An Amazon distribution centre in the US. AFP
Cambodia is looking to expand the sale of local products to the world's largest online marketplace, Amazon. To that end, the officials from the Minister of Commerce met with Amazon representatives last week to discuss the possibility.
In a recent social media post, the ministry explained that the meeting was attended by Chea Ratha, ministry secretary of state, and Darren Ong, senior manager public policy officer at Amazon. Also in attendance was Chann Sokros, economic and commercial specialist at the US embassy in Phnom Penh.
“The meeting was aimed at discussing the possibility of cooperation between Cambodia and Amazon to promote Cambodian products on the Amazon e-commerce platform and to promote digital business development, digital services and the promotion of the digital economy between Cambodia and Amazon,” said the post.
Amazon is the world's number one e-commerce marketplace, with nearly 4.8 billion visits each year.
Ministry spokesman Sok Sopheak did not respond to inquiries from The Post regarding whether the meeting produced any concrete results.
Hong Vanak, an economic researcher at the Royal Academy of Cambodia, believes that similar promotions are very important, but only once the quality of a product is guaranteed. He suggested that the first step should be to ensure that each product enjoys an excellent reputation in local markets and with foreign visitors. Once this is assured, then they should be advertised on popular online marketplaces like Amazon.
He said that before launching on the international online market, it is necessary to evaluate how popular a product will be with international consumers.
“In my opinion, if we go directly to large international online markets without advertising widely in local markets, we could be risking a loss. It will cost a lot of money just to be there, and we may get a low return on that investment because our products are unknown,” he explained.
He believed Amazon could be important for Cambodian products, because the two countries enjoy excellent relations and Amazon has a very long reach, meaning the Kingdom’s products could be sold in a great deal of new markets.
Currently, several Cambodian products are on sale on China’s Alibaba online trading site, including pepper, dried snacks, cashew nuts, mango jam and dried longan.
