PSU Bazaar gives economic space to Thai university community

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Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Thailand has taken every possible step to manage and prevent the spread of the disease. The government decided to lockdown the country by closing government offices, stores, shutting down airports, canceling all traditional festivals and trips. While the number of infections is increasing, the amount of money in people's pockets is decreasing. Therefore, economic condition is as big a worry as the disease for people.

While everyone at the university was dedicating all resources to take care and help the people affected by the infection, I began thinking what I could do to help our community and country, as a marketing professor?

All students, alumni and staff members, including all the benefactors of Prince of Songkla University, faced a crisis due to the city-wide lockdown. Some people lost everything, while many new graduates couldn't find a job. Thus, the main goal at that time was finding ways to help the less fortunate get through this situation. After searching for ideas and listening to suggestions from people around me, establishing an online shop became the right answer for me to help the society. So, I have created an online market group called PSU Bazaar.

The main objective is to positively support and encourage PSU community to help each other. The PSU Bazaar is a way to provide a free market place to the groups related to Prince of Songkla University. They can promote or sell their products online for free. This at least could help them earn extra income during economic hardship.

Doing business whether online or offline cannot succeed without knowledge and information. As a result, free online courses using Facebook Live function have been provided by PSU Bazaar.

The admin team of PSU Bazaar, which comprise of staff members from Public Relation Department together with student trainee, invites business and academic experts to join the program which is broadcast every Friday from 3.30-4.30 pm. We teach them how to sell products online, basic accounting for SMEs, personal finance, business strategy, packaging, food preservation, photo taking etc.

The PSU Bazaar has been recognized by the local and national media companies. For example, the Standard, a popular online newspaper, listed PSU Bazaar as one of the active university's market places. Moreover, Drama Addict, which is the top Facebook page in Thailand, positioned PSU Bazaar as the center of southern food products. FM 88, a popular local radio station, interviewed PSU Bazaar as a case study of online market place. Furthermore, Ma Kin Ta, the biggest and newest on-the-ground market place, offers free selling area for PSU Bazaar's members.

As evidenced, PSU Bazaar has come far in helping and boosting up economic situation within the PSU community. Members of PSU Bazaar can earn money through the PSU Bazaar group to support their families and to teach their parents or relatives to expand their business into the online sector.

The success of the PSU Bazaar group is remarkable resulting in over 45,000 members joining the group. The trading has generated millions of baht under the PSU Bazaar platform.

Last but not least, regardless of the situation, Prince of Songkla University never leaves anyone behind, because we always value the benefit of mankind as our topmost priority.

The author is an assistant professor at Global Affairs and Corporate Communication Center, Prince of Songkla University.

The article was provided by South and Southeast Asian University Network. The opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not necessarily represent the views of China Daily and China Daily website.