BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 2
By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:
Kazakhstan is on the verge of a boom in the e-commerce sphere, Trend reports.
This was noted during an online session dedicated to e-commerce as part of the international conference Astana Finance Days (AFD).
In 2020, many SMEs went online for the first time, and more experienced online sellers expanded their sales channels by placing them on marketplaces. As a result, last year became a record for the sites both in terms of turnover and growth in the number of sellers.
According to PwC Kazakhstan research, the volume of the retail e-commerce market in Kazakhstan grew by 93 percent in the first nine months of 2020 compared to the same period of 2019 - from 198 billion tenge ($461.5 million) to 382 billion tenge ($890.4 million). The average receipt in tenge increased by 63 percent and the number of transactions by 18 percent.
During the event, Assel Zhanassova, Vice Minister of Trade and Integration of Kazakhstan, also announced a plan to launch the SmartDuken platform (e-commerce school for SMEs) in partnership with Mastercard and the AIFC Fintech Hub. SmartDuken is a platform that will help entrepreneurs create, develop, and scale their businesses online.
The platform will focus on providing free support and assistance to SMEs, will include free online educational courses, webinars, free partner offers (IT tools, CRM, payment systems, website builders, etc.), as well as business acceleration for SMEs who want to move their business online and scale it to new markets. The purpose of the platform is to conduct a practical way of digitalization of business from start to finish together with the participation of international partners and train SME participants to work online.