Kuala Lumpur, 26 January 2021 — While the pandemic has accelerated the digital adoption rate among businesses in Malaysia, there are still many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that are struggling to fully embrace the digital world. But with the second Movement Control Order (MCO) in place, business recovery will be derailed for many, and those who have yet to pivot online will truly struggle.
Aiming to help merchants without prior eCommerce experience to shift their businesses online, EasyStore enters the industry as a solutions provider that allows for brick and mortar SMEs around the region to digitise through the platform’s simplified, convenient and cost-effective features.
The Digital Divide Among Malaysian Businesses
While SMEs represent 98.5 percent of registered businesses in Malaysia, making them the pillars of the nation’s economy, a huge majority of these businesses continue to fall behind in terms of digitisation despite the advent of COVID-19. In reality, businesses do realise the need
to digitise, but do not have the experience nor skills to digitise, let alone operate multiple online sales channels at once, which can be taxing and laborious.
“Due to the slow digital adoption, many local businesses are missing out on the opportunities presented through online sales which generated over RM 24 billion of Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) in 2020.” said Frost Chen, Chief Executive Officer of EasyStore. “With the announcement of the ‘Perlindungan Ekonomi dan Rakyat Malaysia’ (PERMAI) stimulus package, we believe that our efforts are in line with the government’s initiative to support entrepreneurs and businesses in generating income through online sales by providing business coaching and on-boarding onto e-commerce platforms.”
Easy Digitisation and Lucrative Revenue for SMEs
By making digitisation a no-frills process for SMEs, leading multiple sales channel platform EasyStore has successfully helped its merchants from across the region to reap its benefits in the form of customer reach, revenue diversification and an exponential increase in sales. By providing an easy-to-use and comprehensive eCommerce solution to businesses in capturing the readily-available consumer market, EasyStore has successfully generated a GMV of RM500mil for its merchants in 2020.
With a mission to empower micro-businesses and SMEs in Malaysia and also around the ASEAN region, EasyStore is also the first eCommerce software as a service (SaaS) provider in the industry to introduce monthly subscription rates for merchants. Its multiple subscription plans provide eCommerce solutions with affordable price points as low as RM 59 per month.
Upon subscription, businesses will have access to the platform’s easy-to-use admin panel which allows merchants to sync every product from over 13 sales channels such as Facebook Live, Instagram, WhatsApp, as well as marketplaces like Lazada and Shopee, into one integrated platform. This feature streamlines operations for merchants by syncing their inventories easily with other online marketplaces, making online stores more organised while saving time and resources.
“Currently, over 80% of businesses hosted on the EasyStore platform are marketing and selling their products to more than one sales channel. This is important to help businesses establish an online presence and centralise their operations. Therefore, integrated systems such as EasyStore can effectively help merchants to keep track of their sales and orders. We believe that efficiency is a crucial aspect when it comes to scaling businesses,” Frost Chen explained.
At a glance, EasyStore comes off as an easy-to-use website builder that helps businesses set up online stores without requiring technical abilities. But businesses who have subscribed to the platform’s services would know that EasyStore goes beyond building stores to offer every feature a business would need to be successful in eCommerce in one backend; market synchronisation, multi-currency shopping carts on online stores, automated shipping solutions,
secure payment solutions, EasyStore’s Point of Sale (POS) and Mobile App, all sales channel report, Wholesale Business to Business (B2B) Portal and many more.
“Besides offering user-friendly solutions to help Malaysian businesses pivot online, there is also a need to help many micro-businesses and SMEs to realise the importance of taking their business to the next level, and to educate them on how to achieve that. We are glad to have helped many businesses find success especially in the wake of COVID-19. During this period, over 70% of businesses that joined our platform had no prior eCommerce experience, and yet have recorded a 30% to 300% increase in sales,” added Frost Chen.
Apart from integrated solutions at affordable price points, EasyStore prioritises merchant experience first through their many onboarding activities with newly-joined business owners. Through workshops, such as ‘Start Selling Online in 30 Minutes’, that are conducted online, the onboarding process ensures that businesses will be able to fully utilise the functionalities of its platform.
To strengthen its efforts in helping traditional brick and mortar and SMEs scale their businesses online, EasyStore plans to expand internationally with a focus on the Taiwan market where it has established a strong base of over 3,000 online stores. For more information, or to kick start your eCommerce journey with EasyStore, visit https://www.easystore.co.
Please refer to Appendix A for available EasyStore subscription plans for micro-businesses and SMEs.
