Over 60 participants turned up for the second English EC Class: “The e-Tail Process: Platforms, Payment Gateways & Logistics”, which stressed the importance of an efficient logistics chain to e-merchants at the Selangor Digital Creative Centre (SDCC).
The first speaker was Adrian Oh, co-founder of eCommerceMILO and CEO of WebShaper, who spoke about e-marketplaces, as well as the pros and cons of individual marketplaces, giving a short briefing on each one.
Oh noted that, currently, the local industry was in the third wave of e-Commerce – the marketplace battle, which involved multiple marketplaces competing in the sector, whereas the first two waves started with online selling of travel services and tickets (trailblazed by Air Asia) and the second revolving around online deal sites which started with Groupon.
Oh had also spoken about who should sell online, and the importance of a balance between having a brand, as well as having knowledge of marketing. Oh also noted the issue of serving multiple marketplaces, and talked about the efficiency of integrating the control of an e-merchant’s multiple e-stores through a single interface. WebShaper offers e-merchants the ability to control their e-stores from a single interface, integrating control and inventory management in one place, allowing e-merchants to more efficiently run their online businesses.
Inventory Management: Not something to overlook
The second speaker was Tommy Yong, co-founder and CEO of IStoreISend, and he had spoken about the importance of inventory management, and gave a crash course on the basis of an efficient logistics chain, as well as how merchants can optimise their own inventory management to allow higher efficiency.
Yong explained about SKUs, and offered advice and tips on how to keep things simple, both for the merchant as well as the buyer, while allowing for ease of inventory management. He also spoke about the logic of restocking, and warned against common traps such as over-stocking.
IStoreISend offers storage and delivery solutions to online merchants, as well as an Online Delivery and iNventory system they call ODiN, which allows e-merchants to perform multi-channel monitoring, allowing easier management, as well as providing order status from pick up to packing through its client interface.
Last Mile Logistics
The third speaker was Nabil Feisal Awad Bamadhaj, country managing director of Zyllem. He spoke about the importance of last-mile logistics, as well as the provision of information during the last mile.
According to Nabil, Malaysia was now at a stage called commerce relevancy, which basically aims to build relevance across the platforms for commerce. This, Nabil noted, is such due to the availability of the internet.
Working in what he calls the “hyperlocal” sphere, Nabil also touched on Zyllem’s services of same-day guaranteed delivery within the Klang Valley as a last-mile solution, with services and rates that cater to both “the big guys, and the little guys”.
The logistics platform side of Zyllem offers cloud/mobile last-mile solutions for SMEs, enterprises, and individuals, with a pay-as-you-use scheme. On the other hand, the services side caters to retail, e-commerce, and professional services, offering same-day delivery (the only service offering this at the moment in the Klang Valley), and promises transparency, accuracy, and affordability.