Amazon Global Selling is looking to bring in more Filipino brands on its platform to list and sell their products on Amazon marketplaces in Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and the Americas.
“We are building pipelines and we focus on bringing more brand owners and manufacturers online on our selling journey with Amazon to expand and bring their business to a global level,” Amazon Global Selling head of new seller recruitment Southeast Asia Leong Yoong said during an online seller summit for Southeast Asia on Thursday.
He added there is a big potential in Philippine e-commerce as it grew double-digit in 2020.
Philippine e-commerce is also expected to be a USD9.75-billion industry by 2025, outsizing the e-commerce sector in Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam, he said.
He said Amazon Global Selling will be launching more webinars, bite-sized simplified content, and accessible information to help sellers in their online selling journey.
“2021 would be an exciting year for our team and will continue to do our best to help sellers in the Philippines launch their products successfully,” he added.
Amazon Global Selling Southeast Asia account manager Alice Le said the top three best-selling product categories in 2020 include home and living, fashion, and beauty, cosmetics, and healthcare.
Le said as more people worked from home during the pandemic, there was an increase in the purchase of printers, ergonomic chairs, air purifiers, and humidifiers.
People also shifted their daily activities at home, hence, the high growth purchase of in kitchen appliances, home organization products, and products and tools for home improvement.
Gov’t support for online sellers
In the same event, Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said the Philippine government continues to roll out programs that will help micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) thrive in the e-commerce industry.
Lopez said the number of online sellers dramatically rose since the pandemic started.
From 1,700 online retailers registered with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) from January to March 2020, there were 86,000 online business registrations with the department by the end of last year.
For January 2021 alone, registration of online retailers reached 1,539.
“But even as our entrepreneurs have adjusted their business models to the ‘new normal’ of the pandemic, they still need to be ‘smarter entrepreneurs”’ to compete in the global market. This means our entrepreneurs should know how to differentiate themselves from their competitors, while also offering innovative and relevant solutions to present-day issues in society,” Lopez said.
He added that the DTI offers e-commerce programs to support the digitalization of MSMEs, such as the CTRL+Biz Reboot Now! Webinar, that teach entrepreneurs to transform themselves into digital businesses; the Pivot…Embrace Technology project which helps to upskill and reskill displaced workers; and Sari-Sari Linker that digitizes “sari-sari” stores, or the mom-and-pop stores.
Lopez added that the DTI also collaborated with Amazon to support Filipino MSMEs to expand their market.
“DTI’s digitalization programs will surely help with the boom of enterprises that happened last year and is still happening now. More importantly, these new MSMEs can aid in our country’s recovery, especially as our economy gradually reopens and more businesses restart their operations,” the DTI chief said. (PNA)
