By Sherilyn Pang
SHAH ALAM, Jan 18 — Forty per cent of retailers on Shopee and Lazada online shopping platforms were contributed from the state-led Selangor e-Bazar 11.11 Mega Sales and the e-Bazar Raya campaigns, says Selangor Menteri Besar Dato’ Seri Amirudin Shari.
He said, out of the current 88,000 retailers on both Shopee and Lazada, 6,000 new online retailers were recorded during the Selangor e-Bazar Raya campaign and a whopping 26,000 new retailers emerged during the Selangor e-Bazar 11.11 Mega Sales last year.
“That means from over 80,000 retailers on Shopee and Lazada, 40 per cent came from our e-bazaar projects. This shows that the method works and is sustainable and maybe we can continue with some adjustments or improvement in the future,” he said during a virtual press conference to announce the results of the Selangor e-Bazar 11.11 Mega Sales Campaign.
He said that the Covid-19 pandemic had forced the state to hasten the digitalisation agenda and adjust to the new norm.
“The economic impact from the Covid-19 pandemic is sure to happen, but how do we overcome it? So we took a few strategies with digitalisation as part of it and the pandemic has forced us to hasten the process of digitalisation.
“I think we are doing the right thing. We can overcome any challenges through the movement control order (MCO) and the pandemic. The economy can still move on with some adjustment to the new norm such as through digitalisation,” he said.
He said the state government’s current focus, through Selangor Information Technology and E-Commerce Council (Sitec), now known as the Selangor Information Technology and Digital Economy Corporation (Sidec), is to ensure the sustainability of the online companies.
“I want to congratulate all the successful ones but we also need to measure in terms of the unsuccessful ones so that we can help them. This is part and parcel of the state government’s digitalisation efforts,” he added.
