Taiwanese ecommerce firm PChome Thai makes foray in Thailand

PChome Online’s subsidiary, PChome Thailand Co. Ltd on October 19 announced that it had obtained an Electronic Payment Service Business List C3 permission from Thailand’s Electronic Transactions Commission, becoming the first Taiwan ecommerce firm to be allowed to operate third-party payment services in Thailand.  
PChome Thai is a joint venture between PChome and New Kinpo Group’s Thailand-listed subsidiary, Cal-Comp Electronics.
The venture will serve as a C2C (consumer-to-consumer) ecommerce platform, providing ecommerce services tailored for the Thai market. 
It explores the local markets’ consumer demand and growth potential, increasing the varieties of online shopping items. 
The granting of the permission to run third-party payment service in Thailand will allow online transactions in Thailand to complete quickly and improve the convenience of payments for online transactions.    
PChome Thai Chairman Chan Hung-chih noted that ecommerce transactions can be completed quickly if there are convenient online payment services. Chan added such services would help ecommerce grow steadily.
Chan pointed out that Thailand is the second-largest economy in Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), with a population of almost 70 million. 
PChome Thai is a C2C ecommerce platform in Thailand, and in the future when it connects to the financial system through Thailand’s banks or retail channels, it will be able to create a complete ecommerce ecosystem allowing free, simple and fast completion of every transaction.
Through PChome Thai’s third-party payment services, consumers will be able make their payments through online banking, bank counters, local convenience stores, hypermarkets, credit cards or other ways.
New Kinpo Group CEO Simon Shen said that the ecommerce market of Asean is expanding robustly, and the numbers of people using the Internet, smartphones and other IT devices in Thailand have been growing fast. Cal-Comp is very optimistic about Thailand’s ecommerce market. 
With PChome Thai having received permission to offer third-party payment services in Thailand, it is believed that it will help accelerate the development of Thailand’s ecommerce market. 
Cal-Comp has accumulated more than 27 years of experience operating in Thailand, and will continue to integrate the advantages it has amassed from the cross-border electronics manufacturing business and international marketing to help PChome Thai develop its ecommerce platform in Thailand.
Ecommerce has enormous potential for growth in Thailand. 
According to a Euromonitor report, Thailand’s online retail sales came to 47 billion Thai Baht in 2015, growing 30 percent. In 2016, the size of the market is expected to reach 58 billion Thai Baht.
Eyeing the strong potential of Thailand’s ecommerce market, PChome Thai started a trial run in September last year, offering commodities in 12 categories, such as transportation, home living and sports. 
It offers two interfaces, one in Thai and the other in Chinese, providing local consumers with produces from local vendors.