By MARK RAO
The National ICT Association of Malaysia (Pikom) is targeting RM370 million in gross merchandise value (GMV) from #MyCyberSale event in September this year, of which RM50 million will come from export revenue alone.
#MyCyberSale 2018 is expected to bring in 1,200 merchants, to be held from Sept 3-7.
In 2017, the #MyCyberSale event brought in 1,007 merchants and RM311 million in GMV, of which RM39 million came from export revenue.
GMV is calculated as total revenue generated during the five-day sales period before accounting any discounts offered.
Pikom chairman Ganesh Kumar Bangah said Malaysia’s e-commerce industry was predicted to grow by 12.1% in value to RM83.6 billion in 2017 from the RM74.6 billion noted in2016.
“In line with its theme, #MyCyberSale 2018 aims to encourage micro-enterprises to adopt an omni-channel approach for their businesses, to reduce dependency on social media private messaging sales,” he said in a statement yesterday.
The cyber sales event is the fifth of its kind since it first launched in 2014 under the leadership of Malaysia Digital Economy Corp Sdn Bhd (MDEC), and has steadily been grow- ing its revenue base from RM67 million in GMV to RM311 million in GMV in 2017.
MDEC COO Datuk Ng Wan Peng (picture) said the government-owned agency will continue to support this year’s event which is registering strong private sector funding.
“#MyCyberSale 2018 offers a great platform for micro-enterprises to start building their brand and customer base in Malaysia and beyond,” she said.
“It is important that we help local companies scale up. Smaller-range companies can leverage this excellent growth opportunity by adopting e-commerce in their operations.”
The e-commerce platform for the event will be managed by data technology provider Fusionex which recently inked an agreement with Pikom to offer an improved back-end system for merchants to access.
Pikom has also partnered WiFi and online marketplace, CapFiX, and hotspot service provider, y5zone Malaysia Sdn Bhd, who has over 900 hotspots nationwide.
CapFiX and y5zone are also offering merchants, alongside Pikom members and partners, up to RM5 million worth of WiFi free advertising credits in all Starbucks stores till end-2019.
Other partners for the cyber sales event include pinnacle partners Commerce.Asia and Mastercard Inc; premier partners SAP Malaysia, Shippop, Mobiversa Sdn Bhd and ShopBack; gold partner iPay88 Sdn Bhd; and silver partners SF Express Co Ltd, GHL ePayments Sdn Bhd, Logistics Worldwide Express and World First.