MSMEs urged to level up through e-commerce

CEBU, Philippines - Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are encouraged to take advantage of the online platform to expand their markets.

E-commerce advocate Janette Toral said that a number of MSMEs have started to realize the role of electronic commerce or selling of goods through digital channels in today's business.

Toral was the mentor of at least 16 Cebu-based MSMEs that underwent the e-commerce and digital marketing mentoring program of Department of Trade and Industry.

The mentoring essentially targeted MSMEs that aspire to scale up their enterprises by taking advantage of the Internet, social media, and other web-based technologies.

The 16 MSMEs graduated last Tuesday after the five-week e-commerce mentoring program, which ran from Nov. 21, 2016 to Jan. 10, 2017.

These MSMEs are engaged in tourism, food, footwear, crafts, home furnishing, and energy sectors, among others. 

She said there is still a lack of knowledge among MSMEs on how to capitalize on e-commerce, noting that there are MSMEs that are still very traditional in doing business.

Thus, this prevents them from expanding online, which is actually a great way to drive sales and awareness.

Toral said the mentoring taught the mentees how to create their own websites, accept online payments and create their own customer relationship management (CRM) systems.

They were also taught about social media marketing and advertising, search engine optimization, blogging for business and product photography, among others.

E-Commerce roadmap

Toral was instrumental in the crafting of the Philippine E-Commerce Roadmap (PECR) 2016-2020.

She said one of the roadmap's targets is to encourage 100,000 MSMEs — at least a tenth of around 1.3 million registered MSMEs — to do e-commerce by 2020,

The E-Commerce Roadmap will boost the e-commerce industry that is seen to become a major economic growth driver in the country.

DTI had said the roadmap seeks to see the e-commerce industry contributing 25 percent or one fourth of the country’s gross domestic product by 2020, helping propel the e-commerce industry’s growth and supporting the entry of about 100,000 MSMEs.

The roadmap also eyes to help the country catch up with the fast internet penetration and rising usage in the country,

The Philippines is deemed to be among the fastest growing internet populations in the world, with recent statistics estimating 530 percent growth over the past five years, DTI said.

Every day, an average Filipino spends 6.3 hours using the internet.

After the Electronic Commerce Act of 2000 was enacted, the trade agency developed the final draft of the PECR 2016-2020 in late 2015.

According to the roadmap, the country’s e-commerce adoption has been slow, the roadmap noted missing opportunities that the digital world offers amid woes of slow Internet connectivity and infrastructure in the country.

Global e-commerce is projected to grow by an average of 101.4 percent from 2013 to 2018 from the current $1.15-billion value of the e-commerce industry in the world. (FREEMAN)