HKFEC – Empowering Ecommerce Platforms with Trust and Reliability

TelecomDrive.com at ConnecTechAsia 2018 - Special Interview

HKFEC (Hong Kong Federation of E-commerce) was established to make Hong Kong a better place for e-commerce. It launched “Hong Kong Trust Mark” along with the “Belt and Road E-commerce Strategic Alliance” to build trust and dispute resolution systems for trading platforms in HK, Macau and Mainland China.

Working towards common goals around creation of trust and reliability for e-commerce space - HKFEC has been able to successfully established alliances with e-commerce associations in China, Taiwan, Macau, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Philippine, Vietnam, India, Russia, Dubai, Qatar, and Europe.

On the sidelines of ConnecTechAsia 2018 in Singapore - Joseph Yuen, Chairman, HKFEC and WTA interacts with Zia Askari from TelecomDrive.com about the organisation’s focus towards building trust in the e-commerce space and its future plans.

Fast emergence of e-commerce is driving a lot of opportunities for the overall ICT ecosystem as well as end customers. What more can be done to realize the full potential of e-commerce segment?

The full potential is where traditional retail brand realize the opportunity for their future customer living in the cyber space. The lack of focus and investment from traditional retailers in online space is the bottleneck for resolving existing barrier in online trust; data analytics; logistic; and e-Payment. Once we have full attention on these area, we will see the next wave of demand coming from the majority consumers.

What are the some of the big focus areas that HKFEC is working on?

HKFEC is leveraging the advantage of Hong Kong being a well-developed international city as well as the entrance of mainland China market, to act as a hub for cross border ecommerce. In 2016, HKFEC has launched the Hong Kong Trust Mark scheme to help distinguish trusted online merchant for quality consumers.

This is the core value of Hong Kong as a middle man for west and east ecommerce market. The scheme has gained a lot support from countries around the Belt and Road region, and enhance has been nominated by the WSIS Prize for 2017 and 2018 from the United Nation at Geneva. HKFEC's achievement has been recognized by the World Trustmark Alliance (WTA).

How do you look at technological advancements in AR and VR helping deliver great e-commerce experiences?

AR and VR brought a whole new experience for consumer seeing their product as compared to face to face visit. This is not just to simulate the real experience, but to enhance 3D computer graphics beyond consumer's imagination. As the product value and brand value increase for every online purchase, these visual experiences could drive higher profit and emotional spending online. Another area of interest would bring great benefit for online travel, insurance and professional services.

What are some of the challenges that you are facing today towards maintaining a healthy e-commerce ecosystem?

Online trust remain our number 1 issue, and that’s why we put our focus. In today's market, it is very difficult to match customer's trust level between a physical store to a web store. This limits the development of product, payment, delivery and customer service for ecommerce.

There has always been a ruboff between traditional brick and mortar resellers and e-commerce players. What can be done to create a better synergised approach and deliver great experiences for the customers?

It will not be enough if retailers only offer omnichannel to their future consumers. The interaction between online and offline, and cross border bring many possible outcome to a consumer decision. While online and offline touch is not going to be replaced each other, but the role for each channel will need to be well defined depending on the product characteristic. Which touch point is to offer customer experience? Which touch point is to offer your new product release? Which touch point is to receive orders? And which touch point is to provide customer services? Those would have to be carefully consider in future retails.

Please explain about your future agenda and plans as an organization?

HKFEC would definitely look forward to create a trusted and healthier ecommerce environment across the region. Area to focus will be:

1. Act as a hub for industry coming in or going out or mainland China
2. To untap the potential of traditional retail transforming into digital
3. Participate into the global development in IoT, big data, and Fintech to prepare for our members' future need.

4. Hopefully with the work on Trustmark, HKFEC can bring Hong Kong a center of certification to all E-Commerce players globally.