ARE you a mom who aspires to make a better life for her family through online business but don't quite know how and where to start?
Shopee, a mobile-first, customer-to-customer (C2C) e-commerce marketplace is seeking to empower mothers from all walks of life to be business owners, or Mompreneurs as they call it. To do that, Shopee has committed RM1 million to nurture the Malaysian 'Mompreneurs' landscape.
As a first step, Shopee will be extending its Free Shipping Program to the month of July to encourage the Mompreneurs to expand their business. On top of that, Shopee will be spending time, effort and funds to educate the participating Mompreneurs about e-Commerce via its Shopee University. It will also create online as well as offline marketing campaigns to help the Mompreneurs start selling their products on Shopee.
With over one million users in Malaysia, Shopee announced today that since the launch of its Free Shipping Programme in collaboration with Pos Malaysia, more than 20,000 sellers have signed up to date. A substantial number of sellers on this programme have seen an increase of two to three times their daily orders while some have seen an increase of up to ten times.
As direct beneficiaries of the Shopee Free Shipping Programme, the Mompreneurs who have started selling online via Shopee, are now given the chance to increase their disposable income and further contribute to expenses within their households. They have managed to do this through the sales of products that include cosmetics, fashion, household and baby supplies.
Alya Essya (owner of Cocaby), one of Shopee's proud Mompreneur said, "Thanks to Shopee, I can take care of my babies while earning extra income. With the launch of the Shopee Free Shipping Programme, my business has grown into the East Malaysian market and I was appointed to be the sole distributor of Holabebe."
Ian Ho, Regional Managing Director of Shopee said, "There are three barriers that Mompreneurs face in starting their online businesses – high costs structure, insufficient knowledge on how to sell online and lack of marketing exposure. With the extension of our Free Shipping Programme, expansion of Shopee University and increased marketing efforts, we aim to convert 10,000 Mompreneurs to start selling on Shopee by the end of the year."
To kick start this initiative, Shopee will be launching its Mighty Moms Challenge in the first week of July where a selected group of 20 Mompreneurs would first be educated in Shopee University. They will then compete amongst themselves to be the top seller in Shopee between July 18 - 24. The chosen winners (announced on July 24) will receives cash prizes to help them grow their business.
In line with Shopee's ongoing efforts to empower the community, participants in the Shopee Mighty Moms Challenge would include Mompreneurs from the Women's Aid Organisation (WAO), a non-profit organisation in Malaysia for women survivors of domestic violence and their children, to help them regain lives of safety and empowerment.
Announcing the Shopee Mighty Moms Challenge at the inaugural Shopee Buka Puasa get-together with media and partners, Ho added, "We are committed to empower entrepreneurs from all walks of life to do more. We hope that this collaboration with WAO can show that everyone and anyone can be an entrepreneur on Shopee and we will do our absolute best to provide the right support, education and funds to help you do so."
Shopee can be downloaded for free on all mobile platforms via Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
