice for their companies. They stay up to date on current trends, challenges, and issues to help you navigate through confusing situations.

This advanced team support rollout included over 200 training materials to help you enhance your selling experience.

In addition to the support you can get from Alibaba, we will also assign a dedicated account manager from Exabytes to give you better insight and action plans to optimise, enhance, and boost your sales revenue in the business trade.

Supply Chain and Payment Service

Alibaba has formed many new partnerships with local institutions to improve supply chain functions. These partnerships include local banks, local logistics service providers, and other valuable business partners. They will ensure reasonable freight rates for sellers.

The main benefit of these partnerships is secure payment on Alibaba.com. It provides a wide variety of payment options that work well for every buyer and seller.

As part of these efforts, Alibaba is reinforcing its Trade Assurance program to back every transaction made through its platform, providing a risk-free buying and selling experience.

*Only available in selected markets. Speak to an Exabytes Alibaba consultant for details.

Customised Service in Key Sectors

Alibaba is currently working to expand the popularity of certain marketplaces to connect our merchants with eligible buyers. For example, it’s putting money into specialist teams to recruit customers for Italian clothing, American health items, Korean beauty products, Vietnamese food, and other categories.

More vendors should be able to find customers in their speciality as a result of these efforts and expenditures.

Cross-border Trade Support

As a key resource for cross-border trade, Alibaba.com helps businesses that want to expand into the foreign market by providing powerful exporting tools. These tools include auto-translate, auto-conversion, and local partner development, making connecting with foreign buyers and overcoming language barriers and other roadblocks extremely easy.

Moreover, Alibaba.com offers Trade Assurance to ensures every transaction that took place on the platform is completed perfectly. This provides total peace of mind to the buyers as they are entitled to a refund if the delivery they receive does not meet their expectations (in terms of quality, delivery time and other pre-determined specifics).

As a result, buyers can trust Alibaba.com knowing that they are buying from a trusted source.

Final Thoughts

COVID-19 has affected many businesses’ chances of survival or retaining their business, especially those in the business trade industry. Some businesses struggled more than others, but we can see that many that were able to onboard and leverage the support of Alibaba are working perfectly fine now.

Are you ready to take your business to the next level, despite the challenges posed by the pandemic? Talk to our team by filling in your details here. We will provide a FREE one-on-one consultation to review your business nature and recommend a better solution.

Ciao!

**All information extracted from Alibaba’s Business Blogs: B2B & Alibaba.com: Opportunities during COVID-19 pandemic.

alibaba event organized by Exabytes

eCommerceFest 2021 Series #1: Next Stage of E-Commerce in Malaysia—The Challenges and Opportunities

By
Xin Yee
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0

Have you finished reading our blog post, ‘Topic 1: How Malaysian SMEs Scaled New Growth via E-Commerce’? If you have yet to read it, make sure you visit the blog post and spend some time on it. I’m sure you will get some very insightful information from it.   

Let us continue to the second topic in Series 1, ‘Next Stage of E-Commerce in Malaysia—The Challenges and Opportunities’. This topic discusses the current situation or stage of e-commerce in Malaysia. 

The Challenges and Opportunities of E-Commerce in Malaysia
The moderator (Salman Ahmad) and panelists (Song Hock Koon & Ganesh Kumar Bangah) of the event.

E-Commerce in Malaysia

Malaysia is considered one of the leading e-commerce countries in Southeast Asia because it started using e-commerce early. However, some areas still need to be enhanced to further develop Malaysia’s e-commerce sector. 

Check out the key takeaways of this session!

1. Malaysia’s Current Use of E-Commerce 

E-commerce use in Malaysia is considered to be at the early majority stage. E-commerce is growing quickly because most Malaysians have started to grow their businesses in the e-commerce sector.

However, there are still some areas that have not adapted to digitalisation but continue running business traditionally. 

2. Expanding Your Market

E-commerce merchants should target not the Malaysian market but also Southeast Asia as a whole. E-commerce store is borderless, and the cultures and buyer preferences in Southeast Asia are quite similar.

Therefore, e-commerce merchants can target and reach massive amounts of people outside Malaysia to develop their e-commerce businesses. 

3. The Three Components of E-Commerce 

Supply

Supply is growing slowly. Even though the MCO has resulted in a growth in supply, it’s not growing rapidly. Another issue for the supply side is that most of the supply is provided by foreign companies instead of Malaysian companies. 

Demand 

Demand is growing faster than supply due to the lockdown. However, there are fewer local merchants, so there is less local demand. Most people are purchasing from foreign merchants, and delivery is slow because it takes a long time to deliver goods from foreign countries. 

Logistic Infrastructure

Logistic infrastructure has been affected by the huge growth in demand.

When demand is high and the growth of infrastructure is not fast enough, delivery times are delayed because the logistics infrastructure does not have the capability to cater to the high demand during the MCO.

4. Educate Both Sellers and Consumers to Sell and Buy Online 

To develop the Malaysian e-commerce market, sellers need to be educated to grow and stand out among the competitors. Sellers and business owners need to trust the potential and convenience of e-commerce.

Moreover, to build confidence in e-commerce, sellers and consumers need to try to buy or sell themselves. 

5. Start with Your Mindset 

Most traditional business owners do not spend a lot on marketing because they did not see it as an investment. Not investing much in marketing might work for physical stores (people will go directly to the physical store and buy products or services), but it does not work for online businesses.

Marketing is important for online business, and the investment in marketing will turn into a return on the expense. Retailers can see how much revenue they earn from their marketing spending.

Even after lockdown, retailers should continue investing in marketing because it will help retain their existing customers and increase new customers. 

6. Don’t Cannibalise Your Own Business 

Most traditional business owners do not want to step into e-commerce because they are worried about being cannibalised.

When selling online, retailers post the prices publicly, allowing their brand to be compared with other brands that sell similar products.

However, traditional retailers should not be worried that running their business online will cannibalise them.

Instead, they need to change their mindset about starting an online business. It is a way to sustain your business because we do not know when this lockdown will end. 

Final Thoughts

E-commerce is the new norm for business owners in Malaysia. It takes time and effort to move from adapting to digitalisation to earning a profit from your e-commerce business.

To effectively improve your e-commerce business, you must understand the challenges and opportunities in the e-commerce sector. 

During this panel discussion, the speakers, Ganesh Kumar Bangah, executive chairman of commerce at DotAsia Ventures, Sdn Bhd; and Song Hock Koon, director of e-commerce, MDEC, shared their insights into the challenges and opportunities in Malaysia’s e-commerce sector, as well as their opinions on how business owners can enhance their businesses. 

For more information, watch the full video, ‘Topic 2: Next Stage of E-Commerce in Malaysia—The Challenges and Opportunities’. You will get more than you expected! 

We have one more topic for Series #1 to go, so stay tuned!

eCommerceFest Series #1: How Malaysian SMEs Scaled New Growth via eCommerce.

By
Xin Yee
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0

Series #1 has come to a successful end. It was an insightful discussion among the experts, and all the attendees were so enthusiastic and engaged throughout the session! With the three different topics discussed in Series #1, I believe that the attendees are now better equipped to grow their business via eCommerce. 

The topics discussed have revealed different messages and information that allow entrepreneurs, eCommerce merchants, and SMEs to have a bigger picture in their eCommerce journey. 

The moderator (Wintson Tham) and panelists (Edmund Tan & Kim May Chee) of the event.

To make sure you have a deeper understanding of Series #1, let’s go through the key points again:

1. The Pandemic Boosted The Speed of Digitalisation Adoption 

The unexpected pandemic pushed many businesses to adopt digitalisation and run an online store. This situation helped to boost the digital presence of several brands; the founder of Cocodry and Inside Scoop grasped the opportunity to start their eCommerce business and the rest is history. 

2. Seize The Opportunity 

During the MCO, there were opportunities for the business owners to not only gain extra revenue via eCommerce but also increase the number of potential customers who will visit their physical store in the future.

With the current situation, most people have become more active in the digital world, and this is a good opportunity for a brand to improve its online presence. 

Certainly, people may not purchase your product when they see your brand online. But by exposing your content and brand to more people, it helps greatly enhance your brand awareness, allowing the audience to remember your brand, which can lead to a purchase in the future. 

3. Maintain Relationship With The Community

Your products are not the only important factor that needs focus while running an online business. Establishing customer connections is extremely important.

It is essential to maintain a good relationship with your community using content and show your potential customers what you are offering. It promotes relatability with your brand.

Besides, creating and posting educational content shows your audience how professional you are. Good content will build trust and also an interaction between you and your customers. 

4. Create Human Touch 

Human touch is crucial in getting potential customers. Running an online business is not only about transactions but there must be real conversations that show human activities.

Talking and listening to your customers is vital in strengthening the connection between your brand and customers. 

For example, Cocodry launched an online consultation service that allows customers to better understand their scalp and hair condition products.

Inside Scoop makes it more conversational with customers who want to order ice cream, instead of just sending them the menu and leaving it for them to decide.

5. Be Persistent

Be persistent, constantly putting effort into your eCommerce business. Running an eCommerce business is not simply having an online store and waiting for customers to visit and buy your products.

There are so many aspects that need to be taken care of to successfully convert visitors to customers, such as good marketing, positive customer reviews, and more.

Thus, you need to be persistent in your effort to ensure everything is performing well on your platform. 

We have seen many entrepreneurs in Malaysia who have successfully run their business and brought their brand to a higher level. It is not easy to run a successful eCommerce business immediately.

It takes time and effort to lead your business to the path of success. 

In this session, both Kim May Chee, Founder of Cocodry, and Edmund Tan, Founder of Inside Scoop shared their experiences on the eCommerce Journey. They also shared valuable insight and advice on how to successfully run an eCommerce business.

Although their eCommerce journey was not easy, they managed to grow their business to today’s success. If they can do it, you can do it too! 

Watch the full video of Topic 1: How Malaysian SMEs Scaled New Growth via eCommerce to learn and grow your business! 

Stay tuned for topic 2 and topic 3!

eCommerceFest 2021: Series #3 eCommerce Strategies & Growth

By
Xin Yee
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0

Finally, we make it to the last series of eCommerceFest 2021. The topic we brought to you is Series #3: eCommerce Strategies & Growth. 

Growing and developing eCommerce business is not only having a marketplace online to sell your products. It is significant for eCommerce merchants or retailers to tailor suitable strategies that are able to accomplish eCommerce business goals effectively. To learn more, don’t miss Series #3 on Tuesday, 29 June 2021!

What will you learn? 

In series #3, you’ll take away on how to create the best strategies for your eCommerce business. Instead of blindly selling and doing promotion online to attract people, join Series #3 to learn the effective strategies that will bring your revenue to fly high. 

Check out the topics in Series #3:

Topic 1: Customer Acquisition Strategies to Win New Customers

Moderator: Samantha Tong, Chapter Lead of Google Business Group (GBG)

Panelists:

  1. Ionut Danifeld, Chief Marketing Officer, Trapo Asia 
  2. Aqib Malik, Head of Content Marketing, Mindvalley

Every ecommerce business presumably seeks new customers. But, are you really focused on that effort?  This session will discuss the tips to acquire new sales for your eCommerce. 

Topic 2: The Important of Upselling and Cross-Selling for Your eCommerce Growth

Moderator: Julia Koh, Executive Director, Brand 360 Degree

Panelists: 

  1. Zeeshan Khan, Head of Marketing, LEGOLAND Malaysia Resort
  2. Ravi Shankar, Chief Growth & Digital Officer, AirAsia

It is important to acquire new sales, but at the same time – Do not forget about the thousands of customers who buy from you already. This session is going to discuss how you can get more revenue from your existing customers.

Topic 3: SEM & SEO – How to Utilize Both Strategies Effectively for Your eCommerce business?

Moderator: Sunny Ooi, Founder and CEO, ClickAsia Sdn Bhd

Panelists: 

  1. Kean Shin, Digital Marketing Manager, Exabytes
  2. Zevin Goay, Digital Marketing Consultant, Digital Marketing Consultancy Sdn Bhd (DMC)
  3. Jenny Lim, Head of Search, Google Malaysia

SEM is about advertising your presence online- specifically, on search engines with pay-per-click (PPC) ads in different formats. While SEO is an organic way to optimize your web content to make sure it’s most likely to appear as a top result. This session will discuss how you can utilize both strategies effectively to boost your eCommerce.

See you there! 

Sit back and learn more about eCommerce strategies and growth from experienced speakers to enhance your online business owner’s capability. If you have not registered for this event, make sure you register now at https://www.ecommercefest.asia/my. 

If you already registered, kindly check your email for the login access link.

 

A Student with Dreams to the Founder of Exabytes

By
Briana Lee
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0

A student with dreams to the founder of Exabytes

Founder and CEO, Mr Chan Kee Siak of Exabytes was recently interviewed by HostAdvice, a web hosting information centre with a community of web hosting experts and experienced consumers.

Mr Chan shared some insights on the humble beginnings of how Exabytes came about to the challenges and how they overcame them to achieve the success of Exabytes today.

Read on to find out more about what Exabytes do, his view on bitcoin and how we stay on top of the game.

With more than 20 years on the market, Exabytes has more than 160k customers worldwide. What is the story behind Exabytes? How did it all start?

I started my first business selling computers when I was 19 years old, as a college student.

Inspired by Michael Dell’s DELL.com which uses website and eCommerce to sell computers, I also wanted to have a website.

From there, I started to learn about doing website, domain, and web design. Then I realized I needed a server to host my website.

I tried to look around for a provider locally, but I couldn’t find a reasonable one.

Later on, I found some hosting companies in the US where you can resell and I became their reseller.

The reselling business was going well for me, and my business grew tremendously.

A few months later I stopped my computer selling business and after 1 year, I quit my studies too. I then started full-time in the hosting business.

With my hosting business, we also started to invest in our own server hardware and infrastructure.

Our business continued to grow and within 5 years, we grew to be the largest hosting provider in Malaysia.

A few years later, we continue to expand our business to Singapore and now we are also in Indonesia.

We have done over 10 different hosting companies’ acquisitions across the 3 countries and further expanded our footprints.

20 years is a lot of experience and a lot of ups and downs. What were the challenges that you had to face at the beginning?

My first challenge was when I wanted to signup as a US hosting company reseller, I don’t have a credit card. My parents didn’t have a credit card either.

Finally, I managed to loan a credit card from my cousin to start the business.

At different stages of each business, you will face new challenges, from early days, server FSCK (Linux) to Blue Screen (Windows), then overloading issues, marketing, customer service …etc.

How did you overcome those challenges?

This can be overcome over time by constantly learning, hiring the right talents, sending a team and even myself for training, get a coach, mentors… etc.

As long as you have a positive attitude towards the problems, and always think of “Customer First”, you will be able to find a way to get things sold.

What are the main products and services of Exabytes?

Domain Name and shared hosting is still our main bread and butter.

Over the 20 years, we have also expanded our products and services portfolio to:

With 160k customers around the world, customer satisfaction is a crucial part of success. How is Exabytes handling customer satisfaction?

We follow the principles of “RASA” which is a Malay word that means “FEEL”. RASA also stands for “Reliable, Affordable, Simple and Advantage”.

Base on this RASA principle, this is how we create and design our products as well as customer’s experience.

We are also obsessed with customers. “Customer First”; customers are always first.

We ensure customers are happy and satisfied with our services, that’s where ratings and reviews from customers formed the major part of our benchmark.

We noticed that you are offering CRM+Office. Can you tell us a bit more about this service that you are offering?

We have been constantly transforming ourselves towards what our valued customers need.
We also transformed from a Hosting provider to a Digital Enabler.

This means, today, what our customers require is not just domain and hosting, they also need other services that can help in growing their businesses, and with that, we expanded our products portfolio to other digital services, such as:

There are many companies that are working with Bitcoin at the moment. What are your views on this way of payment? Do you have any plans to introduce it as a payment method? How do you feel this payment method will change the hosting industry in general?

We are probably already too late to enter this game, but will definitely monitor it and explore the opportunity.

We noticed that over the year Exabytes has collected many awards. What is the award that you are most proud of? Why it is important to be on the top of the game?

Among the so many business awards, the Deloitte Technology Fast500 Asia Pacific 2009 is probably the most prestigious.

There are new trends and technologies that are coming out every year. How Exabytes is investing in new technologies that will take the company to the next level?

Constant innovation and always keep an open mind.

Be sensitive to what customers want and the market potential.

Empower team to try new and different things, embrace new partnerships.

We are finishing up with 2021 and entering a new year. What are your plans for 2022?

Really wish the COVID-19 pandemic will over soon, and World Peace.

We will continue to play our part in helping more businesses worldwide to “GROW their Business online”

Finally, is there anything else you would like to share with the hosting community about the products and services of Exabytes?

With our strong footprint in South East Asia, we welcome anyone who is interested to resell our services or form a strategic cross partnership.

We are also looking for hosting companies that are for sale.

How COVID-19 Brought Us Closer to the Future of Retail – New Retail

By
Justin Chong
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0

entering the future of retail amid and post pandemic

There is no surprise that people are craving for human touch and physical experience more than ever after a year of social distance, quarantines, and Zoom conversations.

According to Kantar’s COVID-19 Barometer, 25% of online shoppers think that buying online is less fulfilling than shopping in a physical store.

In this regard, it’s fair to say that the retail business that will succeed in the future, are those that deliver a different type of shopping experience as compared to what it was before COVID-19.

While the demand for in-person shopping will last, eCommerce, too,  isn’t going away anytime soon.

Intentional ‘Reopening’ Strategies

Vaccination is ramping up across the world. Governments are loosening COVID-19 related restrictions (‘Movement Control Order’ in the case of Malaysia), and people are eager to get back to pre-pandemic lifestyles.

According to Malaysia’s Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, over 80% of Malaysia’s population are expected to be vaccinated against Covid-19 by the first quarter of next year. In other words, Malaysians are expected to return to normal.

Retailers should use this opportunity to get ready, reflect, adjust, and implement deliberate “reopening” initiatives – even if they stay open during the pandemic – that show consumers and workers that they’re dedicated to providing a safe and engaging shopping experience.

This includes using purposeful messaging, launch of new products, online and offline store integration coupled with employee training to go above-and-beyond in providing service and personalised support, so customers feel valued and energised by the brand’s palpable delight in reconnecting in-person once more.

Tapping Into the Unique Advantages of Brick-and-Mortar

More and more people have shifted to online shopping since the pandemic. 60% of shoppers who changed their consumption or buying behaviour during the pandemic will continue with the same behaviour post-pandemic.

However, when the lockdown is over, many would still choose to shop in person.

Why? This is because in-person shopping experience offers shoppers a feel and touch on the physical goods.

In this regard, Glossier had managed to address the concern even before the pandemic.

Glossier – Reinventing the future of in-person experiences

Glossier Store New Retail

In 2016, Glossier launched its first physical retail store, allowing customers to try and buy goods that were previously sold online and take photos with the “Instagrammable” background.

Due to the pandemic, Glossier has shuttered its retail stores, but the company is currently working hard on reinventing the future of the in-person shopping experience for its customers.

Despite the fact that the Brick-and-Mortar retailing strategy has lost out, especially during the pandemic, the in-person buying experience is still important as it provides a sense of security for online shoppers before making a purchase decision.

A study showed that 56% of shoppers visit a store before making a purchase online.

Data-Driven Decision Making – Everything will be Digitalised

While data-driven strategies were implemented by most category leaders, the pandemic has prompted retailers to implement systems for gathering, analysing, and activating consumer data.

Brands shall be more deliberate in their marketing in the future, relying on data to identify where they should reach and connect with their customers.

As a result, they will also have good knowledge of what they should promote in the future.

Omni channel data marketing big data

The integration of online and offline commerce, which provides store representatives (aka in-store salesmen) simple access to customer profiles, has become an essential strategy for the retail industry.

As a result, store representatives will be able to understand the preferences of each shopper at the storefront through the database that had previously recorded, such as demographic, recent purchase, preferred goods, and more.

They make use of digital signage, which allows stores to update messages on a local level. For example, JD Sports uses digital signage throughout to inform shoppers of the available fits and sizes.

Shoppers can even customise their favourite shoe style on their tablet devices.

You can also expect more “phygital” experiences that blend digital and physical elements such as Nike’s in-store activation that simulates an outdoor expedition using guests’ mobile phones, AR and QR codes.

The Customer is the Channel

This pandemic created a huge change in the shopping preference and experience in the retail world. Customers become the main focus.

There is an ongoing retailing pattern that we can see on Grab mart and Panda Store — curbside pickup and pick up in-store (BOPIS) options are here to stay because they’re safe, simple and convenient without a long wait.

Customers expect to move seamlessly from the online world to the physical store in the future.

As a result, expect a sustained focus on integrated, multichannel strategy as well as greater readiness to pivot.

What is BOPIS in retail?

BOPIS is a business strategy that allows you to create a great blend of online shopping and physical store experiences, making the shopping process more convenient for everyone.

The Bottom Line

New Retail – The Early Bird Gets the Worms

The New Retail Era focuses on providing a seamless New Retail, a brand new marketing concept, will revolutionize the retail industry and give retailers the upper hand to attract customers amid and post-pandemic.

Hopping experience by integrating offline and online stores. Amidst the pandemic, many customers prefer buying across multi-channels.

Retailers that saw the opportunity and were quick to adopt the “New Retail” concept are now enjoying the speedy growth as one of the pioneers.

EcommerceFest 2021: Series #2 eCommerce Trends

By
Xin Yee
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0

The eCommerceFest 2021 Series #1 has just concluded, and here comes Series #2 with the theme ‘eCommerce Trends’.

Malaysia’s eCommerce market is expected to continue to expand with new trends rising quickly due to the country’s fast development. Make sure to attend Series #2 of eCommerceFest 2021 on Tuesday, June 22nd, especially if you’re an eCommerce merchant. eCommerce merchants who are aware of current trends can take advantage of them to grow their business exponentially. 

What will you learn? 

In series #2, you’ll learn how to take advantage of eCommerce trends to expand your business and create more opportunities. During this series, the speakers will share their perspectives on eCommerce trends and how they utilized them to reach their business goals. 

Check out the topics in Series #2:

Topic 1: Embark Personalized Experiences in eCommerce

Moderator: Samantha Tong, Chapter Lead of Google Business Group (GBG)

Panelists: 

  1. Sumit Ramchandani, CEO, AirAsia Media Group 
  2. Christopher Lowe, Regional Head of Partner Success, Insider

Customer experience enables each visitor to consume the experience uniquely, assisting them in achieving their objectives at each step of their journey. The essential components of developing personalization strategies will be discussed in this session. 

Topic 2: The Real Engine of Customer Retention and Revenue Booster- Mobile App

Moderator: Wintson Tham, Business Development, Exabytes

Panelists: 

  1. Lee Wei Hong, Senior Business Consultant, 91APP  
  2. Leow Kok Han, Director, Dr. Douxi (COOOLGO BEAUTY SDN. BHD)

The Offline-online concept allows consumers to buy anywhere they are. This session will discuss how you can create a seamless O2O experience for customers. 

Topic 3: Uncovering eCommerce Trends & Opportunities in Malaysia

Moderator:  Calvin Yeap, Chief Marketing Officer, IOUpay

Panelists: 

  1. Lim Ben-Jie, Head of e-Commerce, AirAsia super app
  2. Tang Siew Wai, Country Manager at Carousell Malaysia 
  3. Vivienne Chin Ee Kwan, Head of SME Banking Business Development and Marketing, CIMB

Malaysia is a very attractive eCommerce market because it is one of the most dynamic countries in online business throughout Southeast Asia. This session will go over current Malaysian trends and how an eCommerce merchant can expand his business in the country.

Don’t miss out! Join Now

Join this series to learn more about eCommerce from experienced speakers and enhance your online business owner’s capability. If you have not registered for this event, make sure you register now at https://go.exabytes.my/ecommercefest-post 

If you already registered, kindly check your email for the login access link.

Why Digitisation Is The Next Big Thing In The Business Sector

By
Brijesh Vadukiya
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0

Digitisation is the nest big thing in business sector
The hype that digital solutions have created in recent times is impeccable. The advancement in technology has been the critical element in making the transformation in the entire world with digital solutions.

Development in the Internet and technology is one of the essential factors pushing the limits and transforming the world digitally.

The Internet has done a fantastic job giving the world a new change and viewpoint by offering many great variations that have eventually created a revolution. People were astonished to have access to such incredible technology, and this is how the hype for digitalization and the Internet kept on increasing day by day.

The industry people have firmly believed that there is a scope of improvement with the emergence of the Internet and its digital elements. digitisation happened at the right time and right place, and you wonder how.

The industries were searching for new approaches that will enhance their organizational functions and fundamentals; eventually, they want to revamp their entire business model. The digitisation and the internet world came at the right time as the industry people were looking for such a methodology to revamp their organization and give a new defining curve.

Digitisation is the process in which the traditional elements and offline things are transformed into a new digitised way using various digital tools. Basically, it is a conversion of multiple activities into digital forms for easy access and a lot more.

There are advantages that digital technologies offer to professionals, and thus, they cannot deny the fact that they will fulfil the growing needs and demand.

With time people’s demand keeps increasing, and industry people need to modernize their organization to meet the growing needs. Digitisation will give a new perspective and reform the entire venture, which will be ideal for them to move forward and to have a clear vision about their futuristic goals.

Goal Of Digitisation

The simplification of the concept of digitisation will give you an idea about the goal of digitisation in the business sector. The goal of digitisation is to help the industry people to achieve their targets efficiently and in the most convenient way.

Digitisation is the practice that most businesses will perform to take an edge of the latest technology in improving their traditional approaches towards the business.

It is the concept that will give the businesses the scope to improve their business structure efficiently, and it can change your business parameters effectively, which will strengthen your business functions.

  • Simplifying the complexity in business operations
  • Neglecting the human errors in the entire system running digitally
  • Efficient target achieving and setting goals
  • Smooth business structure
  • Convenient and hassle-free business handling and management.


(Image Source: Digitalization Solutions Development)

Digitisation is the key factor that will ensure the smooth run of the business as it will allow digital technologies to transform various business activities to operate digitally. These digital technologies are capable of transforming the entire business sector and creating a revolution in the industries.

Change is constant, and the business and industries’ traditional approaches need to be changed into new and modernized ways. Digitisation is the first step to take towards the changing dynamics of the market and growing needs, and it should be considered by the industry people to move forward.

Why Consider Digitisation?

Digitisation is important for digital technologies to act in and perform various business operations effectively. Business people should consider digitisation as it gives their business a push and reforms their business model.

It is the process that will optimize the entire business functions to work smoothly. Digitisation will help find out the best outcome for your business and help you envision your goals and target by achieving them smoothly with the help of it.

Digitisation will change the overall business parameter for the betterment of your business functions, creating a massive impact. Also, do not forget that digitisation will create many opportunities and open many doors of innovation for your business model.

  • Simplification of organization structure
  • Create opportunities to grow in the huge market
  • Stepping forward with new generation technologies
  • Smooth and effective communication without any involvement of a middleman
  • Hassle-free business operation, automation, neglecting human errors, and many more

Digitisation will act as one of the changing factors in the business sector because it has the ability to deal with all the complexity that the business people are facing with the traditional approaches in their business functionality.

The change in the business sector has been driven by technology, and this transition is so rapid for someone to imagine. The economy is changing from offline and online because this change is necessary for upscaling the business sector and taking the world economy to newer heights.

If we look around and see the real example of digitising business, we can realize its impact. You might have known how online food ordering platform for restaurants or eRestaurants have changed the food business scenario.

How Digitisation Prove To Be A Game-Changing Factor?

Embarking on the journey of digitisation in the business sector is the common thing that most business people either have started, finished, or are thinking of executing in the near future.

The involvement of digital technologies will be a game-changing factor for the business sector. It will have a worthwhile impact that is helpful in enhancing the business’s potential, which is why business people are tempted towards digitisation.

It is a game-changing factor because it will revolutionize the entire scenario of doing your business and will give the boost and push that the business world requires to break the boundaries of limitation.

  • Identifying business potential
  • Creating opportunities
  • Giving your business a new modern approach to succeed

One of the exciting advantages of embracing digital solutions is that they will fit in businesses of any size and shape. It is the solution that has only one objective: to take your business to the ultimate heights of success and help you achieve targets efficiently and set goals.

Irrespective of the organization’s size and shape, digitisation can adapt everything and make a change that will enhance the entire business model and give a turning point to the business model to accomplish the long run in the varied market.


Businesses Should Gear Up For Digitisation Considering Increase In Digital Population

The new generation of people has admired the digital solutions and, looking back in recent years, the amount of hype that the Internet has created. With the improvement in technologies and cheap storage and processing, the Internet has been developed with each new generation.

Smartphones became proactive in the market, and people got fond of them. The combination of smart mobile devices and the Internet has been revolutionary and more people have come closer to the internet world and realized its importance. This way, there has been a sudden rise in the digital population.

This digital population has been using the Internet for various services and use and is increasing day by day. If we look at the current stats of the digital population, according to Statista, 4.66 Billion people all over the world are using the Internet for various reasons.

  • The rise in the digital population will create more opportunities
  • Peoples leanness towards the digital approach
  • The digital population won’t consider the traditional approach, and that will ruin the reputation

Betterment in Consumer Service

Consumer experience is the key to modern-day success for business people, and they should consider it their priority.

They are the king, and there is no doubt that they will expect service to be worth the money they are paying, and the service provider needs to take this important consideration in their mind.

An ideal business model will always find practical solutions to improve the user experience, which is essential for business growth.

Digitisation will be a masterstroke for the business people to catch people’s attention and to offer better services. There are many aspects of the business that digitisation will improve, including making the business model more effective.

Thus, your business performance will elevate, which will be very helpful in enhancing customer service. digitisation and digital technologies will allow the business sectors to concentrate on their customer service well enough.

It offers them various resources to help enhance customer service. The first and important point that it covers is communication. With the help of digital technologies, there will be no gap between the consumers and the service providers as far as effective communication is concerned.

Customer queries can be solved effectively, which will ensure customer satisfaction.

Business Efficiency & Growth

Not only will digitisation deal with the organization’s complexity and problems and make it run effectively according to the requirements, but it will also directly impact the business model.

The smooth functioning of the various business aspects will improve business efficiency, and bring countless business benefits. Business efficiency is an important aspect for any business model to run promptly.

The involvement of digital technologies will reduce various operating costs and automate various business activities which in turn eliminate human errors. It will also cut down on manpower cost.

There are various doors that these technologies will open, which creates many opportunities to grow and expand your business leading to an efficient business model.

The entire concept of digitisation in the business sector helps businesses achieve their target and desired success efficiently. It is the solution that will give effective growth to your business.

With lots of positive change from the traditional approach of doing the business, the outcome created by digital technologies has been phenomenal especially in the business initial phase. Still, it has a long way to go.

How Digitisation Helps You In Earning Higher Revenues?

Digitisation will help the business and industry people enhance their business effectively. It will also help them boost their business productivity efficiently. With an increase in productivity and improvement in other important business aspects, there will be higher sales and revenue.

The impact that digitisation will create around the business world will catch people’s attention and create buzz around, generating traffic for your business. There will be an increase in your revenue streams.

Revenue generation is the ultimate goal for any business people, and that is their goal and target to achieve. With digital technologies, they can easily achieve these targets as it is the tool that helps in the betterment of your business model in every aspect.

Feasibility In Business

Feasibility in business is the study of various aspects that will help improve your business. It also helps in determining the organizational goal and the ways for success.

Feasibility with the help of digitisation can be a great concept to take your venture to the ultimate level. Digitisation will improve business feasibility, and that helps create great outcomes from your venture.

Analytics

Analytics is also a modern-day concept that helps businesses get results quickly by analyzing different business aspects. Analysis with the help of data is getting common in the business models these days, and digitisation will do that for you efficiently.

With the implementations of digitisation, there will be data generated for your business, and these can be used for analysis and are very helpful in decision making for the organization.

There are many advantages of analytics which is also used in improving the sales for your business. Thus, business people will have the advantage of analyzing with digitisation.

Product Range and research

Digital technologies give your organization an immense boost and change, which will take your business to another level. The useful variations that it offers include the research of market dynamics.

This market dynamics research will help them decide their product range as they can easily know the trending things and people leaning towards particular products. Keeping your foot with the changing market dynamics is the most important thing.

With digitisation, research can be easily done to extract the market knowledge and trends, ultimately helping them grow.

Digitisation in the business sector has been trending these days. Most business people felt that it is high time to involve such digital technologies that will enhance their business model.

Business dynamics are changing, and it is getting competitive with time. The importance of such important solutions helps the business people in every aspect of their business model.

Also, the important thing here is that there is no such risk in involving digital solutions as it will only and only create a positive impact, and it is harmless.

Final Say

The business sector is currently in a phase where it is shaping itself to contribute to the economy effectively. The existence of digital technologies has been fruitful to the business sector and helped them in achieving their targets swiftly.

There were many tricky tasks that business people could not cope with, but with these solutions, they can deal with them and are no more a hurdle for them.

Also, some aspects of business like analytics and feasibility in business were something that business people wanted to involve but didn’t have appropriate resources.

But by implementing digitisation, they can fulfil their requirements efficiently and achieve their desired output. It is the solution that enhances the business sector overall and gives it a new phase.

Also, not to forget the rise in the digital population and people finding these solutions very suitable for many reasons. One of the vital reasons for that is that people are getting better service and quality products in a convenient way.

Thus, digitisation is the tool that will help you achieve what your potential is and what you deserve.

Related articles:

How Has The Pandemic Affected The Sales of Ecommerce Products Across The Globe

By
karenanthony
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0

How has the pandemic affected the sales of ecommerce products across the globe

With the COVID-19 Pandemic prevailing in some regions dominantly across the world, people have now embraced social distancing for reducing the spread of infection. This has caused a dip in brick-and-mortar purchasing.

However, people have now turned to online shopping to buy the items they might have otherwise purchased physically from stores. It has become one of the convenient ways to take care of their needs while staying confined at home.

Many people have used online shopping store to tide over these difficult times.

Changes in eCommerce revenue

Now, the question is -has the revenue of eCommerce increased with this new trend? In reality, eCommerce sales are not more; however, some industries have witnessed a surge in sales.

This holds true for sellers of groceries and daily household items. For example, JD.com, the largest online retailer in China, had witnessed daily household items almost quadrupled over the same duration in 2020.

Again, a survey conducted by Engine discovered that today’s people spend about 10-30 percent more online.

Product categories that are shifting during the COVID-19 Pandemic

People are now choosing which products they want to buy online. The category of these products is constantly changing due to the circumstances in the region and globe shifting because of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

The purchasing needs of the people depend upon these circumstances.

As observed in market research conducted by Nielsen, it has detected six major consumer behavior trends associated with the COVID-19 Pandemic and their effects on the market. They have been listed as follows-

  1. Proactive health-oriented buying- purchasing products that are linked to wellness and preventative health
  2. Reactive health management- This refers to the buying of coronavirus protective gear like hand sanitizers and masks.
  3. Preparation for the pantry- stockpiling household essentials and groceries
  4. Quarantine preparation – the experience of shortages in online stores or making lesser visits to the store physically.
  5. Limited living- people are making much lesser shopping trips
  6. Embracing the new normal- Here, people are returning to their regular routines. However, here the supply chain has been altered permanently.

Professionals from the credible name in database consulting, management, and administration, RemoteDBA, state that as people progress through the above stages, the items they choose to purchase and the categories of products that are thriving are constantly changing.

Businesses are frequently making changes to their e-commerce databases, and the following are some of the primary product categories that have been affected the most.

  1. Products associated with safety and health

Anyone facing empty shelves at stores or who has seen prices fluctuating online knows that safety and health products are being bought faster than they can be manufactured and restocked.

According to Nielson, there are items like the sales of medical masks and hygiene products have increased by over 300 percent.

  1. Shelf-stable products

There is a category of consumer-packed goods that are booming as shelf-stable items as they are chosen by people planning to go into quarantine.

According to the Neilson reports, there are products like stable milk and milk substitutes like oat milk whose sales have gone up by over 300 percent in dollar growth. Other shelf items are witnessing an increase in sales, like fruit snacks and dried beans with a longer shelf-life.

  1. Digital streaming

With more and more people homebound and with no scope for external entertainment, 2020 witnessed an increase in the subscriptions for digital streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and Amazon.

In addition, there are also non-conventional movie studios online that are releasing movies-on-demand much ahead of their projected release.

  1. Luxury goods

While all the products and services have increased in sales due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, other industries are not doing well.  Besides the obvious ones like travel, restaurants, and entertainment, the luxury goods industries are experiencing huge losses.

For example, projects related to Vogue Business experienced a loss that was as huge as $10 billion for 2020 due to the Pandemic. This was primarily because the industry relies a lot of the purchasing power of the Asian market, where the Pandemic has affected consumers from January 2020.

  1. Apparel and fashion

Like the luxury goods industry, apparel and fashion have not done well due to the Pandemic, and they are witnessing huge losses. This is primarily because they shut down their retail stores due to the lockdowns and the need for social distancing in places where the coronavirus has mutated into new strains.

These losses started from 2020 and are now moving into 2021 as well.

Consumers, due to obvious reasons, are no longer interested in purchasing apparel in person. As a result, esteemed departmental stores like JCPenney and Macy’s and large shopping chains like Nike, Abercrombie & Fitch, and DTC brands with stores like Everlane and Rothys are closing their brick-and-mortar stores. This is making them experience huge losses.

Again, some stores like Patagonia are halting operations about their online stores to safeguard their staff working in the supply chain.

Besides the above, online sales are down as people are more focused on buying essential goods and services.

When it comes to eCommerce and the fate of retail stores in the COVID-19 Pandemic, people try their level best to adjust to these new and strange times. They are trying to shift their purchasing approaches and behavior to survive in the new normal.

Conclusion

Business owners of consumer products and services are not sure where the Pandemic waves will take them. Some suddenly have started to see an upsurge in sales while others are experiencing miserable losses.

Nevertheless, they are trying to support the needs of their customers and make an effort to survive in these uncertain times as well.

Depending upon the audience and industry, the response of businesses to the situation is changing.

Business owners are aware of what their customers want and they are making a sincere attempt to serve them in the best ways as possible in the post-pandemic era.

How Alibaba.com Localised Services Empower Small Businesses

By
Justin Chong
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0

How Alibaba.com Localised Services Empower Small Businesses

The global pandemic is still wreaking havoc on international trade, producing massive disruptions and travel restrictions all across the world.

In this post, we take a deeper look at how the worldwide epidemic has impacted B2B enterprises throughout the world, as well as the issues small company owners may face in 2021, one year after the pandemic began.

An overview of COVID-19’s impact on local, small B2B companies

The global pandemic triggered a massive shift in consumer behaviour. With travel restrictions and lockdowns in place, buying everyday essentials went digital, with significant reliance on e-commerce for food, health supplies, medication, clothing and PPE. Plus, COVID-19 caused mass unemployment worldwide and supply chain disruptions, forcing many small B2B companies to close their doors for good. According to data from the Federal Reserve, around 200,000+ US businesses permanently closed due to the 2020 global pandemic than in a typical year.

A McKinsey study also revealed that business accelerated their digital efforts, in both internal operations and customer and supply-chain interaction, by three to four years across all sectors to overcome global pandemic restrictions and disruptions. While many small business owners were caught off-guard by the global pandemic, it certainly forced B2B companies to spring into action and go digital or, sadly, go home! Initially, as a crisis response, many companies pivoted their digital adoption and quickly took their entire business and workforce online, with employees working remotely and businesses offering customers non-contact delivery services with ongoing online support to encourage online purchases.

International trade and the global pandemic

Even with such a positive digital response to the global pandemic, international travel restrictions continue to cause long delays for import and export companies. For small business owners selling perishable items, this is a serious financial liability, as goods must be sent within a certain timeframe or they will become unsellable.

We only need to look at how the recent outbreak in India has affected local B2B companies to see how this global pandemic continues to threaten small business owners. After the country’s first wave of COVID-19 had seemingly faded away, in April 2020, a new variant emerged and claimed 28,000 lives in just one week (reported cases have since risen to around 2.3 million). Since India shipped $275.5 billion worth of goods worldwide in 2020, the current outbreak will have detrimental knock-on effects for countries that rely on Indian B2B companies for resources, pharmaceuticals and essential food supplies.

Additionally, to prevent the spread of the new variant, strict international travel restrictions are being put in place, preventing B2B companies in India (and in other countries where the variant has been detected) from exporting goods and travelling freely to carry out business meetings. The COVID-19 emergency isn’t just a humanitarian crisis but also a global economic nightmare. India is the world’s 6th largest economy and one of the world’s leading manufacturers of the COVID-19 vaccine, yet with the nation in need, overseas vaccination effects will surely be held up.

Three challenges small B2B business owners now face

Digital sales and e-commerce for large-scale purchases

While it was once assumed that e-commerce could only be used for small-ticket items, the global pandemic has encouraged buyers to also buy large-ticket items online, eliminating the need for traditional retail premises, sales assistants and cashiers. When it comes to small business owners, the digitalization of entire B2B firms has exposed a lack of digital marketing insight, expertise and awareness across most industries.

B2B companies will need to build virtual sales teams, online customer support departments and utilise data to improve their sales funnels to compete in this new digital environment and sell both small and big-ticket products.

Video and live chat now essential

Nowadays, video and live chat have become essential for e-commerce businesses to close online sales. The global pandemic made business trips, factory visits and office visits almost impossible. It was a great opportunity for B2B businesses to practise the online business model structure to reach out online to all potential customers nationwide.

B2B companies are able to nurture customer relations through video conferences and live chat services. In the B2B world, research found a 23% increase in online chat and a 43% increase in video conferences since COVID-19. This shows that customers nowadays prefer video calls instead of traditional phone calls or in-person meetings.

To thrive in 2021, B2B companies have no choice but to be comfortable using such technology and apps or risk being seen as outdated and unable to keep up with the modern, digital-first world.

Building an online presence is now a must for all businesses

A research study from Accenture showed that 46% of small businesses have invested in infrastructure to boost their online presence and deliver a virtual consumer experience.

B2B companies must invest in digital marketing right away – from offering contactless payments to publishing buying guides to educate their clients and improve online sales at the same time. Customers will continue to search for goods and services online if the global pandemic becomes a historical event rather than a present-day concern. Small business owners must implement a multi-platform customer experience rather than continue to engage in traditional marketing strategies. Developing your online presence is crucial, from applying AI to optimising your sales funnel to generating SEO content to boost your exposure in search results.

As the adage goes, difficulty breeds opportunity, and these difficulties can also breed new dynamics that spark corporate growth.

Alibaba.com and small B2B companies

As the global pandemic continues to post great challenges to small business owners, Alibaba.com is doing more to localize its services to empower B2B companies. The statistics below speak for themselves:

  • 93% of B2B companies are now running some of their business online (a massive 90% increase from December 2020, with 43% using e-commerce, an 8% increase from the same period last year).
  • The ongoing supply chain issues haven’t stopped international trade from growing extensively. In fact, international trade is up by 59% from December 2020.
  • Small business owners within the B2B industry surpassed other industries in digitization.

Five upgraded services provided by Alibaba.com

In 2021, Alibaba.com is committed to expanding small local businesses’ business possibilities and advancing global B2B firms’ digital transformation. Alibaba.com continues to improve its sellers’ performance in international commerce and high-quality, customer service – throughout the world – via education, digital awareness, online possibilities and localised assistance.

Online exhibitions

Alibaba.com provides the opportunity for sellers to exhibit at online events, such as the March Expo and Super September, which are annual promotional exhibitions. When compared to average performance, one Alibaba.com event showed a 50% boost in business possibilities, demonstrating the value of attending and participating in virtual exhibits.

Alibaba.com will conduct ten additional category-specific online trade events to help vendors and small enterprises advertise themselves and connect with international customers. These events could be used by B2B enterprises to market their products, services and brand on a global scale.

Do you want to participate in an online trade show? Please read the recent article on Virtual trade shows; a complete guide.

Onboarding package

Global Gold Suppliers Membership Upgrade: A brand-new onboarding package was introduced by Alibaba.com in an effort to upgrade its Global Gold Suppliers membership. The aforementioned upgrade involves an intelligent tool set up to empower customers to start selling on the platform and take advantage of this well-established, international marketplace. This incentive aims to help 5,000 new sellers gain more exposure on the platform – as much as 15%. As a result, users can optimize their conversion rate by posting professional product photos.*

*Terms and conditions may apply. Speak to our Alibaba.com consultant for more details.

Localised team support

A specialised official service team will collaborate with account teams to deliver personalised support to suppliers in order to help them grow their companies. Alibaba.com will offer over 200 training sessions to help small company owners understand e-commerce and Alibaba’s digital capabilities.

Buyers will have a better buying experience if new vendors are educated on the best ways to market their goods and services. These interactions with experts and peers present sellers with priceless learning opportunities.

Supply chain and payment services

During a global pandemic, the supply chain is a concern for businesses to export their goods to other nations. Travel restrictions cause a negative and ongoing impact on the supply chain – especially during a lockdown period.

Alibaba.com has formed a number of strategic alliances with local banks, business partners and logistics service providers to assist sellers in pivoting through difficult times and continuing to import and export items throughout the world.

In addition, Alibaba.com will launch Trade Assurance, a payment instrument and service that will allow customers to make safe, online payments in a variety of marketplaces.

If you are interested in knowing more about overcoming shipping challenges during a global pandemic, read our article, Managing international shipping in the time of COVID-19.

*Only available in selected markets. Speak to our Alibaba.com consultant for more details.

Training

The key element to Alibaba.com’s global success is educating its sellers. A curriculum team, composed of industry professionals and partners, creates instructional materials on subjects ranging from e-commerce principles to pricing dynamics and building digital advertising strategies to attract relevant customers and generate leads.

Learn how to improve sales by emphasising product benefits, taking high-quality professional images, and optimising your internet shop. Small company owners may prosper even amid a worldwide epidemic by educating sellers on the best ways to manage this new digital world.

Alibaba.com empowers B2B business owners

As the global pandemic continues to hinder travel and international trade, and many business activities have to be conducted online, small business owners can seize key opportunities in this challenging time to sell and succeed online by positioning their business as an industry leader. Previously, this was easier said than done. However, nowadays, with the power of technology and the ever-increasing online population, businesses that invest in digital marketing and venture into selling online are set to strengthen their online presence and be on the journey to achieve business success

The Chinese e-commerce market, which is expected to reach $3 trillion by 2024, is a good example, as it demonstrates that the future of B2B international trade will greatly depend on digitalization.

To seize the opportunity in this special moment in history, B2B businesses can unlock their potential by leveraging the Alibaba.com platform, which enables its users to reach a global audience and easily promote their products online, while enjoying the ongoing support, education and guidance offered to Alibaba.com’s wide range of sellers and international buyers.

Ciao!

**All information extracted from Alibaba.com Business Blogs

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