Are Malaysians ready for e-commerce?
- Rakuten believes so and is assured its online mall will attract shoppers
- The MD of toddler and shoe distributor, Kinderdijk, does no longer assume so
MALAYSIANS now have not begun some other mall to go shopping in, however they won’t must fear approximately chaotic first-day parking blues or impulse shopping for due to the fact they gained’t be tempted by using the attractions and smells of a mall revel in.
Welcome to Rakuten Online Shopping, which threw open its portal on Nov 1 with over 11,000 goods from stores to be had and with the promise of extra; saying it might provide Malaysians “an entirely new on line experience this is interesting and interactive.”
Yet, Gwei Tze Co (percent), coping with director of retail distributor Kinderdijk Sdn Bhd, which distributes baby clothing and footwear and is one in all two distributors in Malaysia for the Crocs logo, is quite blasé about the whole e-commerce scene in Malaysia.
It’s no longer that Gwei is one of those difficult-middle brick-and-mortar guys afraid of the disruption on line traders will wreak on his enterprise, which in 2009 had sales within the RM70 million (US$23 million) range.
He claims to be one of the first Malaysians to set up a portal – www.klonline.com.my – in the u . S . A . Returned in 1995. At that point, I myself had no longer even heard of the Internet!
Unlike someone like Alvin Koay, who struck it wealthy along with his e-commerce foray within the overdue Nineties, Gwei moved from e-trade into brick-and-mortar some years later, 1998, and that is in which he has stayed. But he has tried a number of online web sites to push his products, quietly, with the intention to now not antagonize his over 600 retail partners everywhere in the u . S . A ..
The experience has been “bad.” He has tried AirAsia’s on-line mall, he has attempted Pos Malaysia’s on line shopping website online and he now is making an attempt Zalora.com.my, owned by means of Rocket Internet from Germany.
“While I can promote 2,000 pairs of shoes at a popular store a month, to date being with those on-line malls has now not even netted me 50 footwear a month in sales from any precise website.” He has also advertised on-line to push income but with confined success.
Meanwhile Rocket Internet’s version in Malaysia bemuses him. “They are spending so much in advertising and marketing and branding themselves on line that I marvel how sustainable their business may be.”
While Rakuten expects to tap the Internet retailing market in Malaysia which is predicted to exceed RM1.9 billion (US$623 million) by means of 2016, in keeping with Euromonitor International, 2011, Gwei’s reports have left him wondering that Malaysians are not equipped for e-commerce.
“I assume we are 10 years away. Malaysians proper now will most effective buy online for 2 reasons – if they can’t get the item in a brick and mortar shop in Malaysia or if it's miles less expensive.”
This is why online department stores like to push for exclusivity whilst shops need to peddle products directly to their websites. But for hooked up distributors, this exclusivity is sort of not possible to offer.
Which results in the cost issue: “It is hard to be inexpensive than physical outlets when transport prices aren't aggressive and consequently no longer supportive of e-commerce,” he says.
As proof of types, he stocks that a lot of his on line buyers for Croc shoes originated from the Malaysian states of Kelantan, Terengganu, Sabah and Sarawak – locations wherein he initially did now not have traders carrying the emblem.
He become also careful to charge the shoes at a price corresponding to what traders supplied in their shops. “I would once in a while absorb the transport charges but even this hardly ever did something to move the needle.”
So, at the same time as he may be watching Rakuten carefully, he is skeptical that they are able to move the e-trade needle very plenty. At least, not within the near future.