Local e-commerce service providers should look into business opportunities in emerging Southeast Asian nations, taking advantage of cultural and language similarities, AppWorks Ventures (之初創投) cofounder Jamie Lin (林之晨) said yesterday.
The Southeast Asian market might be “the last ticket” for Taiwanese e-commerce companies to enter the global market, Lin told reporters at a news conference ahead of the E-Commerce Expo Asia in Taipei.
The nation’s firms have a better understanding of the Southeast Asian region than other global competitors, Lin said.
“As Taiwan’s e-commerce market develops faster than that of Southeast Asian nations by more than three years, Taiwan can repeat its success in the domestic market in those emerging nations,” he said.
Taiwan’s e-commerce transactions are expected to shrink 41 percent from last year’s US$34 billion to US$20 billion this year, he said.
Lin said that Taiwanese companies should also target mobile transactions instead of only developing online shopping platforms.
Taiwan needs to development cross-border electronic payments, he said.
“Taiwan should develop its own system of third-party payments instead of just learning from Alipay (支付寶), China’s biggest third-party payment service provider,” he said.
“We do not have to invent a brand new technique for people to buy things by scanning QR codes,” Lin said, adding that the key problem is how to combine customers’ credit cards with their smartphones.
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