A BRIEF Q&A WITH NINO PRUIDZE, CO-FOUNDER OF E-COMMERCE ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
E-Commerce Association of Georgia is a member-driven association founded to promote and advocate for the enhancement of e-commerce and digital economy in Georgia. Where did the idea come from?
Although the cofounders of the e-Commerce Association have been working in this field for many years and were constantly developing this field in Georgia, the COVID-19 pandemic and the country’s unpreparedness in this field once again made it clear that it is necessary to unite professional people, raise awareness and improve e-commerce ecosystems, and protect the rights of SMEs and consumers as well.
One will remember that when COVID-19 became a stark reality, Georgia also had to impose certain regulations or restrictions. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness in the field of e-commerce even from the side of government and state structures led to incorrect regulations in this area, which affected the business sector and consumers in a bad manner. Sadly, many companies have closed and even “undercover” trade has emerged, which is certainly detrimental to the country. These problems have once again shown us how important the unification of the professionals for the development of the e-commerce ecosystem in Georgia is. That is why the founders of the association aimed to meet this challenge and make every effort, with the help of friend organizations, to make Georgia appear on the world map of e-commerce.
Against the backdrop of the challenges and opportunities, the mission of the association is to contribute to the promotion of e-commerce industry in Georgia to the level of adoption in the developed economies.
The vision of the association:
• To play a pivotal role in improving e-commerce environment by representing e-commerce businesses and merchants in Georgia;
• To support its membership and promote their interests to all relevant stakeholders;
• To promote e-commerce nationally and improve the e-commerce environment in Georgia and for Georgia-based e-commerce merchants by uniting and platforming member companies and individuals.
The aims of the association are:
• To popularize, raise awareness and educate on e-commerce businesses and merchants in Georgia;
• To provide a platform for expertise, transfer of knowledge and free flow of information between the members, e-commerce merchants, and other e-commerce stakeholders;
• To facilitate dialogue within the industry as a whole and establish and improve the standing of e-commerce on national and international levels;
• To bring an added-value to its membership by serving as a platform for cooperation and development;
• To represent and support its memberships’ relations with all external stakeholders through lobbying and advocating for a better policy environment in Georgia.
The association was founded in February 2020 when a group of marketing and online sales professionals came together, exchanged on the challenges they had been facing and decided to join forces for the advancement of the state of e-commerce in Georgia. What challenges did you face during the first year, and how did you overcome them?
With the first project which was supported by USAID and TBC Bank (these were educational webinars on e-Commerce), we saw that this field is really new in Georgia and therefore the knowledge is really very low, but on the other hand, the demand for e-commerce is quite high.
The projects and studies we have conducted were the real proof of the lack of knowledge in this area. Unfortunately, business representatives do not know — not only how to grow their business in this direction but also how to start eCommerce and make the first steps in e-Commerce. The number of professionals in this field is also quite small. Because there are no standards or regulations by which the consumers or enterprises would be guided — Consumers have a lack of confidence in online shopping and that directly reflects in the percentage of online shopping. It should also be noted that there is no legislation regarding eCommerce, which may not be necessary for the opinion of many, although the country has obligations under the Association Agreement with the European Union.
In view of these problems, we started to take care of the improvement of eCommerce ecosystem in Georgia, we conducted two successful web-based educational projects — with the support of USAID; We started working with the European Business Association — on the development of existing legislation in Georgia; And we are working with TBC Bank to establish eCommerce Academy, which will enable all the interested persons to gain both practical and theoretical knowledge in eCommerce. With the support of USAID, we are planning to develop a standardized guidebook for e-Commerce that provides guidance to companies, Georgia’s workforce and educational service providers to enhance e-Commerce growth.
With these and many other steps, we are trying to face the challenges that exist in Georgia and overcome them.
In December 2020, with the financial support from the USAID EDGE project, E-Commerce Association of Georgia organized a series of five online capacity-building webinars on the ways of leveraging cross-border e-commerce in the context of COVID-19. What has been achieved so far, what did the representatives of SMEs from the Eastern Partnership countries learn?
In light of the global pandemic and local restrictions to contain the virus, domestic economic activity, as well as purchasing power of the customers in the markets across the six Eastern Partnership countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine), have significantly decreased. As global pandemic, turbulent economic and political context across the Eastern Partnership countries have stagnated many micro, small and medium-sized businesses in the region, there is a need to raise awareness and explore the possibility of alternative means to aid business survival and competitiveness. To that end, there is a momentum to capitalize on the massive acceleration of global e-commerce. E-commerce has emerged as a key pillar to bounce back and allow the business survival in the light of the global pandemic. To mitigate the risks induced by the global pandemic, e-commerce holds tremendous potential for the survival of MSMEs from developing and transition economies through access to international markets and outreach to foreign customers. In a long-term perspective, it also holds a promise to deliver economic growth, create more employment and entrepreneurial opportunities through the increase of the sales volume and driving business growth. However, the promise and full potential of e-commerce can only be materialized when three complementary factors are at play. These factors are related to organizational, technological, and enabling (government policies) context. The main obstacles for SMEs and entrepreneurs from developing and transition economies to use e-commerce are related to the organizational context, where company directors/founders/management are less supportive of the idea due to lack of information and knowledge related to e-commerce. In addition, at the firm level, there is a lack of required information and knowledge to make informed decisions with regard to choosing the right e-commerce business model, establishing a business presence online and managing the entire e-commerce cycle.
Successful cross-border expansion cannot be achieved without prior planning and setting up the right metrics matching with company capacities and foreign customers’ needs. The project “Leveraging Cross-Border E-Commerce in the Context of COVID-19” was initiated with the main aim to unlock economic growth potential and enhance cross-border e-commerce sophistication for MSMEs in six Eastern Partnership countries.
The project implied implementation of a series of five-part online capacity-building webinars, with a special focus on supporting MSMEs to address the challenges related to the lack of technical skills and business knowledge concerning set up and implementation of cross-border e-commerce.
The objectives of the series of webinars were to:
• Raise awareness regarding the international opportunities e-commerce offers to businesses, especially MSMEs;
• Enhance knowledge and understanding of how to organize and manage online cross-border sales cycle;
• Strengthen capacity of MSMEs to use and benefit from cross-border e-commerce opportunities;
• Facilitate peer-to-peer sharing of ideas and exchanging of experiences and success stories across the region.
We run a very successful campaign in Georgia, especially since we have launched the ads in Georgian language, it allowed us to explore an absolutely different and new audience. Our campaigns were successful in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Moldova, too. The audience was very much interested and we had a good turnout at the webinars.
In total, 1,121 attendees have been registered across five webinars. An almost absolute majority of the webinar attendees were from the targeted six countries of Eastern Partnership. Out of the total number of attendees, we have identified 457 unique attendees over the series of 5 webinars.
With the aim to facilitate peer-to-peer exchange and building business linkages among the project participant SMEs and beyond the Eastern Partnership countries, a website platform was planned as a follow-up activity. Is the website already accessible to the public, and what do you expect to accomplish?
With the aim to facilitate peer-to-peer exchange and building business linkages among the project participant MSMEs and beyond the EaP countries, the project entailed a website development as a follow-up activity.
The website was built and has been maintained with the core idea to enable businesses to communicate with each other (via forum) and build business linkages (through business listing).
Considering that the website targets business representatives from six Eastern Partnership countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine), the users can freely browse and view information either in English or in Russian. Georgian translation of the website can be taken into consideration for future programming and planning as at the current moment, the website hosts more traffic from Georgia than from any other target country.
The website is already accessible to the public; however, we plan to present it to the general public soon. The website has a “Business Listing” page, where each company is added dynamically after an initial check against their background. The registrant database is updated in the live format and new companies will be added daily in the following months. The webpage is currently accessible and can be viewed.
E-Commerce Association — Georgia will be continuing its work to provide a platform that facilitates connections and communication between the project beneficiaries and other interested businesses.
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift towards a more digital world. Many businesses have undergone a total digital transformation and started using digital technologies to better understand their prospects and customers. How did e-commerce change the business models of the companies during COVID-19?
Although the civilized world has long entered the era of digital technologies, in the case of Georgia the situation is different. The pandemic and the challenges we faced have shown us the need to transform to digital technology.
Many companies have already seen that today in the 21st century it is necessary to respond to this world challenge and to approach digital technology standards as quickly as possible.
eCommerce Association — Georgia within its Webinars and other educational projects supports the companies to raise awareness and to get knowledge on how to change the business models of companies and start to use digital technologies.
Today we are working on an implementation of the workshop project, where SMEs will have an opportunity to equip with relevant tools and skills for designing and managing one aspect of e-commerce operations. Accordingly, the workshops will provide a space for hands-on mentorship led by subject-matter experts. In this case, at the end of each workshop, the participants will have a ready-to-go strategy to implement discussed aspect of e-commerce DTC operations tailored to their business needs and objectives.
Our team is always pleased to support any company with these challenges!
