Caption: Anthony Smare
By MATTHEW VARI
Sunday, May 1, 2016 (PNG)
KUMUL Foundation Chairman and leading Papua New Guinean entrepreneur, Anthony Smare, has called for local SMEs to develop the local e-commerce market before venturing out globally.
His comments came about when conducting the question and answer session at the E-commerce in SME Summit held on Monday alongside the second APEC Business Advisory Meetings during the week.
Mr Smare broke down the wealth of information provided by e-commerce market experts from e-commerce platform giant DHgate and ABAC China representatives for the local context- by speaking of the local context of the internet based commerce space.
“Before we talk about international e-commerce, we should look at what we really need to do to build an ecosystem in our country to support e-commerce generally,” Smare said.
“Because before we even start selling offshore we need to recognize that 10 million people, a couple million who already have access to mobile who can become a ready market for our entrepreneurs.”
“The value about this is using mobile digital age- no other time has it been easier for an ordinary person to set up business and to actually make money.”
He said that with list of what the e-commerce expert speakers raised, the cross border ecosystem has a tremendous opportunity for entrepreneurs in the country to actually build the foundational pieces required for a local e-commerce ecosystem.
“In terms of online marketing we have already seen that there are some Papua New Guineans offering services in terms of how you use Google, how to use Facebook, on how to market to the masses with access to those platforms that have access to their mobile phones through the media,” he pointed out.
“What it’s done it that is has dramatically removed the impediments to accessing a tremendous amount of people in our own markets that we can service locally.”
“One of the big issues with e-commerce is having challenges to sell offshore, but our ability to serve the locations that we are living in is very very easy now.”
He said despite with the challenges of proper internet based infrastructure- the fundamental building blocks needed for local e-commerce is dependent on the role of government, role of business, and also the role of entrepreneurs.
“Because if you don’t have these essential building blocks like they have in China or American it means there is an opportunity for someone to come and build it.”
“Because all the people, when you look at the international e-commerce system it was all built on work that was done or developments or businesses set up by entrepreneurs that put in place those building blocks, such as Paypal and Ebay platforms,” he added.
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