PETALING JAYA: E-commerce has been a vital lifeline for businesses and consumers amidst the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, as online transactions have managed to remain largely unaffected by these difficult circumstances.
Against this backdrop, Old Town Bhd co-founder Andy Goh (pix) founded Mecan Trade, a social commerce platform which enables brand owners and sellers dubbed ambassadors to leverage the power of social networks to connect directly to consumers. Goh serves as Mecan Trade CEO and the platform went online May this year.
The impetus to start the platform is from his 27-year experience as an entrepreneur and manufacturer, developing the Old Town White Coffee and the pain and challenges from the business.
“In the traditional way of doing business, there are a lot of middlemen involved from retailers, distributors and resellers before reaching the end-consumer, due to these layers the end price of a product is much higher,” he told SunBiz.
Under traditional commerce, Goh pointed out distributors with large networks could pressure manufacturers to dictate the price for more margins, which lead to manufacturers not being able to control the production and pricing.
He elaborated that the idea behind the platform is to give transparency to customers and brand & product owners, using technology to protect their interest. This allows the latter to control the pricing.
With the transparency of Mecan Trade, brand and product owners control the entire system, in terms of market price, selling price and also the margins for the ambassadors on the platform.
On the flipside, ambassadors on the platform are able to start trading without the usual hassle as it takes care of product sourcing, pricing and marketing as well as systems integration in terms of payment gateway, logistics and even packaging.
“They just need to share their online shopfront to their social media network and they can earn commission from every purchase,” said Goh.
To complement Mecan Trade, he has also invested in a big data company Zanroo, which provides enterprise solutions to establish brands and large corporations.
Utilising the social listening tools of the big data company, Goh explained this would prove to be useful for product and brand owners to gain insights on their market as well as the latest consumer trends.
“This way, companies could introduce products with a good market fit and know their consumers better.”
For its data analytics offering, the platform offers tailor-made packages for businesses to best suit their needs and budget.
Despite going online just a little over a year ago, Mecan Trade currently supports over 200 brand owners and manufacturers with over 3,000 products available and over 1,000 ambassadors and counting.
“By the end of next year, we hope to have over 5,000 ambassadors and more than 20,000 products on the platform.”
As a step towards achieving that goal, he has allocated RM15.75 million to the #MeCanBoss program launched in September. The program coaches its ambassadors on how to utilise the social commerce platform with cash incentives, while top performers will be given capital and guidance to develop their very own product.
In 2021, Goh also hopes to replicate the model in other countries in the region.
“Right now, we are in the midst of discussion to establish a franchise of the system in two countries – Indonesia and Thailand,” he shared.
In regard to its overseas ambitions, Goh pointed out that the signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership in November to be a good sign.
“With the free trade agreement, we foresee opportunities for social commerce to facilitate trade in the region.”
