The Essentials and Challenges of Online Business Among Bumiputera SME Entrepreneurs in Malaysia

Abstract

The e-commerce trend has increasingly grown in Malaysia. The revenue for e-commerce platforms in 2019 is USD3.7 billion with more than 20 million users. There were various calls from the ministries for Malaysian to take up e-commerce as it is progressively contributing to the country’s GDP. Bumiputera entrepreneurs have been demanded to play active roles in e-commerce, however their participation and performance are in an alarming state. Therefore, this paper aims to identify the challenges faced, examine the awareness of the existing business support and identify support and assistance which can be implemented to address the issues faced by Bumiputera SME online entrepreneurs. The research was done using survey format. Questionnaire was distributed via online survey. The population is the online entrepreneurs from Malaysian Internet Entrepreneurs Association (PUIM). 493 respondents participated in this study. Findings show that the main challenges were the lack of access to financial assistance and lack of knowledge to conduct market study. While the training needed are Facebook Ads and Business Coaching. Research also shows that the higher the level of education, the lesser the constraints experienced and the greater the level of confidence in business success. Finally, several improvements and suggestions have been proposed.