[Solution Report] Their Startup and Future <7> Payap CEO Heo Kyung-seok
Vietnam Online Commerce Chatbot-Based Platform 'SleepOn'... Aiming to Expand to 5 Countries
[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Cheol-hyun] On the 27th of last month, the demo day of the '9th Chung Ju-yung Startup Competition' was held at the Asan Nanum Foundation. On this day, which marked the end of a six-month journey that began in March, business presentations were made by 11 teams that advanced through a competitive ratio of 110 to 1. After fierce competition, the grand prize went to 'Payap,' a second-year startup operating a messenger-linked online commerce platform in the Vietnamese market. Known as the 'gateway to the startup ecosystem,' this competition has produced many promising startups such as MyRealTrip, Deepmedi, and Classum. This year, the competition selected startups focused on global business. We spoke with CEO Heo Kyung-seok about why Payap focused on Vietnam and the solutions they have introduced to pioneer the global market.
In an interview with Asia Economy on the 3rd, CEO Heo said, "Our goal is to provide services in more than five countries," adding, "Once the user value in Vietnam is confirmed and the transaction volume reaches a certain level, we will expand to other countries." Payap provides commerce automation services for online product sellers in Vietnam. Vietnam has an active peer-to-peer trading environment on Facebook. Payap emphasized its ability to actively integrate with Facebook Messenger to suit this environment. CEO Heo explained that it is a service similar to Naver Smart Store or Cafe24 in Korea, allowing users to conduct online commerce and manage their business long-term.
He began focusing on the Vietnamese market after launching a small-scale international trade support service last year. This service, which assists micro-businesses and individuals with parcel-level transactions in Vietnam, Korea's third-largest trading partner, involved collaboration with local sellers and helped him understand their needs. He explained, "We realized that Vietnamese sellers needed improvements in the online commerce environment itself rather than cross-border transactions, so we changed our business focus."
Looking into the market, he also saw opportunities. Although the online commerce market growth rate reached 43%, there was no domestic portal service like Naver, and the online environment was centered around Facebook, including shopping. However, sellers faced many limitations in using Facebook's existing features for sales. Basic searches were difficult, and both sellers and buyers relied on fleeting posts. Sellers also depended on manual conversations via Messenger for price and inventory inquiries and various sales processes. CEO Heo said, "Seeing the high proportion of conversational commerce, we introduced a commerce service linked with online chatbots," adding, "We created SlipOn, a comprehensive commerce automation service, and launched it in Vietnamese last month." 'SlipOn' focuses on automation, business specification organization, and customer management to help grow existing businesses. CEO Heo introduced it by saying, "Specialized features like messenger chatbots enable 24-hour real-time customer response," and "Sales can increase while workload decreases."
CEO Heo expects Thailand or Indonesia to be the next countries for expansion after Vietnam. He also sees the Philippines and Singapore as easy markets to enter because they only require English support, even if their market attractiveness is relatively low. Like other global business companies, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected Payap's business plans. However, CEO Heo intends to turn this into an opportunity. He said, "After COVID-19, the online commerce environment in Vietnam, like in Korea, is rapidly changing. Since our service is fundamentally an automation service for the untact (contactless) era, we expect to leverage this as an opportunity," emphasizing, "This year, our team goal is to focus on securing sellers and gather 1,000 sellers first."
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