EVERY MALAYSIAN ONLINE SELLER MUST READ THIS – The Real Reason Why Our Products Are Not Selling Online

Like you, I too have tried everything!

Expensive e-commerce sites (more than once), a good inventory of stocks, facebook ads, google ads, keywords, hashtags, SEOs, Online E-Commerce Store (Shopify), advice from consultants, online and offline courses and seminars, books, and anything else most online sellers do to get a sale, but nada. Nothing! Only money spent on intangible assets, such as the websites, that cannot even be traded or resold. There is literally no asset left behind when we shut an online store (apart from the physical stock, if at all).

So what is this hype we are all hearing about people making big money online when all we have heard generally, all over the internet is just this one question – “How to sell online?” This means millions of people out there are in the same shoes as us, the ones who have tried everything, and still did not succeed in making many or any sales that we wished we did. Not to mention the mental, emotional and physical toll it has left on us. Exhausted from trying, (and even facebook was still getting their act together in 2010 and did not have many ‘share’ features as they have now, nor Groups to share your stuff which could have helped), I opened a brick and mortar retail shop that had a very low rental rate (most of the money was spent on setting up the online shop and producing the products), only to sustain the business, – to sell the stock of t-shirts that I had printed thousands of (no one does this unless he is a popular personality, company or product). This was in 2010, when e-commerce was only beginning to pop its head out. Malaysia was not ready to trade online then.

But that’s what I thought, until today, 18 July 2017. It appears that Malaysia is still not ready to completely and unconditionally embrace e-commerce. This is our finding from reading multiple reports, mostly Malaysian, and some about Malaysia but written elsewhere. This article aims to give the online seller or retailer some of the facts and possible reasons why thousands of independent e-commerce stores in Malaysia are actually not selling much online. The display of the many ads on facebook that show companies and individuals advertising their services on how to get more traffic, engagement, and conversion, and therefore sales, is only proof that millions of us, online sellers, are in the same boat – and this boat is not going to stay afloat long enough for the customer to come with his ‘life-saving’ wallet if something is not done. The threats are greater for us independent and small online sellers when the Mega Marketplaces, local and foreign, are capable of literally washing out all the small traders in this space. It is already happening. Examples of what happens in the physical world will happen in the virtual world – someone will try to monopolise or dominate. And I hear, that the mother of all Marketplaces shall grace us Malaysians in the very near future with her high-tech and fancy delivery systems – Amazon. Can an independent online seller possibly compete with such giants? Even the current Malaysian Marketplace giants will have a run for their money.

Malaysian’s Trust Online Buying – Just Not The Small Guys

At the time of writing this, a research is being conducted to collect some real data based on the following questions:

1.    Do you trust online shopping?

2.    Have you bought anything online?

3.    If Yes, was it from a popular Marketplace or independent seller?

4.    Have you bought anything online but did not receive the product?

Here is the interesting thing that I have not come across in any reports so far that has come through in this particular research:

Malaysians do trust online buying. The problem is, they generally only trust the popular Marketplaces that advertise heavily. They actually still do not trust the independent online stores. This article is based on this one and crucial finding that many online gurus have neglected to mention to, especially, the Malaysian online seller.

We will provide the full report on this research at a later time as the feedback is still coming back to us.

Trust me, I’m an online seller

Doesn’t that sound absurd enough? Our job is not one that can gain trust from strangers immediately as can a doctor or a priest. A doctor or a priest, by virtue of their professions [of showing care and kindness] can be trusted a little more easily than an ordinary business trader. 

Any and every relationship is based on trust. Without it – nothing happens – just like our online checkout accounts. If someone who has never known us or have heard of us wishes to conduct business with us, the crucial element of trust is required. The idea of trust is so ancient and ingrained in us that we have forgotten that it is the silent observer and decider of our actions and behaviour. Beyond a conscious decision, a person needs to ‘feel’ trust, instead of ‘think’ trust. This is the feeling we need to create in the hearts of the potential buyers.

I have identified “trust” as Malaysia’s main issue when buying online stuff from unknown or independent online sellers. This is why no matter how much money we spend on ads, and no matter how great our ads may look, and no matter what else we do, we still do not get the desired sales volumes. Most online sellers who advertise in facebook say that the advertising spend outweighs the sales they receive, making this sales channel redundant or useless.

I have used facebook ads on many occasions over the years, and for various products and services. Have you noticed that despite setting your target audience to Malaysia ‘only’, we still get Page Likes from Indonesia, Singapore and Philippines? The other things to look out for are the pictures and names of the people who ‘Like’ the many sponsored or advertised pages – they seem to have the same people repeated (i.e. same people 'Liking' the many Pages that are advertised)! This means that these people are not potential buyers; they are paid to ‘Like’ the Pages and posts of companies and individual sellers who advertise in facebook – giving us the ‘illusion’ that our ads are popular, but sadly, no sale. Facebook ads are only good for getting more Page Likes. When we advertised Socialnetworkmerchandise.com on facebook many years back, we managed to get more than 5000 Likes! But yet, not a single sale or comment. You can apply what happens here to most of the other online advertising platforms. They are all only after our cash. There was once we advertised in facebook and received a whooping bill of RM5000! That too in only five days! Yet, absolutely No Sale – No conversions.

So how do we go around this problem then, I hear you ask?

Some internet marketing expert, and there are billions everywhere now, say that ‘story-telling’ is effective? What do you think, after reading so far? Ok, yes, you got it – It can work. So it seems that we will have to now create ‘stories’ as content in order to first create ‘trust’, and then maybe hope to get a sale.

In our case (www.socialnetworkmerchandise.com); people were not buying online in 2010, and I was not sure if it was the product or the sales channels that was at fault. I dreaded to think that it would be my product, as I had thousands of them, and needed to find another way to sell them. As already stated, I took up a small and low rental shop – just for visibility, and some people walked in and bought some tees as the shop was located across a popular grocery store. Now I was more confident about the desirability of the product, you see I had not done a focus group study on my designs, but they would be popular as they were based on our facebook status. People get to wear their statuses physically on tees and connect with physical people. It is bringing the online experience offline. Now knowing that our tees could actually sell in a marketplace, I decided to do something radical that no one else had ever done, with the help of a good friend. We decided to go loud and public! I believed now that the product could sell, we only needed to place them "in front of eyeballs". We held our first

Roadshow

This was a turning point for me as an entrepreneur, and someone trying to make an online business happen. The brand of my product would be my website's name, so that each tee works as a marketing tool. There is an interesting story on the name of my first domain which got me into some trouble with facebook Inc. directly, which I will share with you in another post in the future. Please do Like our facebook Page to stay updated.

Coming back to the Roadshow, and the turning point in my life as an entrepreneur. We laid out a long table and placed about five hundred t-shirts on and below it [as stock], – we were at a very popular and upmarket mall in KLCC. It was the deciding moment for me; all my efforts will either be appreciated or squashed if the general public did not like my t-shirt business idea. This would end everything. I remember sitting there at about 5PM, after we had finished setting up the display table and the promotional materials. The staff and promoters were all ready; the crowd was scanty about that time. We waited, and waited. No one came to our table. The few people who were there at that hour, passed us by without a glance. I felt my heart drop. What if no one buys anything? I thought to myself. What if no one likes this idea altogether? What if they just stood there and had a good laugh at my allegedly great idea, I thought? But what seemed like the longest wait, with so many useless thoughts passing through my head all at once, was merely a ten-minute wait. Yes, people started coming to our table shortly after we opened shop, and the crowd grew as workers came for food and drinks in the area we were at. Then, the magic happened...

The touch and feel experience is important yet

In no time at all, our table was filled with people, as you would have fish come to you when fed. It was non-stop sales, and we managed to sell a substantial number of t-shirts in a matter of hours. I’m talking about hundreds sold within minutes. No one could believe his or her eyes, least of all me. No one had seen a rush for t-shirts like this. I thought I was dreaming. After this event, we held a few more roadshows at this same location and garnered the same response. There were times that the buyers would not let us close our stand even at 4AM! Without literally taking my products to town and letting people “touch and feel” the product was the cause of “No sale”. If we did not do that, we would have also thought that the idea was not good. This is why; in as much as online selling and buying is becoming popular, it is only “becoming” popular, it is not popular yet in terms of complete buyers’ trust. The stores that do well are generally located within popular Marketplaces, and these Marketplaces advertise themselves heavily only to gain brand recall and trust, which the independent seller is unable to do. The reason why anyone advertises since the old days is only to gain trust. Not to mention that they also have permanent addresses, nice offices, employ many staff, offer great customer care and return policies, topped with guaranteed, free, and timely deliveries.

Seeing this response, I realised that Malaysians may have other apprehensions in online buying, and apart from my own experience, I will also include research material from other sources and interviews by some Malaysian e-commerce icons who also have stated that Malaysians still have a trust issue.  Other useful online buyer statistics and advise will also be provided in my following articles.

I will also take you on a journey on why and how I created Malaysia's First T-Shirt Vending Machine as part of my online and offline sales and marketing strategy which really worked! (Far better than online).

The article by NST (July 16th, 2017) who interviewed the co-founder of Malaysian-based Online E-Commerce Store provider, WebShaper, had this to say when asked:

WOULD YOU SAY E-COMMERCE HAS BY NOW BEEN COMMONLY ACCEPTED BY LOCAL CONSUMERS?

Yes and no. Yes in terms of buying behaviour which has slowly but surely shifted online. Lots of young people buy things online. But even so, e-commerce sales are estimated to be about five per cent of total retail sales. So, we have a long way to go. 

This only means that 95% of our target audience is not shopping online and is not sold to.

Article written by:

Joy Nandy

Founder: Socialnetworkmerchandise.com

Inventor: Malaysia’s First T-Shirt Vending Machine (Google)

Inventor: The World’s First Shared Vending Marketplace – Sell your products in Vending Machines

Malaysia's First T-Shirt Vending Machine by Social Network Merchandise.com on National TV News

We have successfully sold our t-shirts in a Vending Machine – Now we can help you sell your products in our Vending Machines too! Join our new 'Shared Vending Marketplace' and sell your products to millions of people at popular malls and locations. Remember, online sales constitute only 5% of the total Retail Sales in Malaysia – 95% of your target audience is still offline and shop at malls, etc. Please email us for more information.