By S BIRRUNTHA 

Local e-commerce platform, PG Mall Sdn Bhd (PG Mall) aims to record a gross merchandise value (GMV) of RM600 million by year end, a tenfold increase from RM60 million GMV recorded last year.

Its COO Jerry Ng said he is confident that the target could be achieved driven by the aggressive marketing that would be implemented on their platform, as well as offers which include free delivery to buyers.

He added that PG Mall has planned to spend up to 30% of the total marketing cost allocation to offer free shipping offers to customers, in an effort to stimulate purchasing activities on the platform.

“With this increase, it is expected that the amount of customer traffic that will visit our platform will also double to almost 120 million this year compared to 60 million last year.

“Besides that, we are also confident that the collaboration between PG Mall and JD.com will be able to attract more customers and sellers to our platform, thus increasing our GMV,” he said at the launch of PG Mall ‘Sell to China’ programme in Kuala Lumpur recently.

Previously, on Jan 27 this year, PG Mall and China-based cross border e-commerce platform JD.com Inc held a virtual signing ceremony to formalise their cross-country platform collaboration.

Commenting on the partnership, PG Mall founder and MD Datuk Louis Ng said his group has targeted 100 local sellers to participate in the ‘Sell to China’ programme by the end of this year.

Through this programme, he said sellers would have the opportunity to market their products directly to the Chinese market, as it offers a one-stop solution to satisfy all the seller’s needs.  

“Among the services provided include product registration assistance into JD.com, translation of product details into Chinese, marketing and campaign materials, as well as customer service.  

“This streamlined process with the official backing from JD.com is a huge improvement compared to conventional methods of selling to China,” he noted.

Ng also expressed that many local businesses, especially the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have been struggling financially since the implementation of the Movement Control Order (MCO) in March last year due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

He said considering the ongoing pandemic situation, SMEs are in dire need of help to adapt and find alternative means to survive this financial crisis.

“We hope that with this partnership, we are able to help local businesses to stay afloat and recover by offering them an alternative channel abroad to safeguard their business from further threat.

“Unlike other online marketplaces that mostly market China products to Malaysian market, we are doing the opposite.  

“Our main objective is to help local businesses to grow to their full potential and also enable local sellers to proudly showcase Malaysian-made products to the world while they grow and build a solid business empire with us,” he added.

According to Ng, PG Mall has experienced exponential growth, from a mere RM300,000 GMV in 2017 to recording a RM60 million GMV last year.

He said the platform is now the third most visited e-commerce platform in Malaysia and it has attracted more than one million shoppers purchasing from over 25,000 sellers onboard.

Currently, PG Mall offers up to two million products spanning from the categories of beauty, groceries, electronics and lifestyle products.

China is not the only international market that PG Mall is expanding its reach to, it is also currently expanding its team and efforts in Indonesia, the largest e-commerce market in Southeast Asia.