The SRECA project conducted the triangular online training “E-commerce and Business Promotion to Women Entrepreneurs in Cambodia” from 19-20 October 2021. It was the second triangular training initiated by SRECA to support women entrepreneurs. Jointly with Wemall Cambodia, an e-commerce platform established by women entrepreneurs in Cambodia to sell handicraft products, around 35 Cambodian women entrepreneurs joined the training individually or in small groups. The training gathered inputs from both German and Chinese entrepreneurs and experts to support Cambodian women entrepreneurs.
Perspectives and experience to gain a better understanding of both markets were shared with participants. Speakers from Europe highlighted the importance to establish trust from the beginning when entrepreneurs enter the German market for example. A lot of effort needs to be put in branding and gaining recognition. Including an honest, personal story of the entrepreneur to a product can help establish a trustworthy brand. Chinese experts explained more about new ways of purchasing tailor-made products and services by Chinese consumers, especially regarding handmade products.
Both German and Chinese experts emphasised helpful market entry strategies for women entrepreneurs. These ranged from details including having an authentic website and address in the targeted country, having sound customer service, utilise specific public holiday opportunities for special online sales, and align respective tax rate calculation when exporting. They also sumarised strategies for online promotion tools. Regarding the EU market, instragram shops, Pinterest Ads are popular modalities to attract more customers and improve the sales. For the Chinese market, live sales (“Zhibo”) via e-commerece platforms such as Taobao, and JD, or video platforms like TikTok and Kuaishou were introduced as one of the most popular and effective marketing modality.
Last but not the least, the experts showed that for new brands to be successful, the quality of the products is of utmost importance for high end markets. Focusing on one kind of product when exporting into new markets, establishing a good reputation with building up a sales-network, and then expand the brand’s product range is highly recommended. For more information of the training contents, please see the training materials on this website shared by some of the speakers.
During the training, many Cambodian women entrepreneurs, such as from Keiy Tambanh Khmer (KTK) Enterprise, Caritas Social Enterprise and Metry Craft have introduced their businesses. They expressed their willingness to be further connected with Chinese and European experts and to export their products into the German and Chinese markets.
At the end of the training, Wemall Cambodia and further participants regarded the online training to have shared very practical advice for their business development. Further trainings are currently under planning for 2022.