Uncertain Times for Retail and E-commerce - What Happens Now and What's Next

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

 

 

Anchanto Deepens E-Commerce Roots in Australia, Celebrates Local Industry in Partnership with NORA Network

 

Anchanto’s Barangaroo lunch event explores in-depth the present and future of Australian retail industry, e-commerce market in Australia and Southeast Asia, as well as cross-border e-commerce and its potential to enable the local market.

 

Sydney, March 17th, 2020 - 

 

Upon entering the Australian market in 2019, Anchanto, leading e-commerce Software as a Service (SaaS) company, hosted its first grand event in partnership with NORA Network, Australia’s leading retail business network in Barangaroo, Sydney.

 

Raising the Bar for National E-Commerce leadership lunch event saw over 70 influential C-suites within the retail industry raise the glass and share market insights together. The event dissected uncertainties of current economic climate and the impacts on the Australian retail industry, as well as the opportunities await in the future for Australian retailers to grow and expand. As one of the best recognised names in e-commerce in Southeast Asia, Anchanto discussed multiple ways that Australian businesses can benefit from cross-border e-commerce, and that Anchanto offers a gateway as well as guidance to navigate one of the most vibrant e-commerce markets in the world. 

 

Paul Greenberg, Founder and Non-Executive Director of NORA Network invited Anchanto CEO Vaibhav Dabhade to join an opening discussion on Anchanto’s journey leading up to entering the Australian market. Introducing Anchanto and himself to the room, Mr. Dabhade briefly touched on his personal journey from working at a software company to starting a multimillion SaaS company that has evolved into a driving force of ecommerce in the Southeast Asia region. Noting on his helicopter view of global e-commerce trend, Mr. Dabhade summarised that  marketplaces have completely changed dynamics. It is not just about selling location and price, but also purpose. “Australia today is largely a brand-focused market”, Mr. Dabhade further explained, “with its department store and high-street brand e-commerce operations. At the same time, there are also sellers building products within specific verticals, which offer so much more value, convenience, privacy and purpose to new consumers.”

 

When asked about opportunities in the retail market down under, Mr. Dabhade admitted that Australia is a complicated and sensitive market, and took some time for the company to infiltrate. “We are grateful to have NORA help us navigate the market, also to our key customers such as Asendia, who’s also our launch partner in this market providing international shipping services for e-commerce companies. This whole ecosystem showed us into this particular market, at the same time we are seeing more and more businesses invest in what is next in the market - in Taiwan, in Singapore for example as target markets to sell their products. They are being validated and we hope to help more businesses take off from there.” Mr. Dabhade concluded the opening session. 

 

The opening remark was followed by a keynote presentation from Abhimanyu Kashikar, Anchanto’s COO and Co-Founder. Also the Country Head of Australia & New Zealand, Mr. Kashikar delivered a detailed side-by-side comparison of e-commerce in Australia versus around the globe. Mr. Kashikar noted that a trend was seen previously in the Southeast Asian market, Australian businesses are now also adopting marketplace e-commerce business models. From Anchanto’s years of experience, this leads to businesses impacted by three crucial factors: fragmented market, multiple distribution channels and implementation complexities. 

 

“From working with retailers listing on different marketplaces in different countries, we are able to bring our learnings and lessons to the Australian market,” said Mr. Kashikar, “having a presence on different marketplaces such as Kogan and EBay is becoming critical to sellers. In the meantime, brands are also seeing under the marketplace economy, they are not getting enough information from different distributors. It also brings implementation problems for sellers - different integrated tools for logistics, accounting, warehouse management and so on. These are the three common challenges we have seen that sellers in multi-channel ecommerce have to face.”

 

“Anchanto has lived through the change with its customers. We understand the need to be visible across different marketplaces, but more importantly from the backend, the need to have visibility to all things happening to your products on and offline. There is also CRM and other analytic data to help sellers decide how much to invest in different marketplaces. Anchanto applies an engineering approach to software development, and that is how we grow from packing and managing cross-border parcels in a warehouse to now managing channels for customers like L’Oréal.” concluded Mr. Kashikar.

 

Crown jewel of the lunch event, Mr. Dabhade, returning from his opening session, was joined by a panel of key spokespeople from the retail industry in Australia and Asia. Moderated by Angus McDonald, CEO of Barbeques Galore, the 20-minute panel discussion started with Austrade’s Jack Lu sharing his view on the e-commerce export business. Jethro Marks from The Nile shared his observations on different consumer behaviour in Australia and Asia markets, as well as his experience in handling complex payment and logistics costs in cross-border transactions. Giovanni Morandin from BGroup Logistics, Dene Green from Asendia Oceania also shared with Mr. Dabhade their views on opportunities in the Australian market, China as a major e-commerce player and cross-border opportunities for Australian retail businesses.

 

-ENDS-

 

 

About Anchanto

Incorporated in 2011 and headquartered in Singapore, Anchanto provides a global multichannel SaaS platform in the eCommerce and Logistics ecosystem that enables and connects online sellers and logistics players across the globe.

 

Through its proprietary software-as-a-service (SaaS) products and global partnerships, Anchanto delivers exceptional service and world-class solutions which helps brands, online sellers, third-party logistics providers, warehouses and postal associations to equip themselves with best-in-class eCommerce capabilities.

 

For more information, please visit: www.anchanto.com

 

For media enquiries, please contact:

Evelyn Yang

REDHILL

+61 432 871 726

evelyn@redhill.world