eBay in Indonesia Now Focuses on Helping SMEs Increase Exports

The reason is that they want to focus on the B2B realm, starting from September 1, 2020, the Blanja service will be stopped. As is known, Telkom is not alone in working on the platform E-commerce it, but with eBay. One form of cooperation, enabling Indonesian people to buy products in the eBay catalog.

After shopping closing, it turns out that eBay is still committed to continuing its business in Indonesia in another way, namely through the SME empowerment program. Now site https://ebaysellercentre.co.id/ provided to sellers from Indonesia.

To find out more details, we had the opportunity to interview Tam Yong Sheng as eBay Southeast Asia's Head of Business Development.

"The latest business news from eBay is the launch of the eBay Global 24/7 program, which is specially designed for SMEs in Southeast Asia. There are various benefits in this program such as New Business Seller incentives for new sellers, webinar education, and much more," explained Tam.

The program has the aim of helping the development of product exports from Southeast Asia to the world market. Tam also said that Indonesia was one of the main destinations for the implementation of this program. This is based on the potential of local products in the country which are in great demand in foreign countries, such as automotive products, health, beauty, leather crafts, to musical instruments.

Momentum in the midst of a pandemic

Citing data at his company, Tam said that E-commerce The global economy has recorded rapid growth due to changes in consumer behavior in the midst of a pandemic. In the second quarter alone, eBay saw an increase of 8 million new active buyers and 29% sales growth over the year-ago period.

"Indonesian SME exports on the eBay platform also show growth in line with this global trend, especially in the health supplement segment, where sales volume has doubled from the same period last year," he added.

eBay itself has so far reached international markets in 190 countries, with a total of 182 million active buyers. It was also said that the United States, Australia and Canada were the top three export destinations for Indonesian SMEs listed on eBay.

"For the US market, the fashion and health supplement categories were the most popular (growing 102%). In the UK fashion and accessories products (growing 158%). While lifestyle products were selling well in France, Italy and Spain (growing 250%), " said Tam explaining some of the fast-growing export markets during the pandemic.

Features for SMEs

We had time to ask whether eBay currently has corporate entities and local teams in Indonesia. But unfortunately Tam was reluctant to provide information. Until now, they only have priority in the SME empowerment program in Indonesia.

Accelerator program E-commerce Global 24/7 has been going on since July 1, 2020, the target is that this inaugural wave will be until December 31, 2020. Some of the benefits that will be provided such as eBay will free up fees store for basic level and 50% discount for features promoted listing. Each SME will get an incentive of up to $1000. There are also subsidies for shipping rates, particularly to the United States. Other features like and account management is also provided.

"Early, eBay has been successful in helping local SME owners, one of which is Eko Saputro and his business Classics (a seller of classic car/motorcycle parts). After operating on eBay for 2 years, Classicku has achieved 150% global business growth, with a market share of the United States. Currently Classicku and eBay are working on expanding their business to Australia and Europe," explained Tam.

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