Online Shopping & Payment for a Cashless Cambodia
2020-07-01


1 July 2020, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Over the last few years, the usage of online payments in the country has increased significantly. This is because of the active participation of Cambodia in its digitization process, specifically in the electronic payments industry, which allows customers to perform cashless payments for goods, and services through their Credit/Debit/Prepaid/Virtual cards and e-wallets through mobile phones and online shops over the Internet. As technology advances to a higher level, the use of physical cash has been affected as the rise of electronic payments has encouraged people to switch to the digital payment solutions. As more Cambodians increasingly rely on mobile devices on their work and lifestyle, having a virtual wallet and transacting online is becoming a trend.

With increased affluence and more Cambodians embracing online buying, e-commerce revenue is expected to jump around 30% to $168 million in 2020 compared to last year. The number of shoppers online is also expected to increase 20% to 4.8 million this year1.  

This comes as no surprise as the young populace in the kingdom go online more frequently and are increasingly on social media. According to Datareportal, the number of Internet users increased by 15% to 9.7 million in January 2020, compared to 2019. Social media penetration enjoys full penetration in Cambodia, bolstering the business case for e-commerce2.  

For online payments, UnionPay has been working with partners here and globally to enable more e-commerce merchants across various industries to accept UnionPay, in order to offer convenient, seamless and secure online payment. UnionPay works with leading card issuers such as ABA Bank, Acleda, Bank of China, Canadia Bank and more, to expand its online acceptance network, and is now accepted at over 20 million online merchants from a myriad of industries ranging from food, gaming, grocery delivery, healthcare, retail and etc based in 200 countries and regions. These include local merchants from Cambodia like Bloc Delivery Decathlon and Little Fashion, as well as those from Europe, China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and USA, among others.

Using UnionPay for online purchases is simple – in decathlon.com.kh, and overseas websites like macys.com, look for the UnionPay logo on the payments page after you have checked out your shopping cart. Click on the UnionPay logo and you will be brought to a UnionPay Online Payment page, where you can key in your account information like card number, the CVC and card expiry date.

It is worth noting that for some websites US-based websites, like neimanmarcus.com, UnionPay cards acceptance is via Discover network. Simple select Discover as the Card Type when adding a credit card, enter the information of your UnionPay card, and then pay.

From now till end July, UnionPay customers can enjoy up to $6 discount with minimum purchase of $15 at Bloc Delivery and Little Fashion. Bloc Delivery arranges food and beverage to be delivered right to your door step, perfect for catering an office lunch to reward hardworking colleagues or a nice relaxing dinner. For more info on these exciting promotions, visit https://bit.ly/UPIRegistration.

Online shopping truly presents many advantages:

Convenience: There is no waiting line, and you should be able to complete your shopping in minutes, whether via PC or on-the-go via mobile. No more fighting with crowds during payday, holiday, festival, or weekend! No more fighting for a parking spot neither! Online shopping could be conducted 24/7, so long as you have a stable connection. Shopping online will be made even more seamless with the implementation of 3D-Secure or 3DS in Cambodia. 3DS makes customer authentication faster and more accurate, allowing the merchant to send more customer information to the issuer to verify, making shopping on mobile phones easier and more convenient.

Better prices: Wide array of discount deals and better prices are available online, because products come to you direct from the manufacturer or seller without involving the middlemen. Plus, comparing prices is much easier online, allowing you to find a better deal. Many online sites offer discount coupons and rebates, and when you add the savings from gas and parking, you enjoy greater savings.

Wide array of choices: The choices online are amazing. You can find almost any brand or item you want. You can shop from retailers in other parts of the world instead of being limited to your own country.

Secure payment: UnionPay offers several solutions to online merchants for online payment to make ecommerce more secure and seamless. These solutions provide Cardholder identity authentication service for credit, debit and prepaid cards to reduce the risk of fraud and unauthorized transactions. Cardholder identity authentication is managed by a dynamic verification code sent by text message and/or a PIN. This allows UnionPay customers to shop online without fearing that their card information will be stolen.

Having more control: Often when we shop in stores, we tend to spend a lot more than planned and end up buying items that are not exactly what we wanted, due to unavailability of better and exact items at the store. With online shopping, you can usually get exactly what you want and need.

While online shopping saves time and money, those new to online shopping might want to look out for issues related to shipping and delivery. Even the biggest and best shipping companies and online retailers may encounter delivery issues, so one should want to put in more buffer time for shipping, especially for merchants based overseas. Equally important is to check the return policy of the online merchant, as it will differ from merchant to merchant - some will allow for free return or exchange with no charge, while others may impose some terms and conditions. Not forgetting that sometimes, the wrong item inadvertently gets delivered, so purchasing online earlier may provide enough time for an exchange, so that we won’t miss out the gifting opportunity for that special occasion.

Also when shopping online, spend some time on researching the website before purchasing as there are websites selling counterfeit goods. Some fakes can be challenging to spot, even when we have the physical product in our hand. But this can be overcome by researching what the authentic product would normally cost - if the price is too good to be true, a red flag should be raised already.

“Our customers are our top priority - UnionPay aims to continuously deliver world-class quality payment solutions by actively collaborating with reputable sellers of popular goods and service providers such as Amazon, Farfetch, G2A, iHerb, and many more. These partner merchants were carefully selected because they also share the same mission of delivering high quality services that address concerns when buying online and bringing the benefits of convenience and safety to all our customers.” Said Mr. Wenhui Yang, General Manager of UnionPay International Southeast Asia.

As seen above, there are many benefits of online shopping if you are willing to spend some time researching the online merchant and the merchandise that you are buying. The advantages will get increasingly evident as more Cambodians embrace online shopping and more merchant establish e-commerce operations to increase their sales, without having constraints on operating hours and manpower.  

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