[KH Biz Forum] Pandemic fostered direct cross-border e-commerce

He mentioned extra enterprise homeowners ought to go surfing and department out into different international locations regardless of the COVID-19 disaster, as he touted Amazon’s help for such strikes.

“Disaster breeds alternative. As famous by specialists, as an alternative of solely specializing in the home market or offline, individuals ought to flip to exporting and e-commerce,” he mentioned throughout his speech at The Korea Herald Biz Discussion board. “Loads of websites are on the market to assist, with Amazon being one in every of them.”

The theme of the convention, held Tuesday at The Shilla Seoul, was “Contact much less, join extra.” Consistent with that theme, Lee touched upon subjects corresponding to cross-border e-commerce in addition to the help that Amazon World Promoting supplies to native companies.

“Amazon World Promoting helps South Korean producers, distributors and types in promoting their merchandise on as many marketplaces as potential,” he mentioned.

He additionally added that the corporate helps be certain merchandise are delivered inside a day or two, due to its 175 working fulfilment facilities.

Exporters, who historically ship their merchandise to 3 or 4 international locations, can now promote them on-line in 30 to 40 international locations on common via the cross-border e-commerce platform, in line with Lee.

One other power of cross-border e-commerce is to permit sellers to get direct, dependable suggestions from abroad finish customers and to reply rapidly. Lee mentioned Chinese language agency Anker, whose gadgets are offered on Amazon Market, had grown right into a top-selling firm by dealing with huge quantities of on-line opinions inside a day.

Additional concerning the impression of COVID-19, Lee mentioned the offline retail business within the US, as an example, is projected to undergo a double-digit drop whereas e-commerce may develop by 18 to twenty %, citing knowledge from Nielsen.

Whereas South Korea could have come out of the COVID-19 pandemic higher than Europe and the US up to now, Lee believes the impression of the pandemic on how individuals store will linger.

“Although there are individuals who would possibly store on-line solely, there aren’t individuals who solely store offline, particularly in Korea the place the paradigm shift has taken place,” he mentioned.

When damaged down by age, Lee mentioned that over half of latest customers in latest months have been over 50, as their youthful counterparts aren’t any strangers to on-line purchasing.

Relating to on-line purchasing classes, meals has come out on prime amid the pandemic, although electronics have additionally loved development in gross sales.

Lee defined the latest on-line meals purchasing growth is thanks partly to Korea’s adequate chilly chain infrastructure in addition to the pandemic, which ended up attracting older customers and overcoming considerations that not many patrons would purchase meals on-line.

Highlighting the way forward for direct exports via platforms corresponding to Amazon, Lee mentioned, “The power of direct on-line export is that whether or not you’re a producer, dealer or a model proprietor, your merchandise instantly attain clients.”

In explaining Amazon’s epochal development and its help for e-commerce by small and massive companies, Lee mentioned Amazon’s success can be evident within the excessive variety of Prime subscribers and its thousands and thousands of enterprise contacts.

Lee additionally acknowledged Amazon’s shut cooperation with the Korean authorities and state-run organizations, together with the SMEs Ministry, the Commerce Ministry, the Korea SMEs and Startups Company and significantly the Korea Commerce-Funding Promotion Company.

By Yim Hyun-su (hyunsu@heraldcorp.com)