Why we made Beecow?

In October 2016, Mediastep founder Tom Peng travelled to Yangon, Myanmar. It was a monumental time for the people of Myanmar as President Barrack Obama just lifted US economic sanctions on Myanmar. The country opened up to the world and was going through dramatic changes. In particular, mobile technology and internet access became accessible to everyone as the cost of SIM card ownership came down dramatically. Tom observed that while Internet and mobile phones were readily available, but technology has not yet yielded its full potential to meet the fundamental needs of the people. Tom realized there must be a better way for people to connect with each other, and to conduct business – not only for Myanmar but also for the broader region. Tom returned to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and began to assemble a top notch team of product pioneers with the goal to change the way we work, live, and play for the better…

Beecow was launched November 8, 2017 in Vietnam. We had to change course and launch in Vietnam first because we realized that last mile logistics was not yet robust enough in Myanmar. Beecow is an ecommerce eco-system that connects buyers and sellers in an ecommerce market place. It also connect subscribers to dining, beauty, travel, activities and other services. It had a job feature connecting employers and job seeks and also a friendship feature connecting people of similar interests.

In its first year of operation in Vietnam, we have reached a gross merchandise value of USD $600,000. The platform has 130,000 products, 10,000 sellers, and 45,000 registered users. Since then we have added new features to our platform which includes web site and in app live stream for sellers to sell their products to our users. In an effort to increase margin of products sold on the platform, we have started direct sales of unique products not previously available in Vietnamese market.

Looking forward to 2019, we have great plans in the works. We will continue to build first and unique ecommerce products, launch a new high-end deal site, VIPDEAL.VN, offering luxury deals to affluent consumer, and continue grow our direct sales business. Our vision is to be the first profitable ecommerce platform in Vietnam and in South East Asia and we aim to do it in the next 3 years…

The saga continues.