ASEAN Online Sale Day 2021 on horizon

The biggest online shopping festival in ASEAN 2021 is about to take place

The Department of E-commerce and Digital Economy under the Ministry of Industry and Trade has recently announced the launch of ASEAN Online Sale Day 2021. The programme, organised by Brunei Darussalam (ASEAN Chair 2021), Singapore, and Vietnam, is expected to take place from August 8 to 10.

In 2020, as the ASEAN Chair, Vietnam proposed to organise the largest online shopping day in ASEAN – ASEAN Online Sale Day on August 8 every year.

In the context of COVID-19, e-commerce is emerging as a useful buying method. Governments in ASEAN are making efforts to create favourable conditions for businesses to go online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, it is a good opportunity for enterprises across ASEAN to promote their products and increase their sales via e-commerce in the region.

The ASEAN Online Sale Day will facilitate ASEAN member states to promote cross-border trade through e-commerce. Through this programme, enterprises across ASEAN member states will also have good opportunities to promote their domestic products/services to customers living in different markets of ASEAN.

In addition to bringing new and elevated shopping experiences to consumers, ASEAN members hope the event will send a positive message to consumers and businesses that ASEAN is “open for business” and present ASEAN solidarity during and post-COVID-19 and facilitate cross-border e-commerce in the region.

This year, the event is returning with many activities for consumers across the region, including domestic and cross-border e-commerce. From August 8, consumers can vist http://onlineasean.com/ to order goods from e-commerce platforms and companies across the region with many incentives.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic fuelled an upsurge in Southeast Asia’s e-commerce sector in 2020, with some 40 million new users coming online, bringing the total number of regional internet users to approximately 400 million, according to an e-Conomy report by Google, Temasek Holdings and Bain & Company.

A Facebook-Bain report from late 2020 noted that Southeast Asia’s gross merchandise value – the total value of a company’s sales over a particular timeframe – increased by 23 per cent between 2018 and 2020, outstripping growth rates in China, India, and the United States.