While browsing Facebook or Instagram, I’m sure you’ve stumbled onto posts with comments such as “pm tepi” and “price”. Independent sellers on social platforms are definitely on the rise, especially with how easy these businesses can be conducted.
Lyfemarketing notes that 80% of Instagram users actually use the platform to make informed decisions on their next purchase.
I’ve participated in such transactions before and it’s fairly easy, but there are a few steps to go through if you’re not in the same location for a face-to-face deal.
Usually, once you agree to buy an item from the seller, you’ll be given an account number to bank in your payment to.
After you’ve informed the seller that you’ve paid, all you can do is wait for a tracking number and finally get your hands on the item—if they’re legit, which is a risk of buying from social sellers.
For the sellers, they also have to constantly check their bank account, wondering if the buyer has actually paid or even recalled the payment after delivering the parcel.
Tracking the parcel is also another headache faced by both the buyers and the sellers as third-party deliveries often fail to update where the parcel is, sometimes even after it arrives, the tracking won’t even be updated.
Now, that sounds like a lot of steps for what is supposedly an easy transaction.
To tackle this issue, AirAsia’s Teleport is introducing teleport.social, a platform tailored for C2C (customer-to-customer) business by offering end-to-end logistics delivery along with a one-stop payment solution for anyone selling on social media.
What Is Teleport?
Talking to the team behind Teleport, they noted that most people have already transitioned to buying their tickets online, but the whole cargo industry is still stuck in the pen and paper process.
And that is what they want to change.
By leveraging on AirAsia’s massive network of more than 100 cities and 10,000 weekly flights across Asia Pacific, Teleport aims to digitise logistics delivery and simplifies the process for all parties.
To fulfil the first and last mile deliveries, Teleport tackles that through Teleportal, a platform where they crowdsource drivers to do parcel delivery at any day and time they want to.
The team also said that with usual third-party deliveries, users are out of the loop because they are not updated on where the parcel is during flight and third-party agents are not incentivised to inform the users of the parcel whereabouts once they hand it into cargo.
With Teleport, both parties (buyer and seller) will know where the parcel is at any given time.
So, by using teleport.social, as a seller, you can have all these advantages given to you, without any additional charges aside from the prepaid plan that you’ve chosen.
The team is also trying to make next-day delivery anywhere within Southeast Asia the norm and everyone knows that is a massive undertaking.
How Do You Use Teleport.social?
Teleport.social can be used in just a few simple steps:
- Buyer contacts seller for the item they want to buy,
- Seller confirms item and price of said item,
- Seller generates a payment link on teleport.social,
- The buyer gets the link, pays and adds shipping addresses,
- Teleport collects parcel from the seller from their home,
- Delivers the parcel to the buyer on the next working day.
Once the parcel is handed over to Teleport, both parties can keep track on the whereabouts of the parcel using the same link that the seller has provided.
Almost anyone can use teleport.social, be it someone that sells on WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Carousell and many others.
Social Selling or rather, selling via social media is usually a form of selling that is used by people that do not have a large inventory of what they want to sell.
Because of their limited stock, going through the hoops of marketplace sites such as Lazada or Shopee might not be worth it.
So, teleport.social looks to bridge the gap and be the easy solution for both sellers and buyers.
For example, if I wanted to kickstart a new brand that sells notebooks, going through a marketplace would be a hassle and will most likely cost a lot of money.
I’d have to go through a boatload of steps to just get one product out. But with teleport.social, all I had to do was just set up a seller account, set up an Instagram or Facebook For Business and wait for customers to purchase from me via direct messaging for my notebooks.
The Financial Safety Of Both Parties
Teleport.social will also conduct a KYC (Know Your Customer) procedure on the seller, to ensure that they are indeed a legit seller and not one that would ship a rock inside an iPhone case.
As for the buyer, teleport.social utilises an anti-fraud payment technology (Stripe) to process their payments. The payment will also be sent to the seller on a weekly basis into their registered bank account.
Teleport.social also provides the seller with a custom made teleport.social bubble mailers so they don’t have to buy them separately or themselves, increasing the cost needed to sell a product.
Start Selling Now
To start selling, all a seller has to do is set up a business account with teleport.social and choose shipping prepaid plans according to their needs.
Obviously, if you’re the seller, you will need to ensure that the package is packed neatly according to Teleport’s standards, or else they will reject the parcel.
So all a seller has to do is package the parcel neatly after they have the details and proof of payment from the buyer, which will be sent to them via a notification on the website and SMS.
If you’re selling via teleport.social, you can also print an automated consignment note, so there’s no need to bother with filling it up yourself.
Teleport will then collect the parcel from the seller and it’s all handled by Teleport then, so both parties can just kick back, relax, and wait for the parcel to magically ‘teleport’ to the intended location.
It’s just that easy.
If you sign up as a seller now, you will get 3 free orders, so you can start selling without any fuss.
As a seller, you can also earn BIG points when you purchase a subscription plan and when a buyer makes a transaction. (RM1 = 1 BIG point)
While the prepaid plans are just within West Malaysia, you can still send your parcels to other Asean countries such as Singapore, Jakarta, and more to come such as The Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam in 2020 for items below 2kgs with a flat rate of just RM21.
Featured Image Credit: Teleport