UTAR Faculty of Accountancy and Management (FAM) Deputy Dean for Academic Development and Undergraduate Programmes Dr Hen Kai Wah and lecturer Lim Yee Wui were invited by the Youth Section of Miri Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCCI Youth) to conduct virtual talks on business startups for secondary school students from Miri, Sarawak on 2 July 2021 via Zoom.

With the aim to share business insights with secondary school students and explore the types of business, the virtual talk saw more than 100 participants, including students from SMJK Pei Min and Riam Road Secondary Schools, as well as the public.

In his welcome speech, MCCCI Youth Chief Alex Lau expressed his gratitude to the speakers, Dr Hen and Lim for their support, the school teachers from both secondary schools for the arrangement and the organising members for their effort in making the event a success. He said, “Many young people may be clueless regarding entrepreneurship. Business opportunities are present everywhere. However, entrepreneurship does not provide immediate success; the experience of failure can be the inspiration for your success, for you to restart your business in the future. I hope students will gain a deeper understanding of entrepreneurship and relevant business knowledge from these talks.”

The first talk was conducted by Lim on “Introduction to registering for a new business in Malaysia and the government bodies that are responsible for helping new startups”. She introduced participants to business structure (sole proprietorship, partnership and company) and explained the registration of new businesses (the differences in Peninsular Malaysia and East Malaysia); business name application (personal name and trade name); registration procedure; registration fee; initiatives towards new startups; government bodies’ initiatives for start-ups, and other relevant information to start a new business. Lim hoped to provide the young participants with a deeper understanding and encouragement on starting a new business, and also the precautions and challenges.

The second talk titled “Introduction to e-Commerce and Starting an Online Business” was conducted by Dr Hen. It focused on “What is e-commerce”, “How to start an online business”, “Future trends of e-commerce”.

Dr Hen explained the definition of e-commerce, and said, “E-commerce is the economic activity that occurs online, which includes buying, selling and exchanging products, services and information over the internet. It involves the use of the internet, web, and mobile apps to transact business.”

He revealed, “Prior to 1994, e-commerce did not even exist in the world. But nowadays, e-commerce global statistics show that there are 2.14 billion global digital buyers (27.2% of the world population) around the world in 2021. Besides that, global online sales are forecast to reach 22% of all retail sales in 2023, and by 2024, 95% of retail purchases will likely be made online, and traditional retail may hardly exist.”

Further on, he explained the various types of e-commerce, namely Business-to-Business (B2B), Business-to-Consumer (B2C), Consumer-to-Business (C2B), Consumer-to-Business (C2C), Government-to-Government (G2G), Government-to-Business (G2B), Peer-to-Peer (P2P), Business-to-Employee (B2E), Online-to-Offline (O2O), Mobile Commerce, Social Commerce and Location Commerce.

“E-commerce stands out in the business market because it can overcome the geographical limitations, involves lower costs, locates the product quicker, eliminates travel time and cost, provides comparison shopping, enables deals, bargains, coupons, and group buying, provides rich information, remains open all the time, and creates markets for niche products,” he added.

He then elaborated on how to start an online business, and said, “First of all, you need to decide what to sell online. You can sell your own product, product made from a manufacturer, product direct from supplier/wholesaler, product sourced from various online platforms or through dropshipping which allows you to purchase products from a vendor and list their products on your online store.”

Later on, he introduced the B2C e-commerce platforms in Malaysia by sharing their background, average web traffic (August 2020 to January 2021), commission, store set up cost, seller types (individual, company or international seller), settlement method and SKU limitation. He also shared how to choose the right e-commerce platform and the account registration procedure in the e-commerce platform by using Shopee and Lazada as examples, and how to manage an online store.

Regarding Malaysia's cross-border e-commerce, he revealed, “Cross-border spending is high in Malaysia, accounting for four out of ten of all e-commerce transactions in the country. Malaysian shoppers are willing to buy from international e-commerce sites, with 48% having already purchased from overseas. Malaysians’ motivation for cross-border shopping includes better price, accessibility to items not available in the country, the discovery of new and interesting products, higher product quality, more affordable shipping and others.”

Lastly, he also shared the power of social influencer (key opinion leader), O2O, innovative delivery tools, the power of big data to influence customers’ decisions and behaviours, and augmented reality shopping to improve the purchasing process to enable participants to have a more specific understanding on the future trends of e-commerce.