Thailand
Malaysia: Enabling cross-border shopping
IN TODAY’S landscape where almost everything can be bought online, some purchases could be better done offline. However, these products may not necessarily be available locally or are a lot cheaper in other countries.
This explains why Alexander Le sees a lot of potential for cross-border shopping platform Jetspree.
Jetspree connects buyers to travellers to get the products they want from other parts of the world. He describes it as a solution for buyers to get the latest products in other countries that they can’t get back home.
Jetspree has been able to tap into the growing cross-border e-commerce trend.
Demand growth month-on-month has been healthy, with some 200% increase in number of enquiries listed on the site.
Granted, it is coming from a low base, but Le, executive director of Jetspree, is confident that the trend will only grow from here.
Le has been involved with scaling up ventures in the regional startup scene over the past six years. He helped outfits like Zalora set up its operations in Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam.
When Le was approached by an angel investor with an idea for a cross-border shopping website, he did not exactly jump at the idea.
“I initially thought the idea was crazy as it can be taxing to shop for your friends when you are travelling, what more for strangers. But if you look at other sharing economy-based ventures like Airbnb, which invites strangers into your homes, we thought it could work.
“So we talked to some people and they were actually interested. Apparently, there is a big market for this out there. So that validated the idea for us,” he shares.
The idea of getting an unknown person to buy things for you is not particularly new. People were already using various social media platforms to shout out their requests in hopes that some friendly stranger would lend them a hand.
But bringing travellers and shopping onto a single platform was a fairly new and risky concept, says Le. And there was no way to know if it will really work other than to actually get it up and tested.
When Jetspree was launched about six months ago, the team was pleasantly surprised.
“Quite a lot of travellers signed up. People actually do want to help you out with your shopping needs,” he says.
Le notes that there are incentives for the travellers to do the shopping. For one, they are paid a small fee by the buyers for each item purchased. They will also be able to enjoy any tax refunds and price differentials should the actual price paid for the product be different from the listed price due to currency fluctuations.
This helps defray some costs for the traveller.
“For the buyers, Jetspree gives them a secure platform to make request and pay for their items. Buyers don’t want to have to manage the process and to wonder if the products will come or not. This is a fast and effective way for them. So this actually makes sense for them,” he adds.
The company also regularly reviews the estimated prices of products listed on the website to keep up with changes in retail prices and currency fluctuations.
Jetspree is targeted at frequent travellers such cabin crew to ensure regular traffic for the buyers.
Notably, now that Jetspree is up and running, it is not a terribly difficult model to replicate. This opens up the door for competition. At the moment, Le notes that there are two other players in the market.
“For most players, the scale and market presence is not there yet. We are aware of the competition but we are not obsess with what the competition is doing. We are very hands-on. We learn from what the others are doing but we are focused on our value.
“There is a lot of value we can put on this platform. Once we have the product experience, we can provide more value-add. We don’t want to pre-maturely optimise the site. As you do better, more options become available to you,” he says.
The goal, for now, is to focus on doing well in Malaysia first before potentially expanding into other markets in the region. The company wants to build an established ecosystem of travellers and shoppers to grow cross-border e-commerce.
Once traffic on the website hits a certain threshold, head of marketing Trisha Ang adds that there will also be potential for Jetspree to work with brands abroad, that do not have presence in Malaysia, to create market access for them here.
But the company will first need to work on building trust and transparency with its users.
“We are aiming for 100% fulfillment of request from buyers,” she chimes in.
It is always looking at ways to get the products more efficiently for the buyers. At the moment, Le is looking at five to six days for a buyer to receive their products once their request has been accepted.
Some of the popular products requested by buyers are electronic goods, duty free products and skin care and makeup items, with favoured destinations being the US, the UK, Japan, Korea and Australia.
“As we scale, we’ll be able to get new types of data, which could lead us to new revenue streams,” says Le.
Source: https://www.thestar.com.my/business/smebiz/2018/04/02/enabling-crossborder-shopping/#CriQlmy4cZq3SLqp.99