The Reasons Online Store is Rapidly Emerging in Cambodia

In the last few years, businesses in Cambodia have turned to online, especially on Facebook. Old businesses turn to Facebook by creating pages for their businesses while most new business that created by younger generation entrepreneurs started as online business from the beginning. Almost all of them started by creating Facebook page for their businesses. 

Up until recently Cambodian businesses have always been face to face. People sell products in the markets, at their houses etc. There is no online payment system, there is no reliable delivery system. 

So what led to recent rapid emerging of the Facebook online stores? There are a few reasons. 

1. The emergence of the local and provincial delivery companies. These companies provide delivery services for any businesses in the capital city Phnom Penh, by delivering products to customers in the city as well as to the provinces. With this reliable service, company can sell their products from anywhere. 
2. The payment on delivery system. In the past, people always buy products when they see it, and pay on the spot. People do not trust any online payment. They do not pay online, and wait for their product to be delivered later. There are many bad people who will take the money and never deliver products. So payment on deliver gives people more trust, because they can see product, and if they like it they can pay, if they don't, they don't have to pay. 
3. Free delivery. People don't want to pay for delivery so when the delivery is free, they are more likely to buy through the phone, because they don't pay any extra fee. 
4. It's free to create and manage Facebook page for any businesses. Facebook page is a game changer for businesses in Cambodia. They don't need to create website. Creating a website for business costs money. For many small businesses they don't have much money to start with anyway. It's also easy to manage and use. Business owners can upload cover image, profile image, add about text and description, and then they can start posting their products. 
5. Facebook page for business is working very well in Cambodia, because the number of people using Facebook has increased exponentially during the last few years. Not only there are more people on Facebook, they are very active and using it many times every day. They post and update their status very often and they also share news, information and products on their profile. So it makes sense for business to be on Facebook when their customers spend their time there. 

In addition to the online store using Facebook page, there are online store using real websites as well. In the past, there are fours biggest challenges to the web store. 

1. There is no payment gateway/system. There is no way people can make payment online. 
2. Most people do not have credit card to make payment online. 
3. There is no reliable and trust delivery system.
4. People do not trust that after they make payment online, they will get the product.

Now all those challenges has been solved for the most part. There are a few ways to make payment online such as using ACLEDA payment gateway, Wing, Credit Card etc, or customers can pay cash on delivery. Most businesses offer free delivery for customers in Phnom Penh. If customers don't have credit cart to make payment online, they can pay on delivery, and if they don't trust the business, they can do the same. 

If you are a young entrepreneur who is looking to start a new business, the first option you should look at is to create Facebook page for your business. If you are an existing businesses, you should look at creating Facebook page for your business as well. If you don't do that, you lose the potential to reach your customers who spend most of their time on Facebook. It's fast and easy to create. Once you created, you can start posting your products to your page and you can even boost post to reach even more of your targeted customers. In addition to boosting post, you can run more complicated campaigns on Facebook, which lets you choose your goal, your customer geographic location, age, gender, interest and page association. 

Now go create a Facebook page for your business.