Thailand's largest online marketplace, Kaidee.com, aims to increase revenue by 70% in 2019.
Tiwa York, head coach and chief executive of Kaidee, said the company aims to expand its team in upcountry areas as a way to increase the number of individual second-hand sellers on the platform.
"Thailand has 6 million vendors to sell second-hand products online. Currently there are 1 million active second-hand sellers on Kaidee."
For this reason, the company plans to increase its staff by 40% in 10 provinces, or by 150 workers, to help with sales to individual vendors and car dealers upcountry, and find new opportunities for online business.
Kaidee previously sought to break even in 2019. The company is now in discussion with investors to raise funds for expansion and aims to break even in 2021.
Revenue in 2018 rose 68%, with 70% from value-added services like special advertisement position.
Kaidee's mobile app was downloaded 2.3 million times.
The platform had 30 million users who sold 8.7 million products across 200 categories.
The categories with the most traffic were RodKaidee (60 million visits), MocyKaidee (36 million), mobile and tablet (27 million), BaanKaidee (25 million) and auto parts (24 million).
BaanKaidee was launched in 2018 to help people buy, sell and rent real estate, including houses, condos, land, offices, commercial properties, resorts and hotels.
More than 8,000 properties were sold on BaanKaidee, representing 18% of the total value of all items sold on Kaidee.
The areas most commonly searched in the Bangkok area were Lumpini, Lat Phrao, Don Muang, On Nut and Sukhumvit.
The most searched areas outside Bangkok were Chon Buri, Chiang Mai, Rayong, Nakhon Nayok and Ratchaburi.