Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) are becoming easier with technological developments and digitalization. More open digital access creates greater opportunities for MSMEs to progress.
Business actors can access training, mentoring, product marketing, and export solutions are increasingly open thanks to the presence of digital platforms.
One e-commerce platform that continues to invest in facilitating market expansion for local MSMEs is Shopee. E-commerce , which is famous for its twin date campaign, continues to help local MSMEs through a variety of programs that are consistently presented. For example, to enable MSMEs to go global, there is the Shopee Export Program which was initiated in 2019.
On the other hand, Shopee realizes that local MSMEs also need assistance to enter the digital economy. This has encouraged Shopee to build Shopee MSME Campuses spread across 10 cities including Solo, Bandung, Medan, Jakarta, Malang, Bali, Samarinda and Yogyakarta. No half-hearted, each campus provides free training as well as various sales support facilities such as photo studios and live streaming studios.
The Shopee MSME Campus is a place for training and mentoring with free facilities that can be used by every MSME. It’s not surprising, in the last 2 years, the number of trained MSMEs at the Shopee MSME Campus has doubled, reaching tens of thousands of MSMEs. Tens of thousands of MSME products have also succeeded in penetrating the export market after attending training at the MSME Campus.
Last month, Shopee also initiated a program entitled “Simultaneous Export Movement in 10 Cities”. This program aims to train 1000 local MSMEs to understand the ins and outs of online sales and how they can export their products in a very easy way.
Apart from that, to ensure its capacity to help market MSME products, Shopee also inaugurated an Export Warehouse located in West Jakarta. This warehouse, which was also inaugurated by the Indonesian Minister of Trade, Zulkifli Hasan, is capable of processing tens of thousands of MSME products every day which will be sent to various countries in East Asia, Southeast Asia and Latin America.
So what are the prospects for online business after the huge investment made by Shopee for MSMEs?
This story from a young woman from Solo could be the answer. Monica Kumala, a 25 year old woman, has succeeded in pursuing online business by opening the Monica The Label shop. Not only did she gain a turnover of hundreds of millions of rupiah from her business, Monica also succeeded in selling her products overseas.
Monica’s business story began when she was still in high school. At that time, this teenager who was studying in Surakarta was selling Muslim clothes and hijabs via his cellphone using the broadcast message method . In 2017, Monica shifted her business to selling contemporary food at that time, namely Bakso Aci. Unfortunately, after approximately two years of operation, Monica had to close her culinary business due to the impact of the pandemic.
“During the pandemic, I went all out, bro. Not only did my turnover decrease, I also lost money to the point where I could no longer pay the rent for the meatball shop until I finally closed it. Coincidentally, there was still some residual income from aci meatballs, from there I started researching and finally “In July 2021, we will make basic clothing products for women to be sold by Monica The Label on Shopee,” said Monica.
Monica The Label’s products carry the concept of basic women’s clothing, which means they are not stuck to a momentary fashion trend, and can be used almost at any time and opportunity. Of course, the aim is to attract a wider market share.
“When I first started selling clothes on Shopee, it wasn’t like there were orders every day. Even if there were orders, there weren’t many, at most 5 or 10. But I tried to maximize the various features on Shopee such as advertising, discounts and also “We’re working with endorsements so we can get orders. Thank God, starting September 2021, my turnover has continued to increase, the peak was during Eid this year, my turnover increased almost 3 times,” said Monica.
Not only has her turnover increased, this 25-year-old woman born in Magelang was also surprised when the clothes she produced turned out to have customers from a number of countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Brazil.
“The first time I found out that my products could be sold abroad was in Malaysia. I really didn’t expect it because products from Solo can be sent to Malaysia. I didn’t even think that the process was that easy, I didn’t need to take care of permits because it was all from Shopee ,” said Monica.
In this increasingly connected world, a series of investments made by Shopee certainly play an important role in developing the expansion of local MSME businesses to the global market. Based on data quoted from Shopee, by 2023, 20 million local MSME products will have been sold overseas.
Government and private support can boost MSMEs and expand their market coverage and explore the world of international business with more confidence.
Source : CNBC
