Friday, October 15, 2010

Buying via Internet

From: http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/4/11/business/3620542

Saturday April 11, 2009

Buying via Internet

By LEONG HUNG YEE and LEE KIAN SEONG

ONLINE shopping may be a novel trend in Malaysia but it is fast catching up among buyers, thanks to rising Internet penetration. Besides, online shopping beats jostling with the crowd and it’s easier to compare prices of comparable products online, which translates into better savings.
Owing to that and hoping to tap into this trend, many have also chosen the online path to set up businesses.
IDC Malaysia telecommunications research manager Lincoln Lee expects the Internet business-to-consumer market which includes online purchase of goods and services and bill payments to reach US$4.2bil (RM15.3bil) this year.
Still, in the current climate of uncertainty, he expects Malaysian consumers to generally be more prudent with their spending habits. In fact, online shopping may offer consumers a way to cut back on spending.

Christopher Quek ... Online stores which wish to be successful must be able to ride out initial stages.

“Due to reduced spending power, consumers may turn to online medium for more affordable alternatives, discounts and convenient purchases compared to the traditional retail store shopping,” says Lee.
As such, he says online shopping is set to grow in a big way in Malaysia, judging from how it has grown in leaps and bounds for particular services.
According to IDC’s Skypad 2008 Study, Malaysia ranks with the highest in percentage of users among the nine countries surveyed in Asia Pacific who uses the Internet to purchase travel-related items. Up to 82% of Malaysian Internet users have purchased travel items online. Apart from that, shopping for books is also high on the list with 69% of them.
However, for businesses wanting to hop on the online bandwagon, Acmamall.com Sdn Bhd chief executive officer Christopher Quek says it may not be smooth sailing. “Online stores which wish to be successful must be able to ride out the initial stages. Malaysian customers still like to see, touch and feel and generally take a long time to trust online stores.
“We noticed that Malaysians will make a few small purchases before shopping for bigger amounts. They also ask many questions before finally making a purchase.”
Acmamall.com is an online shopping mall based in five countries which sells over 1.5 million books, beauty products, DVDs, music CDs, flowers, magazines, chocolates and healthcare products. It will soon tie up with Etiqa Insurance & Takaful Bhd for online car insurance renewal services which will be launched in due course.
In 2008, sales rose 35% from the previous year and that too, despite the softening economy. “We have expanded our products and markets significantly,” says Quek.
Many conventional brick and mortar retailers, having noticed more e-shopping sites appearing online, are also taking advantage of this trend by setting up their respective online shopping portals.
Fundsupermart.com, Singapore’s biggest online unit trust distributor, has made its way into the Malaysian market but local consumers are yet to warm up to the concept of online funds compared to those in developed economies.
eBay Inc director Allis Ghim, who oversees the Southeast Asian market from Singapore, expects more people to scour great deals or bargains online.

Allis Ghim ... Our fixed price formats allow buyers to purchase items quickly and conveniently.

She points to a study conducted by ComScore in January this year which revealed that global Internet usage has reached over one billion unique visitors with 41.3% coming from the Asia Pacific region.
“Our total gross merchandise value (or total value of successfully closed listings on eBay’s trading platforms) was US$60bil in 2008 compared to over US$59bil in 2007,” she says.
eBay is the top online shopping destination in Malaysia which allows shoppers to buy goods from locals and foreign countries including the United States, UK and Germany.
“Our fixed price formats allow buyers to purchase items quickly and conveniently, while auction formats give buyers the thrill of a good bargain,” Ghim says, adding that popular goods bought online include clothes, accessories, books, toys, hobby-related items, consumer electronics and home stuff.
The top four categories in the fourth quarter last year were consumer electronics (US$6.9bil), computers (US$3.6bil), clothing & accessories (US$5bil) and home and garden (US$3.8bil).
eBay is uniquely positioned as the world’s leading online marketplace with a global presence in 39 markets and about 86.3 million active users worldwide. There are 113 million concurrent listings in over 50,000 categories.
Lelong.com operator Interbase Resources Sdn Bhd co-founder Wei Kwok Seing expects interest in second-hand items to increase moving forward. Wei points out that computers and accessories, fashion, custom jewellery, cellphones and accessories, games devices and home appliances are most popular in its website.
But if there is one impediment to online shopping, it would be concerns over its security or lack of it. Xceed Enterprise owner Martin Chong agrees saying that many consumers feel “insecure” making online transactions for this reason.
(Xceed operates batterytechsolutions.com which has been providing battery and power solutions-related products online since May 2006. It drew in sales of RM60,000 in March, which grew from RM35,000 in February, largely from the United States, Canada and Europe).
“Local consumers are more conservative and less confident about online security but it is certainly gaining popularity among the younger generation,” he says.
A major appeal for setting up online businesses is that it’s convenient, easy to do and cheaper (no rental fee, to state the obvious).
S-emart.com operator Swee Kai Keong says sellers can post their products online after registration without having to pay anything on the e-shopping site. His website sells over 14,000 items such as electrical, clothes, fashion accessories, toys and DVD with over 300 active sellers.
He promotes the website through advertisements, forum postings and email, and his consumers comprise mainly those between ages 15 and 35.

30% of Malaysian Internet users shop online

A RECENT survey conducted by The Nielsen Company on online shopping habits reveals that about 30% of Malaysian Internet users have conducted online purchases.
The survey was conducted on 500 Malaysian Internet users. Of the items purchased online, airline tickets and reservations top the list at 55%, followed by tour or holiday reservations at 41% and computer hardware at 22%.
Meanwhile, 21% of the surveyed Internet users purchased books online and 18% used the Internet to buy event tickets.
“The Internet is no longer a niche technology. It is mass media and an utterly integral part of modern life,” says Nielsen Malaysia’s director of online research Linda Lim.
“Almost no aspect of life remains untouched by online media. It isn’t surprising that consumers turn to the convenience of the internet when it comes to researching and buying products,” she says, adding that Internet has opened up a whole new world of shopping.
An avid e-shopper couldn’t agree more. She says: “I make my payments direct to the account and it only takes about a day or two for the goods to be delivered.
It’s easy and fast. Plus, you don’t have to drive around in circles looking for a parking space, walk around for hours battling human traffic, only to go home empty handed and exhausted.’’

E-Commerce in Malaysia

From: http://www.ecommercereport.com.au/?p=938

Malaysian ecommerce gets boost with Paypal now accepted at local eBay marketplace

A Malaysian satay hawker

In Australia, online transactions from Malaysia are still black-listed by many payment gateway providers because of historically high levels of fraud.

But there is little doubt that within Malaysia, ecommerce and online shopping are both growing rapidly, albeit from a small base.

Major international ecommerce players are starting to take note.

Last month, for example, eBay announced that PayPal payments in local currency (Ringgit) would be accepted on its local online marketplace at www.ebay.com.my

Google too is taking an increasing interest in the Malaysian market, and reportedly claims some 30,000 Malaysian web sites now in its content network.

The country also boasts a relatively high (i.e for SE Asia) level of Internet use, with a claimed 66% penetration rate.

Broadband take-up is somewhat lower however, with perhaps 35% penetration.

Even so, 3G mobile wireless access is relatively cheap and widely available. (Leading providers such as Celcom or Digimax sell unlimited data access for under RM 100 a month, and will throw in a free USB modem on any plan.)

Of course, ecommerce is more complicated than just setting up a website, with online payment perhaps the biggest hurdle.

And it seems clear that, whilst the web is increasingly popular, and many small businesses are venturing onto the web, relatively few are ecommerce enabled, or able to accept online payments.

iPay88.com, for example, claims to be the country’s leading online payments provider for Business to Consumer (B2C) merchants, with around 2000 users.

Whether that is true or not is hard to judge, but it is interesting and perhaps significant that the company appears to be a subsidiary of a mobile phone technology developer.

Mobile phone penetration is clearly very high, and their use ubiquitous (riding a motorcycle one-handed whilst the other is used for texting, for example, is not an altogether uncommon sight).

The government linked organization, Malaysian Electronic Payment System (MEPS), which provides ATM switching for the nations banks, also offers an online payment gateway service.

It is called FPX but appears to be essentially an Internet banking overlay, rather than a fully-fledged gateway, so that only local Internet banking account holders would be able to use it.

Moreover not all local banks appear to be participating.

(For more information go to www.meps.com.my)

Nevertheless, leading web-site building software providers, such as netbuilder.com.my appear to list a number of different online payment providers and services.

And momentum is clearly building.

Over at the official Malaysian domain name registry (www.domainregistry.my) the total number of local domain names registered has now hit the 100,000 mark, with more than 70% of them in the commercial, com.my registry.

However another 20% or more are registered directly at the top level, including the domain registrar itself.

Of course, an unknown but clearly significant number of Malaysian web-sites and domain name licensees prefer the global dot.com domain for the Internet ID.

At a guess, and judging from billboards and general display advertising there would be at least as many Malaysian dot.com sites as those registered with the local country code.

Online advertising in Malaysia is nonetheless still in its infancy.

A recent report here suggested that the online channel attracted only around 1% of the total annual ad spend of RM6.6billion last year.

In other areas, such as online recruitment, there is clearly more happening.

Jobstreet is the leading player in this area and claims an 85% market share with 17,000 jobs listed each month on its site.

The company this week reported healthy and growing profits. Net profit was said to have come in at RM26.8million for the financial year ended December 31 2009, on revenues of RM92.3million.

Profit for the first quarter of 2010 was RM8.7million, compared with RM5.6million in the same quarter last year.

JobStreet CEO Mark Chan reportedly said the company had recently acquired a stake in a Taiwanese online job site called ‘104 corporation’ and had also won a contract with the Singapore government to handle its online recruitment classifieds.

Another sector with clearly significant potential is online gaming.

As we reported last week, the Malaysian government recently announced a license for sports betting, both over the phone and online, has been granted to the local company – Ascot corporation.

The decision has prompted something of an outcry from religious and other groups, and seems certain to be opposed in at least some of the Malaysian states.

Even so, the decision arguably acknowledges the reality that sports betting is already a huge underground business activity.

Indeed one estimate for the profits of underground bookies during the last Soccer world cup back in 2006 was some RM1 million.

Deputy Home Minister, Datuk Lee Chee Leong, was reported as having told the parliament this week that police would be cracking-down on syndicates running online casino’s and online sports betting during the World Cup.

He reportedly said that police had conducted 21,985 raids on online gaming syndicates between 2008 and April this year, and that the raids had resulted in the seizure of some 112,276 computers and the arrest of some 15,106 syndicate members.

For more information go to

www.meps.com.my

www.domainregistry.my

www.ip88.com

www.ebay.com.my

www.jobstreet.com.my

www.netbuilder.com.my

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Thursday, October 14, 2010

Looking for Fashion

Fashion afficiondos are using the Internet to search for things they are want.

Check out this blog:

From: http://www.dreamdot.net/hair/color/where-may-i-purchase-jost-bags-in-singapore.html

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Filipino online boutique- StyleBreak

Here is a Filipino online boutique, hosted on Multiply which is a sort of a social networking site that allows users to share, blog, etc.

Some things here sound familiar with Malaysian and Singaporean blogshops:

1. This store is run by a young adult, a female about college age.

2. The store is on the Multiply site (a type of social media), which offers FREE HOSTING. There is no shopping cart but they do manual processing of orders and payment is via bank transfers (looks like a blogshop!)... for some reason, Multiple looks to be a popular option for Filipino online boutique owners (see more examples at the bottom of this post)

3. It has a Facebook page which serves as a marketing tool, although no sales occur here.

4. The owner has added a brick store.

5. The business leverages multiple channels and contact points- blog, Multiply site, main store, Tumblr, Plurk Facebook, etc.

I think we see a common theme here in that these are YOUNG WOMEN who are leveraging all kinds of social media to set up fashion businesses.

In Malaysia, blogs and Facebook are huge, so are Lelong, eBay and Lowyat. In Singapore, blogs are the main outlets, while in the Philippines, Multiply seems to be big.

So the choice of these channels are probably due to contextualization factors.

The online store: http://stylebreak.multiply.com/

The Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stylebreak/111268595563694?v=info

News article about Style Break
http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/280931/online-stores-are-seeing-wisdom-bricks-and-mortar

Online Stores are Seeing the Wisdom of Bricks and Mortar

OFFLINE SHOPPING

By LIZ ANNE BAUTISTA

October 7, 2010, 2:51pm

Online shopping can be tricky business, not just for the entrepreneurs, but especially for the consumers. Of course, not every transaction is a disaster, but although convenient for the most part, there is however the possibility of going through a few of the following hassles: the items don’t fit, the items don’t look as nice as they were on the photo, or, at the very worst, the items just don’t arrive at all. Some stores have come and gone, but there are some good ones who seem to thrive and, amazingly, evolve.

StyleBreak has been one of the online boutiques that have done well. Through its trendy, affordable, and limited pieces, as well as its reliability in its transactions, the store has built a cult following from the young crowd, celebrities, and fashion industry regulars.

Last year, the Manila Bulletin interviewed one of the owners, Laureen Uy, youngest sister to Preview magazine’s Liz and Vince, about her then up-and-coming online store. Still in college at that time, Uy mentioned that they had no plans of opening a boutique. Recently, though, we’ve met up with the young and stylish entrepreneur at StyleBreak’s new showroom in Eastwood, something the owners Uy and Katina Loring have opened as a supplement to their online boutique.

Manila Bulletin: What made you decide to open a showroom? I remember last year you mentioned that you have no plans of putting up a physical boutique. What has changed?

Laureen Uy: Well, we don’t want a drastic change like putting up a store right away, but everyone was asking if we had a store that they can visit to try on our clothes. Of course it’s hard to know the sizes if you only have an online store, right? So, we thought putting up a small showroom would be the best for now. Now, it’s super convenient for everyone.

MB: Do you think that putting up a showroom in support of your online boutique helped the business in one way or another?

LU: Definitely. Rather than shipping the items via Fedex, more people prefer to just visit our showroom and try on stuff. And they usually end up buying more! For example, one customer likes only one item, goes to our showroom, and buys five items instead!

MB: Except for the showroom, how is StyleBreak different then from now? Do you have people now helping you out? Or is it still you and Katrina taking care of everything?

LU: Before it used to be really just me and my business partner doing all the work. Now, we have a supplier. Of course, we still design and make the clothes, but since were trying to expand, we have more items available now. What’s good about StyleBreak, though, is that we only make limited pieces per item, so that you won’t go walking around the mall thinking you’ll bump into a girl wearing the same thing.

MB: What can we expect next from StyleBreak?

LU: Our next collection will be the bomb! Just wait for it!

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Other Filipino online boutiques on Multiply:

http://redzville.multiply.com/

http://parnellaboutique.multiply.com/photos/album/174/Payment_Mode

http://mlafashionsupplies.multiply.com/

http://ukaymanilastore.multiply.com/

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Some info about the popularity of Multiply in the Philippines:

Multiply is a top 5 site in the Philippines, and 39% of Multiply's traffic comes from the Philippines. Over 3.5 million Filipinos are on Multiply out of the 12 million or so users.

From Techcrunch: http://techcrunch.com/2007/11/07/multiply-big-in-the-philippines-lands-ad-deal/

Multiply Big In The Philippines, Lands Ad Deal

Nick GonzalezNov 7, 2007

Multiply

has been growing rather quietly internationally. The social media aggregator now has 7 million registered users and 10.5 million monthly unique visitors according to their internal numbers, nearly triple their 2006 traffic. Comscore’s most recent numbers show 12.5 million uniques for September.

The service acts like a meta social network where users can collect and share content from multiple social sites (photos, video, blogs). See our earlier comparison with Vox. Users post 1.25 million photos, 16,000 videos and 55,000 blog entries daily. However, while the U.S. is home to the largest share of their registered users, most of their traffic is international.

The Philippines is one of the most pronounced examples of their large international following. Alexa ranks Multiply as the 5th largest site in the Philippines – with more than 2 million unique monthly visitors. We had earlier reported that 39% of the site’s traffic comes from the Philippines. Therefore it’s no surprise that they’ve managed to land a multi-year ad deal with one of the Philippine’s largest networks, ABS-CBN. ABS-CBN has 67 televisions stations, 19 radio stations, 30 websites and reaches 97% of the Filipinos with televisions. Under terms of the agreement, ABS-CBN interactive will sell advertising and mobile services for Multiply’s Filipino users, with the two companies sharing revenues.

The deal highlights the importance of international markets U.S. press often take for granted. Sites like Friendster and Orkut have found large international followings

while their U.S. markets are dormant. With a global internet, foreign markets are expected to become even more important in the future. According to

research firm Datamonitor Plc., by the end of this year, Asia will account for 35% of the world’s social networking users, with 28% of users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, 25% in North America, and 12% in the Caribbean and Latin America. Once again, startups concerned about getting big may want to get international.

Another article from: http://pinoybusiness.org/2009/03/29/multiply-another-popular-online-social-network-for-filipinos/

Online social networking? Name it and chances are Filipinos are in it, and Multiply is no exception.

In fact, according to Multiply founder Peter Pezaris, out of Multiplyâ€™s 12.5 million subscribers worldwide, 3.5 million are based in the Philippines. He said that the Philippines is the second largest market for Multiply in the world, next to the United States.

For this reason, tech whizzes from Boca Raton, Florida, thought it is a good idea to make the Philippine a key market for social networking and content sharing site Multiply. They have already set up an office in Manila and is working to further beef up its presence in the country as it enters into a partnership with ABS-CBN Interactive.

â€œWeâ€™re working more closely with ABS-CBN and weâ€™re setting up a Manila presence. Weâ€™re also ramping up promotions for Multiply Mobile, which will now feature an MMS posting capability,â€� Pezaris said.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Cheeky Boo

Here are the digital prints from a mom in Kota Kinabalu. She has a blog that is about her family (and especially dedciated to her child), an e-commerce store that is born of her love/passion for children's clothing and a Facebook page.

This is pretty obvious that her online business is just one part of her life, that it emerged out of her desire to share a little of herself with others who have similar life experiences.

Also notice that she does not have a blogshop, as her store is a proper e-commerce site. Yet she still has so much in common with other blogshop owners.

Thus we postulate that a blogshop is just ONE of many ways in which a female entrepreneur can do business online.

E-commerce store: http://mycheekyboo.com/pages/My-Story.html

Blog: http://wirahwanniewatari.blogspot.com/

Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/MyCheekyBoo#!/MyCheekyBoo?v=info

The following is a press release from TNS following its study on Digital Life (same one reported by BBC ina previous post)

From: http://discoverdigitallife.com/global-digital-life-research-project-reveals-major-changes-in-online-behaviour/

Global ‘Digital Life’ research project reveals major changes in online behaviour

New website showcases data from largest ever online research project covering 46 countries and 90% of world’s online population

Launched on ‘digital day’, first survey reveals major differences in online attitudes and behaviour:

Online is now the media of choice
Mature markets being left behind online as emerging markets become more active
Increase in mobile use as consumers seek greater access to social networking on the go

London – 10/10/10 – The largest ever global research project into people’s online activities and behaviour – Digital Life – was launched today, ‘digital day’ by TNS, the world’s biggest custom research company.

Covering nearly 90 per cent of the world’s online population through 50,000 interviews with consumers in 46 countries, the study reveals major changes in the world’s online behaviour.

Core data from the study is being made publicly available via an interactive website – www.discoverdigitallife.com
“This study covers more than twice as many markets as any other research.” said TNS Chief Development Officer Matthew Froggatt. “It is the first truly global research into online activities, including all the key emerging markets of the BRICs and many of the ‘Next 11′. We have also researched beyond basic behaviour to provide more detailed data into attitudes and emotional drivers of that behaviour.”

“We are confident that Digital Life will become the new benchmark for information on online consumer behaviour,” continued Froggatt. “Making a lot of this publicly available was an important first step for us and obviously we have a wealth of further information behind those basic statistics covering the wider digital landscape, attitudes to brands and the path to purchase which we will offer to clients.”

Among the key findings of the study are:

Globally, people who have on-line access have digital sources as their number one media channel. 61% of online users use the internet daily against 54% for TV, 36% for Radio and 32% for Newspapers.
Online consumers in rapid growth markets have overtaken mature markets in terms of engaging with digital activities. When looking at behaviour online, rapid growth markets such as Egypt (56%) and China (54%) have much higher levels of digital engagement than mature markets such as Japan (20%), Denmark (25%) or Finland (26%). This is despite mature markets usually having a more advanced internet infrastructure.
Activities such as blogging and social networking are gaining momentum at huge speed in rapid growth markets. The research shows four out of five online users in China (88%) and over half of those in Brazil (51%) have written their own blog or forum entry, compared to only 32% in the US. The Internet has also become the default option for photo sharing among online users in rapid growth markets, particularly in Asia. The number of online consumers who have ever uploaded photos to social networks or photo sharing sites is 92% in Thailand, 88% in Malaysia and 87% in Vietnam, whilst developed markets are more conservative. Less than a third of online consumers in Japan (28%) and under half of those in Germany (48%) have uploaded photos to such sites.
Growth in social networking has been fuelled by the transition from PC to mobile. Mobile users spend on average 3.1 hours per week on social networking sites compared to just 2.2 hours on email. The drive to mobile is driven by the increased need for instant gratification and the ability of social networks to offer multiple messaging formats, including the instant message or update function. When looking at how the digital landscape will change in the future, research shows that consumers expect their use of social networking on mobiles to increase more than use through PC. In the US, for example, a quarter (26%) of online consumers expect their use of social networking on a PC to increase in the next 12 months compared to over a third (36%) who will be looking to their mobile to increase usage. In Australia the figures are 26% and 44% respectively, and in Sweden they are 28% and 53%.

About TNS

About Kantar

www.kantar.com

Malaysians are big users of social networks

This study shows that Malaysia ranks number 1 in terms of social network usage. Malaysians have the most number of friends on average.

I think what this means is that Malaysians tend to add a lot of casual acquaintances to their friends' list, or even people we don't really know perhaps. So our social network usage is open but not deep. This also bodes well for people who want to use Facebook storefronts to sell their wares because it means a higher likelihood that strangers will add them on their friends' lists.

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11501625

10 October 2010 Last updated at 09:44 GMT

Japan has fewest digital friends

More people are accessing news via digital means Malaysians have the most friends on their social networks, while Japanese users have the fewest.

This is one of the findings of a large-scale research project, looking at online behaviour around the globe.
It also found that digital sources are overtaking TV, radio and newspapers as the media channel of choice for 61% of the online population around the world.

The study, conducted by research firm TNS, interviewed 50,000 consumers in 46 countries for the study.
In Malaysia the average number of friends is 233, closely followed by 231 in Brazil and 217 in Norway.

This contrasts to an average of just 29 friends in Japan, and 68 in China.

The results could suggest "a culture that embraces fewer but closer friendships," thinks TNS's chief development officer Matthew Froggatt.

As well as having the most friends, Malaysians are also the heaviest users of social networking sites, spending an average of nine hours per week on them.

It is followed by Russia, where people spend an average 8.1 hours per week online and Turkey where 7.7 hours a week are spent on social networks.

Socially mobile

The study found that consumers are now spending more time on social networking sites than using e-mail.
This is fuelled in part by the rise in mobile net access.

In the US, a third of online consumers expect to be accessing social networks via their mobile phones over the next 12 months, compared to a quarter via a PC.

In Sweden, over half said they would access social networks via mobile and just a quarter cited the traditional PC.

National crisis

The importance of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter is being explored in a separate study at the University of East London.

Researchers are using three British cities - London, Birmingham and Carlisle, to study whether social networks could help save lives in the event of a national crisis.

"We are working on the premise that, as technological advances continue, the traditional mediums of television and radio may become usurped in their potency in terms of delivering important messages to society at large," said Professor John Preston, who is leading the project.

The TNS study, which the researchers hope will become an annual project, also found that countries newer to the digital world are embracing online activities at a faster rate to those in more mature markets.

In China four out of five users have written their own blog, compared to only 32% in the US.

"In rapid growth markets...users are embracing these new channels in much more active ways. The digital world is transforming how they live, develop and interact," said Mr Froggatt.

Blogshops Project

Friday, October 15, 2010