MAY KUNMAKARA
The state-owned Cambodia Post will launch an online shopping platform in March in a move to tap the current rise in e-commerce activity.
Ork Bora, director-general of the Cambodia Post, told Khmer Times yesterday that after about a year of studying e-commerce, the state-owned enterprise decided to launch the platform to allow all business owners to sell their products with the postal service.
“We plan to launch in the first quarter of the year – maybe in March. I have been conducting a study and working on online shopping for about a year so now we decided to launch an online shopping platform and any businesspeople can sell their products with us,” Mr. Bora said.
“You see that online shopping is getting popular with our people now. If you look at the number of internet users with the Telecom Regulator of Cambodia, there were some seven million. We will launch in March – just e-shopping.”
Mr. Bora said that his company already served as an agent for China’s biggest online shopping company Alibaba and for the past four months has been delivering their products to customers in Cambodia.
“I do believe this will help generate more revenue for us as you see companies like Alibaba and eBay are very popular in the Asia-Pacific. Over the past four months, we have been delivering products ordered via Alibaba – we get around 100 tons per month,” he said.
Although online shopping is on the rise in Cambodia, the country has not yet passed its e-commerce law which is expected to be reviewed and passed by the National Assembly as early as the middle of this year.
The draft e-commerce law has 12 chapters that are divided into 90 articles. It covers details of credit and debit card usage to the use of online signatures to purchase goods over the internet. The draft law also has rules for trading companies to ensure the security of consumers when making on-line payments.
Kem Saroeung, director of the legal affairs department at the Ministry of Commerce, told Khmer Times previously that the draft e-commerce law was written to give protection to both investors and consumers. She said it also covers the public sector.
“The draft also covers electronic payments which are managed by the National Bank of Cambodia. The draft law also promotes security with punitive clauses for those who abuse the law,” she said.
Mr. Bora said that presently the Cambodia Post has a nationwide delivery and transport service so an online shopping platform would be convenient for customers and business owners who want to sell their products with them.
He added that there were many options for customers to complete their transactions including paying online, through a mobile money transfer service or by giving money directly to postal service staff.
“We don’t charge a service fee to customers but we charge sellers on our online system. Starting from March, people just log in to the Cambodia Post website,” he said.
“They can order anything with us and we will deliver to them directly. We will conduct further studies about launching full e-service solutions like e-tickets, e-bills, etc.”
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