Selangor Journal
Selangor Information Technology and Digital Economy Corporation (Sidec) chief executive officer Yong Kai Ping at the Selangor Asean Business Conference (SABC) 2021 at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, on November 19, 2021. — Picture by REMY ARIFIN/SELANGORKINI

Half of e-commerce award participants this year are newcomers

By Alang Bendahara

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 4 — Half of the participating merchants in the sixth edition of the Malaysia Top E-Commerce Merchant Awards (Top ECM) 2021 are first-timers to the competition.

Selangor Information Technology and Digital Economy Corporation (Sidec) chief executive officer Yong Kai Ping said this shows how far the only e-commerce competition in Malaysia has progressed since its first awards in 2016.

“Half of the participating merchants this year are new faces which have never joined the Top ECM. This shows the growth of e-commerce while merchants which have participated in the past continue to participate and have also shown improvement in their sales.

“Submissions came from across the country, but most of the participants are from the Klang Valley, with 56.4 per cent coming from Kuala Lumpur, followed by 31.5 per cent from Selangor. We also received submissions from Johor, Pulau Pinang, Perak, Negeri Sembilan, and even from Sarawak,” he said in his judges’ observation speech at the Top ECM 2021 Awards Ceremony here today.

This year’s Top ECM received 213 submissions with 181 participants making the shortlist.

He said the judges are extremely pleased to note the record-breaking number of participants for this year’s awards which has increased by 202 per cent since the inception of the awards six years ago, from only having 60 participants.

Yong said this year competition saw more diversity in the backgrounds of the participating merchants as well as on their choices of platforms to market their products and services.

“This year, we have seen participating e-merchants coming from diverse backgrounds, ranging from fashion and accessories, health and beauty, groceries and pets, electronic devices and phone accessories, to e-merchants selling home appliances,” he said.

He said the participating e-merchants have deployed a diversification strategy to showcase their products and services on multiple online stores to increase visibility.

“We also noticed that 56.4 per cent of qualified e-merchants sell their products on both their own websites and e-commerce marketplace, while 30.9 per cent make their sales on the e-commerce marketplace, and 12.7 per cent of the qualified e-merchants have their own e-commerce websites.

He added that the judges also noticed that users or buyers behaviour has also changed slightly than in the past.

“In the past few months to one year, we can see that there are many young families starting to build their own households which have indirectly contributed to the increase of sales in baby products and also furniture,” he said.

Top ECM – the only one of such awards in Malaysia is organised yearly by Sidec for more tech-savvy merchants to be rewarded for their success in e-commerce.

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