By Alang Bendahara
KUALA LUMPUR, June 20 — The 2022 Malaysia Top E-Commerce Merchant Awards (Top ECM) returns for its seventh edition with bigger prizes and number of submissions.
The event, organised by Selangor Information Technology and Digital Economy Corporation (Sidec), will be open for submission on June 22, for three months.
“When we first launched in 2016, only 60 e-commerce merchants participated while in 2021, the numbers increased to 181 merchants and generated RM47 million in sales. The improvement shows the e-commerce industry continues to grow, and Sidec is here to crown the best e-commerce merchants this year.
“After recording a total sales of RM123 million over the past six years, we are targeting 250 submissions and hit a total sale of RM50 million for this year,” said Sidec chief executive officer Yong Kai Ping at the announcement of the competition at The Majestic Hotel here today.
The three-month competition is offering RM60,000 in cash prizes, up from RM47,000 last year, and other attractive prizes. All shortlisted merchants will be judged based on three aspects, namely the Online Sales Contest (50 per cent), the Livestream Contest (25 per cent) and the Business Potential (25 per cent).
Yong said for this year Top ECM Awards is also adding a new element, which is the Livestream Festival where participating merchants at the 7th Selangor Smart City and Digital Economy Convention (SDEC), a side event at the 2022 Selangor International Business Summit, will have a chance to promote their products or services in livestream studios within the exhibition area.
“The livestream will be broadcasted through social media platforms throughout October 6 until October 9, 2022, live from SDEC 2022 at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre,” he said.
This year, the event features three categories of awards — Malaysia Top E-Commerce Merchant Awards, Selangor Onboarding Programme Awards and Affin Bank Special Awards (Rising Star and AffinGem Women Trailblazer Awards).
The Rising Star Awards is a special award category where three winners are chosen based on their company’s business potential, in operation for less than three years, and must be shortlisted in the top 40 of the main category to be selected for this award.
While the AffinGem Women Trailblazer Awards is a new subcategory introduced to support and foster female entrepreneurship, recognising strong women entrepreneurs who have succeeded in the industry.
Participants are required to have an e-commerce store in operation before March 2022 that sells products to end-users only (B2C), achieved at least a minimum of RM25,000 in sales or a minimum of 100 orders in any single month between June 2021 to June 2022 with supporting documents, and is registered under Companies Commission of Malaysia (SSM).
Additionally, Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation (Matrade) will also be providing additional export facilitation to the top five winners of the Top ECM Awards for their international market expansion.
Top ECM will be held with the support of Affin Bank Berhad (Affin Bank) as its main sponsor and SubPlace as the official e-commerce marketplace.
