The Shopee Mighty Moms Challenge has come to a conclusion at The School, Jaya One on Sunday, 24 July 2016. Launched earlier in June as part of Shopee’s RM 1,000,000.00 commitment towards entrepreneurial empowerment in Malaysia, the Shopee Mighty Moms Challenge is a competition focused on producing ‘Mompreneurs’. Winners of Mompreneur challenge were granted cash prizes totalling RM10,000 in order for them to kick-start their mobile commerce journey.
The Mighty Moms Challenge is a series of entrepreneurial challenges for mothers, in a search to find Malaysia’s mightiest mom. 20 Moms from over 200 applicants were selected as finalists. To beat these challenges, the 20 finalists were given personal mentorship from Shopee’s Top Sellers, as well as automatic enrolment into Shopee University. Shopee University is a dedicated workshop for those who are keen to learn more about how to start a business on mobile commerce and master the art of selling on the platform. Shopee University courses range from topics such as how to leverage mobile to increase business, to more niche skills such as how to optimize online marketing for their business and photography classes.
Moving one step further, Shopee opened its doors to the Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO) that saw 4 Mompreneurs from the Organisation making it into the final 20 contestants. “Women survivors of violence face many challenges in their lives, from seeking employment to child care. With this collaboration, the women are provided with skills and resources to earn additional income for themselves and their families. We are thankful to Shopee’s effort in aiding deserving mums from all walks of life to achieve their entrepreneurial potential,“ said Sumitra Visvanathan, Executive Director of WAO.
The Shopee Mighty Moms were supplied, at no cost to them, products from various categories including health and beauty, childrens’ products, fashion, Muslim wear, and many more. The Mompreneurs were then put through the final challenge to sell their products at Shopee Spree 2.0: Mighty Moms Finale Bazaar. The Bazaar, held on both 23rd and 24th July, saw over 5000 visits with an overwhelming support for Mompreneurs, each Mompreneur sold more than 200 products within the two-day bazaar.
“It is an unbelievable feeling to win this and I couldn’t have done it without the assistance from Shopee from the day I signed up for the challenge. The Free Shipping Program helped me to reach out to East Malaysians that helped my sales exponentially,” said an extremely elated GadTech Brothers (Siew Hong Ling), the Grand Prize winner.
Shopee’s Free Shipping Program was launched in collaboration with national postal courier, Pos Laju in June. Since then, there has been a spike in transactions on Shopee, with more Malaysian shoppers benefitting from the initiative. Recognizing the strong uptake of the program, Shopee has extended the duration of the Free Shipping Program to 31 August 2016.
“We are very passionate towards building and supporting the local community. Our efforts and strategic partnerships have always had the community at heart and have always been aimed to reduce, if not eliminate, all barriers that hinder Malaysians from becoming entrepreneurs. As the Free Shipping Program is widely received by our sellers and buyers, we would like to think of this extension as more of a Merdeka Day gift for all our users”, said Ian Ho, Regional Managing Director of Shopee Malaysia.
The Shopee Mighty Moms Challenge is another initiative in Shopee’s constant efforts in the Entrepreneurial Empowerment of Malaysians. GadTech Brothers (Siew Hong Ling) was crowned as the Grand Prize Winner, winning RM5,000.00 while PRECIOUS & Co. (Tan Zhu Yun) and QingStar (Choy Foong Heng) finished as 1st and 2nd runners-up walking away with RM 3,000.00 and RM 2,000.00 respectively to kick-start their business.
Shopee can be downloaded for free on all mobile platforms via Apple App Store and Google Play Store.