Maxis e-commerce solutions helps businesses digitalise easily, which proves vital during the Covid-19 pandemic

• Solutions makes managing online ads, integrating payment options easy
• Digital Marketing Starter Kit covered by MDEC’s SME Digitalisation Grant

With customer purchasing behaviour making a clear and rapid shift online, e-commerce is the future. For the 98.5% of Malaysian businesses who are small and medium enterprises (SMEs), this means that it is now essential to speed up their own digitalisation journey for faster business recovery.

Local F&B business Charlie’s Café (pic, above) is one example. The businesses initially struggled during the pandemic as they could no longer rely on walk-in customers to stay afloat. The café needed to pivot strategies, but for many such small businesses, they did not know where to start.

The café business was already time and labour-consuming. Charlie’s Café sought a solution that would be more convenient and opted to try the Maxis Digital Marketing Starter Kit, which would allow business owners to create and manage online ads that required no prior marketing expertise or technical know-how, ideal for any SME just starting out.

The Maxis Digital Marketing Starter Kit was designed to be easy to use – a simple 4-step process that allowed users the flexibility to choose which channel they preferred to advertise on – whether it’s Google, Instagram, or Facebook.

Another tricky proposition besides attracting new customers for SMEs: how to retain their existing customer base. How could they reach out to them, keeping them updated as well as incentivise sales via promotions? 

For MGFB Trading, a wine and spirits wholesaler, WhatsApp was the main communication channel to keep customers updated on current promotions. But it was time-consuming, tedious to manage and proved difficult to monitor the outcome of such efforts.

Like Charlie’s Café, MGFB Trading needed a simpler solution and found it in a particular feature of the Maxis Digital Marketing Starter Kit: digital vouchers. 

Digital Marketing Starter Kit is a solution that’s covered by MDEC’s SME Digitalisation Grant, a programme that gives SMEs up to US$1,204 (RM5,000) to go digital. For local entrepreneurs like Charlie’s Café who may not be familiar with the grant application process, Maxis Business has a dedicated SME Help Squad to help every step of the way and maximise the SME’s chances of receiving funding.

From offline to online

For some business owners, it was just about getting online in the first place. SMEs are often concerned about the costs and difficulty of building a website and selling online. 

Rather than embarking on an online journey from scratch, Sasha Kamila, founder of Butterbee Café, leveraged the Maxis Cloud POS Lite solution, which empowered her to quickly bring her F&B business online with a branded website that was easily integrated with payment solutions and delivery partners.

With this single platform, the business could enable and manage quick, direct online ordering for customers, thus opening multiple service touchpoints and increasing revenue channels.  

It is stories from businesses such as these, whose unwavering passions motivate Maxis to keep supporting and empowering SMEs to unlock their potential.

“As a leading converged solutions provider, we strive to be trusted partners of businesses to Always Be Ahead in an ever-changing world. We understand the challenges they face and have the solutions and expertise to help elevate their businesses no matter what industry they are in,” said Paul McManus, chief enterprise business officer, Maxis.

“Our aim is to enable businesses of all sizes to acquire new customers and drive more revenue through tailored packages utilising strategic digital marketing and deep analytics.” 

Whether you want to build a simple website to quickly get online and drive sales or are looking for customisable web features to support future business growth, Maxis Business has tailored packages that cater to every business need.

Best of all, access to funding is easy with programmes such as the SME Digitalisation Grant and, AmBank-Maxis SME-in-a-Box, a strategic partnership that provides the best digital solutions with financial assistance and facilities namely innovative payment solutions, operating account and transactional services to SMEs. 

If you’re ready to go digital, download your free guide, “Navigating the New Normal in eCommerce & Retail,” to learn how to leverage various government initiatives to digitalise your business easily.

Visit business.maxis.com.my/ecommerce-retail to get a free copy of your eBook today.