Senheng & EverydayOnSales: Online Shopper Survey in Malaysia 2014

Malaysians are shopaholics. A survey tells us that 54% of online shoppers in Malaysia buy online at least once a month, and 26% buy online once a week.

Research website e-commerce.milo collected data from the majority of online users in Malaysia in January to find out how customers behave when shopping online.

This survey was published in collaboration with two other websites, Senheng and EverydayOnSales, and successfully collected responses from 626 online users in Malaysia. This is a fairly large sample size that can provide us with a meaningful survey and infographic.

Click to view the full infographic in a new window. Here are the findings and numbers:

91% of Internet users shop online. For the 9% who do not shop online, the main reason is lack of trust. Other reasons include the inability to actually touch and feel the products, and the fact that they do not believe that online sellers can be guaranteed to be safe and credible.

91% of Malaysian internet users shop online

Malaysians are generally known to be shopaholics. 54% of online shoppers buy something at least once a month, 26% of them buy something every week, and even 7% shop almost every day.

How much do Malaysians spend online? 85% of online shoppers spend 500 ringgit (913 yuan) or less per month, 10% spend 500-1,000 ringgit (1,825 yuan) or more, and 5% spend 1,000 ringgit or more per month.

85% of Malaysian online shoppers spend less than RMB 913 per month

Where do Malaysians prefer to shop online?

Group buying websites and online stores dominate the types of online shopping sites Malaysians prefer. In fact, three of the top five choices are group buying websites: Groupon ranked first, LivingSocial ranked third, and MyDeal ranked fifth.

The only atypical e-commerce site on the list is Facebook, which ranks second, and an online classifieds site, Mudah, which ranks seventh.

Groupon, Facebook, LivingSocial are the top three online shopping destinations in Malaysia

Lelong.my was founded in 1998, before Groupon and Facebook were born, and it is still the leader in the Malaysian online market. However, Lazada, a latecomer with a lot of financial support and marketing efforts, is not far behind. It is now a rising star in the Malaysian e-commerce market.

In addition to Lazada, Lelong.my also has to be wary of three other foreign websites. The last three in the top ten are Zalora at eighth, eBay at ninth, and Rakuten at tenth.

In fact, all the popular online shopping sites on the list are foreign-owned except for Lelong.my and its sister site Superbuy. This also shows that there are no particularly successful e-commerce startups in the local market, 14 years after the last successful startup!

In case you’re confused, “other” includes small online stores, forum sites, social media services, and foreign websites that are known to participate in the survey. This brings us to our next topic.

Despite the challenges of regional users and not offering free shipping to Malaysia (as it does in Singapore), Amazon remains the most popular online shopping site in Malaysia - even without a physical local warehouse presence.

A huge 69% of online shoppers would welcome Amazon to operate an online shopping service in Malaysia, followed by 15% who would like Taobao to enter, 17% who would like ASOS to enter, and 12% who would like Tmall to enter.

69% of online shoppers want to see Amazon enter Malaysia

What do Malaysians like to buy (or not buy) online?

So, what do Malaysians buy? What do they like to buy through local group buying sites and foreign websites?

Not surprisingly, the top five categories for both local and foreign websites are popular categories such as fashion and clothing, home appliances, health and beauty, toys and games, etc.

Electrical appliances, toys, food, beauty and home improvement are the top five online sales categories in Malaysia

Food and beverages is the third most popular category for local merchants, because group buying sites sell restaurant coupons (which are services rather than products). Amazon has moved books and magazines to the second place on the foreign shopping site's favorite list.

What is the thing people dislike buying online?

87% of Malaysian online shoppers do not buy pets or pet-related items, while 80% do not like cars or bicycles and 61% do not like sports or outdoor equipment.

via: TechNode