Marketing is a very important part of every business. In today’s competitive business world, business owners and marketers are always seeking new marketing strategies to promote and sell their products or services to achieve their goals effectively.
However, the world is changing rapidly; consumer behaviour and interest are changing too due to the emergence of new trends on different platforms. Are you following the right marketing trend for your business?
No worries, MarketingFest 2021 – Asia’s Largest Marketing Conference is back!
MarketingFest is back with an online series that aims to help businesses and marketers equip more with the latest marketing trends, strategies and solutions.
This year, we are making MarketingFest 2021 even grander! MarketingFest will be presented differently compared to the previous MarketingFest in 2020.
This 6-day momentous event will dish out new marketing strategies that focus on three different aspects to the audience in Southeast Asia.
What Will You Learn?
You will get to learn ultimate marketing tips and tricks through three different series as follows:
Series 1: Advertising
Advertising Strategies are developed to communicate ideas about products and services to potential customers to convince them to make a purchase.
By joining this series, you will get to learn from the experts on how to create successful advertisements.
Series 2: Data & Insights
A successful data strategy is able to provide insights that enable more informed decision making and goal setting and develop new growth opportunities.
Leading digital analytics experts will share how to effectively use data and analytics to generate actionable insights for your marketing strategies.
Series 3: Influencer & Social Media Marketing
In an ever-changing world of social media, it’s quite easy to fall off the wagon with your social media strategy.
The steady stream of new updates, features, and websites are enough to confuse business owners.
Still, staying on top of social media trends has its rewards. Join us to master social media marketing and accelerate your online business.
Event details:
Date: 14-15 September 2021 – Series #1: Advertising
21-22 September 2021 – Series #2: Data & Insights
28-29 September 2021 – Series #3: Influencer & Social Media Marketing
Time: 9:00am – 12.00pm (GMT +8)
Venue: Zoom
Check out the speakers of this event!
and many more upcoming!
Mark your calendar! Get ready to join us on this exciting event and learn everything you need!
Advertisement is a strategy often used by brands to enhance brand awareness and exposure and reach more target audiences. Today, everything is going digital, and advertising is all over online platforms. What should brands do to stand out from the overload of online adverts?
In this webinar, we are pleased to have invited Shanker Joyrama, founder and CEO of Orion Digital and Beng Lim, founder of #dropthetop to share with us their winning advertising strategies to attract more traffic.
The speaker (Shanker Joyrama) of the webinar.The speaker (Beng Lim) of the webinar.
In Shanker’s session, he shared how to create storytelling adverts and how storytelling creates brand love. In Beng’s session, she shared her experiences gaining traffic with content on different social media platforms and established her brand.
Check out the key takeaways from this webinar.
Session 1: The Art of Storytelling to Create Brand Love
1. What Is Storytelling Content
Storytelling has started to evolve and is widely used in advertisements because storytelling adverts bring more value to the brand, especially for start-ups and SMEs. Consumers are more likely to enjoy adverts that tell a story because people do not want to be hard sold a product or service. They would rather see a story that they can relate to and make their own decision of whether to purchase the product or service.
2. Raise Awareness through Adverts
When creating storytelling adverts, you may mention an issue affecting society to show that your brand is standing up for things that are right. Customers are more likely to buy from a brand that takes a position on an issue happening in society. They are known to resonate with a cause or believe it resonates with them, such as #benderaputih (the white flag campaign).
3. Storytelling Comes in Different Forms
In the digital era, we can create storytelling adverts in various forms. They can be text, photo, video, animation, or many other forms. Using different forms to promote or introduce your products or services through a story instead of traditional methods shows the function of your products or services, which can attract audiences more effectively.
4. Tell the Story Across Avenues
Storytelling is a journey. To make your storytelling successful, you need to look at it from a 360-degree perspective. Think and plan comprehensively. Look at all the avenues you can use to communicate and reach out to your audiences and tell your story consistently across those avenues. Eventually, you will increase your brand awareness and gain more revenue.
5. Focus on the Target Market
When using storytelling as a marketing strategy, you may run out of ideas or feel exhausted from telling a story. Therefore, you may need to find new ideas by focusing on your target audiences. Create and tell a story that resonates with the target market. Create content based on your audiences, not just your product.
Session 2: Attracting Traffic Through Organic Reach
6. YouTube
YouTube is good for brand awareness, brand exposure, brand stories, and brand association. Placing one of your products in the video is very helpful. Even if the video does not focus on your brand only, product placement will increase your brand exposure.
Repetition is a good way to help people learn about your brand through YouTube. It will make people aware of your brand by showing it to them several times, triggering them to learn more.
7. Instagram
There are a variety of ways to produce content on Instagram, such as reels, stories, posts, and carousels, allowing your audience to interact with your brand. Reels can help increase your audience; stories are an effective way to engage with your audience through polls or questions; posts can help with organic reach if you use the correct popular hashtags; and carousels can increase engagement and likes. All these Instagram functions play a role in effectively building your brand.
8. Content Objectives
While posting content, you need to make sure you have an objective for the post. Before you publish the content, ask yourself, “What objective am I trying to achieve with this content? Will it enhance my brand value or increase sales?” Crafting content with an objective will help you with your brand achievement. You can have different objectives for each piece of content, such as educating, strengthening engagement, or selling.
9. Account Interactions
On Instagram, you can Interact with other similar accounts by commenting on their posts. Potential customers might see your comments. Some people will just get interested in your comment and visit your profile. That is how you get new customers.
10. TikTok
TikTok is one of the fastest-growing platforms in the world. Not only is it good for entertainment, but more and more brands are using it as a marketing tool to promote their products through entertainment. TikTok generates different trends, and it is an effective way for brands to attract more traffic through trending videos. For example, our speaker, Beng, used a TikTok transition video to promote her products and successfully gained sales.
11. Personal Brand
A personal brand is a big help for your brand as well. A personal brand is the way people perceive you and a good way to tell your story. Today, we all have an online presence, so we all have a personal brand and can make good use of it.
A good personal brand brings many benefits, including:
More opportunities: A good personal brand leads to more opportunities because people know you and associate you with the things you do. It gives you opportunities for collaboration, partnerships, and networking.
Build trust: A positive personal branding will allow others to build trust in you. People will know that you are capable of doing something, and knowing the face behind the brand will allow them to trust your business, too.
Final Takeaways
Branding is a journey. There is no guarantee that your brand will become famous from the first few adverts. It takes time and effort to make a brand well known. You need to put in the work to craft your advert content (both paid and organic) and fine-tune it so that your adverts attract and resonate with your target audience.
Therefore, it is important to know the market and understand your audience well. To find the most effective content, you need to keep trying different methods and do A/B testing.
During the webinar, both speakers shared their valuable insight on their topic to help you enhance your brand awareness within your target market. The speakers provided different examples of content you can create for your advertisements on different online platforms, giving you an idea of how to practice those strategies in real life.
Watch the full webinar video to learn more about digital advertising strategies!
对我来说，另一个机会在教育领域。现在，很明显，各行各业都在谈论数字化、电子商务、云适用以及各种和 IT 有关的东西。但现实是，我们仍然缺乏足够的人才，不一定说非常优秀但至少对IT，数字营销和电子商务真正了解的人。我们仍然没有生产出足够的产品，或者说我们生产的产品可能与行业或市场真正需要的东西存在差距。
While it is easy to keep thinking about the aforementioned, deciding on your business direction and what business tools you will need is also important.
Nowadays, choosing the best online store builder is not enough. Smart entrepreneurs search for the best eCommerce platform that will work as an ecosystem of tools that seamlessly integrate, giving full control over every aspect of their business and the ability to scale as they grow.
Let’s take a look at the best eCommerce platforms and analyse all the available options for your business.
An eCommerce Platform is a platform that allows you to make sales and fulfil orders regardless of your customers’ location or where they prefer to shop which was enabled by building and creating an online experience.
A true eCommerce Platform is more than a tool that lets you list products and accept payments online which is different from what the majority of people think of.
A true eCommerce platform should allow you to process payments and at the same time you also give you absolute access to all the tools you need to sell online including (but not limited to!) your own online store.
It should be a complete business command centre where you control everything from inventory to marketing.
What Types of eCommerce Platforms are There?
To make your online store available to the public, a hosting solution is a must. Hosting stores your information on a server then lets the internet users visit your site and view all of the content.
Each website is hosted somewhere which means it has dedicated server space from a provider.
Some of the eCommerce platforms have built-in hosting while some require you to use self-hosting or open-source hosting.
a. Hosted
Some website builders offer a hosted platform where there’ll be no more worrying about the mess of self or third-party hosting and the additional fees attached.
Exabytes eCommerce Design, for example, includes website hosting in all of their plans and all their updates are automatic and hassle-free so your website will always be up to date.
Besides, a built-in hosting will save you from problems such as downtime or bug fixing which will disturb your freedom and focus on running your business.
b. Self-hosted
Self-hosted or Non-hosted eCommerce platforms require merchants to use their own server space or spend extra money to pay the rent for space from the hosting provider.
Besides, since you are responsible for website updates, maintenance and bug fixes, self-hosted eCommerce platforms will make ongoing website management complex because you will need a lot of internal resources that you can allocate elsewhere if you can do it differently.
Normally, self-hosted platforms are open source and you need to use a third party to host your website data.
Third-party sourcing options charge fees and these costs can quickly add up because most of the time these hosting services segment their services’ price so those on the lowest plans don’t get much in the way of customer support.
This can leave you in difficult situations at really important times, for example, a sudden traffic boost after unexpected press coverage.
What Types of eCommerce are There?
There are four types of eCommerce: B2C (business-to-consumer), B2B (business-to-business), C2B (consumer-to-business), and C2C (consumer-to-consumer).
B2C: This refers to online selling from a business to an individual consumer. You might also hear people refer to B2C eCommerce as DTC or direct-to-consumer.
B2B: When one business sells to another business online, it’s B2B eCommerce. These transactions include wholesale buying, when the purchasing business intends to resell at a profit, as well as for business use—things like office supplies and equipment.
C2B: Consumers also have selling power, as seen when they sell to businesses. Typically, these transactions are less traditional. A consumer might sell their influence in the form of a featured social post, or they might offer a five-star review in exchange for money.
C2C: Consumers can also sell to one another, a trend that has emerged with the popularity of the sharing economy. Platforms like Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and eBay offer a place to facilitate C2C eCommerce.
Ultimately, the type of eCommerce business you run will help you dictate which is the best eCommerce site for that business.
What Does a Great eCommerce Experience Mean to You?
When you are picking an eCommerce platform and are too deep into the comparison, you can forget why you are picking an eCommerce platform at all.
There is no best choice for everyone but you can look for the right eCommerce platform that can give your customer the best eCommerce experience that makes shopping online feel easy.
Aside from being the best online store builder, what are the business tools those platforms offer? Usually, using a flawless integrated ecosystem that consists of your online store, payment processor, POS and even small business lender is more advantageous.
Exabytes eCommerce platform, for example, has various application integration that can help you manage every aspect of your business and help you to give a better experience towards customers and your team.
The Best Options of eCommerce Platforms for 2022
Here is a review of some of the best eCommerce platforms in 2022 to help you analyse the best option for your business.
Exabytes eCommerce Design
Exabytes eCommerce is a multi-channel e-commerce platform that lets you set up an online store and sell through numerous channels like Shopee, Lazada, Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, LINE, POS System and wholesale.
Exabytes eCommerce comes with a Free domain and hosting.
eCommerce by Exabytes will assist in the centralization of information such as product details, customer information, inventory, and order details.
Exabytes eCommerce offers apps that integrate with third-party service providers to give you even more convenience, such as a live chat app, a marketplace app, a shipping app, and more!
Visit our page to see what other Exabytes eCommerce users are doing with their stores, or listen to what other users have to say in their Success Story interviews to pick up a tip or two.
Shopify
Shopify is one of the best platforms for eCommerce. It comes with complimentary tools and features for multi-channel selling so you can sell directly through your website, your retail store, social media and third-party marketplace, and anywhere suitable within those channels.
Furthermore, Shopify manages every part of your business, and you can create a complete business command centre with our best-in-class array of business tools.
Shopify Pay covers payment processing, Shopify POS manages in-person transactions, and Shopify Fulfillment can assist you to get things into the hands of your customers.
These are just a few of the many powerful tools and apps that are part of the Shopify ecosystem and work together effortlessly. You can also use our wide collection of third-party apps to enhance your Shopify experience even further.
With all of these powerful capabilities, you can start your company with minimal technical know-how and a small budget and grow it into a global online brand.
With all of these powerful features, you can start your business with little technical know-how and a small budget and grow it into a global online brand without switching platforms.
Wix
Wix is a drag-and-drop website builder that also offers web hosting and domain name registration. You can create a basic website for free, but if you want to use Wix’s eCommerce features, you’ll need to switch to a premium plan.
When it comes to eCommerce, Wix provides a few useful features. Merchants may track orders, accept online payments, sell across numerous channels, and develop abandoned cart campaigns using the platform.
However, it is missing some key aspects that are critical for product-based enterprises. Low stock alerts and other important inventory management capabilities are not available.
You’ll need a platform with more extensive inventory monitoring tools if you have more than 10 or so products. Furthermore, social commerce integrations require the use of a third-party app
BigCommerce
BigCommerce is an eCommerce platform that is well-suited to software companies at the enterprise level. BigCommerce, like Shopify and Wix, provides web hosting and a plethora of customization choices.
You won’t be able to register your domain name through BigCommerce, so you’ll have to buy it and register it somewhere else before porting it over.
International selling, SEO tools, and multichannel selling on social and third-party marketplaces are all useful aspects. These tremendous qualities, however, bring with them a level of complexity.
Grace & Lace’s decision to leave the platform was influenced by a lack of flexibility and ease of use. It switched to Shopify Plus, Shopify’s corporate offering, to get more than just the eCommerce platform—the brand rapidly saw the value of having access to Shopify’s whole ecosystem of business tools.
Magento
Magento is a self-hosted eCommerce platform designed for developers that desire a strong, customizable solution. While this has a lot of advantages for firms that want a completely customised platform, it also has a lot of drawbacks in terms of complexity and cost.
To build out and maintain the full infrastructure yourself, you’ll need significant coding and programming expertise.
Magento also lacks the capabilities necessary to implement a multichannel strategy that is seamless.
With Magento, there’s no simple way to enable social commerce or marketplace selling, and the same is true for foreign currencies. If you want to go global, Magento might not be the right eCommerce platform for you.
Despite its awful UX, eCommerce site Character.com kept its complicated Magento site with thousands of products, dozens of integrations, and solid SEO. Magento was too restrictive and complex for the company, so it switched to Shopify.
Conversions climbed by 40%, prompting the company to switch to Shopify Plus to gain access to even more capabilities.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is particularly familiar to WordPress users, as it is essentially a plugin for the popular blogging platform. WooCommerce is WordPress’s answer to those who want to sell online.
WordPress is traditionally used for content-driven websites, not eCommerce, so WooCommerce is WordPress website plugin to those who have flexibility to sell and manage unlimited products.
Many of the selling capabilities are simple or rely on integrating apps because WordPress is a content management system (CMS) first and an eCommerce platform second.
While there are numerous programmes and plug-ins to choose from, the more you use, the more likely you are to break something. And, given the limited support alternatives, this isn’t always a risk worth taking.
Overall, WooCommerce’s fragility and instability make it challenging to not only create but also operate an online business. Furthermore, because it is not hosted, you will have the additional labour and expense of managing your website hosting.
It also lacks PCI compliance, putting your organisation at danger when it comes to payment processing.
Prestashop
Prestashop is a cost-effective open-source eCommerce platform that’s ideal for small enterprises with a technological background. PrestaShop users perform a lot of troubleshooting themselves with the help of the community because there is no built-in customer service and integrations can be hit or miss.
Inventory tracking, an online shopping cart, worldwide selling, and analytics reporting are some of the business tools and services. On your Prestashop site, you also have a lot of control over the privacy and security settings.
Overall, managing your Prestashop eCommerce site can be difficult due to third-party hosting, a plethora of untested add-ons and modules, and the time-consuming setup.
Squarespace
Squarespace is the next website builder with an eCommerce platform. Squarespace, like Wix, employs drag-and-drop functionality that requires minimal technical knowledge. Because both platforms are largely website builders rather than online selling platforms, adding eCommerce capability will take some work.
If you want to sell online, Squarespace will take time and patience to set up, and there are just two payment integrations. You might be able to outsource it if you have the funds.
Squarespace features good inventory tracking options once you’ve set up the eCommerce functionality. Gift certificates and subscription-based products are also available with higher-tiered plans.
You may just add the Shopify Buy Button to your Squarespace website if you don’t want to deal with the headache of the backend to turn your website into a full-fledged online store.
For only $9 per month, you can add a little embeddable code to your Squarespace site and let Shopify manage the rest. You can add an unlimited number of products and use secure checkout with over 100 different payment options with them.
You can add an unlimited number of products, use secure checkout with over 100+ payment gateways, track sales and growth trends, quickly connect orders and shipping, and receive global tax and currency support with them.
Big Cartel
Big Cartel is a fully hosted eCommerce platform and website builder for makers, artists, and crafters, similar to those found on Etsy. Big Cartel offers customisable templates, as well as domain registration and marketing tools.
While you have complete control over the appearance and feel of your website, Big Cartel restricts merchants to five photos per product. Due to the restricted payment and interface possibilities, scaling as a multichannel business is much more difficult using this platform.
Because pricing is determined by the number of things you sell, it can quickly become quite expensive as your company and product line expand.
How Do You Pick the Best eCommerce Platform for Your Business?
There are a few things to consider if you’ve worked out how to launch an online business and are ready to choose which eCommerce platform is best for you.
The best eCommerce platform for you may differ from the best eCommerce platform for another merchant; you must take into account your specific business needs and objectives.
Many retailers opt for easy-to-use online stores such as Exabytes eCommerce because it is the simplest and most cost-effective online shop builder. But the decision is about more than just day-to-day use and cost. You must consider where your company is going and anticipate your future needs—and then pick a platform that can do the same.
It’s now a question of determining the optimal commerce platform—online, in-store, and everywhere in between. This necessitates the use of a best-in-class online store as well as a best-in-class set of business management tools.
Look for a platform that invests in its technology on a regular basis and keeps up with the latest trends in commerce. Your website builder has the potential to be much more than just a company platform—it can also be a vehicle for expansion.
Consider the following possibilities as you consider your options:
I need to sell my products online, offline, and to all of my consumers, regardless of location, and accept payment for those transactions.
My products must be delivered to my customers in the most efficient manner possible for my firm.
To expand my business, I need to engage my existing and potential clients.
I have to run my company on a daily basis, doing whatever it takes.
I need to run my business on a daily basis, which includes everything from managing my money to ensuring that my plans are effective, learning new methods, and obtaining technical assistance as needed.
Be Aware of the Charges
While money should not be the main consideration, it is a significant one. You can get started for as little as $100, but you’ll almost certainly need to invest more than that before seeing a return on your investment, especially in the beginning.
According to findings by Shopify, the average small business owner spends around $40,000 in their first year, with only 9% of it going toward online business needs. You may make the money back or balance it with your profit margins if you have a platform that suits your business needs.
With so many other areas of your business to fund, it’s critical that you select an eCommerce platform that won’t drain your bank account while still providing you with the functionality you need to run your company and earn a profit.
Consider more than simply the setup and monthly fees when calculating prices. You’ll also want to factor in payment processing fees, integration costs, and possible customer support fees (PrestaShop, for instance). Remember that if hosting isn’t included, you’ll have to budget for it as well.
Look for a Company That is a Suitable Fit for Your Business Plan
There are a variety of ways to sell on the internet. You can offer physical or digital things, and other business models have also evolved. If you dropship, for example, you’ll need an eCommerce platform that can readily link in the backend to help you run your business more efficiently.
Exabytes eCommerce, for example, has a variety of apps that you can integrate into your site to make selling easier for various company types. For print-on-demand and subscription businesses, for example, Exabytes eCommerce offers tools that make it easier to run than other platforms.
A platform like Exabytes eCommerce has tons of apps you can integrate into your site to make selling easier for different business models.
There are over 100 apps that can help you run your online business thus making it easier to run on Exabytes eCommerce compared to other platforms.
Consider Your Long-term Business Objectives
Even if your company started small, you most certainly have a vision for where you want it to go in the future. Even if you don’t intend to become a global brand, these objectives are vital to consider.
At some time, you might desire to expand your firm into physical retail. POS integrations can be difficult with a limited eCommerce platform. Because your online and offline systems aren’t integrated, you risk having erroneous inventory data.
Everything is tracked and synchronised in one place with a platform like Exabytes eCommerce. As a result, you’ll always have correct inventory and sales data, and you’ll be ready to sell in person in minutes. You can also include services such as local delivery.
Many firms will require additional finance in the future. According to the research by Shopify, as many as two-thirds of entrepreneurs utilise personal resources to support their businesses in the early stages, while 23% borrow from friends and family and 21% use personal loans.
Other business funding sources, on the other hand, are less likely to jeopardise personal connections. Look for eCommerce platforms that offer aid to retailers such as #SamaSamaDigital from Exabytes.
With Exabytes, You Can Start Selling Online Right Away!
It’s never been quicker, faster, or more scalable to sell online with your own eCommerce website. Exabytes eCommerce is a multi-channel platform that allows you to sell to your consumers wherever they are: online, in person, and anywhere in between.
Don’t wait! Get in touch with our friendly and helpful specialists for a full consultation.
If you’re planning to build your website with a website builder such as Elementor, then you would need to choose a theme for your WordPress website.
Currently, there are more than a thousand WordPress themes in the market, which WordPress theme should I be using for my business?
In this article, I will be sharing our top 5 WordPress Themes you should use as well as the best WordPress theme in our opinion.
Blocksy Theme
Kadence Theme
Neve Theme
GeneratePress Theme
Astra Theme
1. Blocksy Theme
Blocksy Theme is a lightweight WordPress theme developed to work well with Gutenberg editor.
While their primary focus is on Gutenberg editor, you can still use it on most page builders such as Elementor.
With Blocksy you can have peace in mind that your website will be light-weight, fast, and optimized for SEO.
Benefits of Blocksy Theme
Blocksy theme is lightweight, this means that it will be much easier for you to make your website load faster.
If you’re new to website design, using Blocksy as your WordPress theme will make your life much easier because Blocksy has made their interface easy to understand and use, even if you are relatively new to WordPress.
If you are a fan of Light and Dark Mode, Blocksy is the best choice for you.
With Blocksy, it makes it easy for you to set up Light and Dark Mode on your website in just a couple of minutes.
The header and footer builder provided by Blocksy is awesome.
It’s easy to customise your header and you can even add in custom HTML if they do not provide an element you wish to add on your header.
Disadvantage of Blocksy Theme
At the moment, there are only 13 starter sites you can choose from.
Compared with other WordPress themes, the number of starter sites offered by Blocksy is relatively low as there are way more varieties for you to choose from on other WordPress themes such as Neve.
If this is not an issue for you, Blocksy is still a great deal to consider.
If you plan to go for the premium version of Blocksy – Blocksy Pro, it may be a little pain in your pocket.
While Blocksy do offer Lifetime subscription with unlimited licences, it is slightly pricey as compared with other WordPress themes in the market.
2. Kadence Theme
Kadence Theme is another WordPress theme that is highly recommended in the WordPress community.
Kadence Theme aims to provide modern designs and features to your website while still having a lightning-fast website speed.
Benefits of Kadence Theme
Same as Blocksy Theme, Kadence Theme is also easy-to-use for beginners given that they provide a drag-and-drop header & footer builder.
Having a drag-and-drop builder will help make it easier for users to understand how they can customise it.
Also, Kadence Theme provides detailed customisation for your website such as setting global color pallets, enabling multiple menus, global typography, custom layouts and more.
What makes Kadence stand out is their level of support given to their users.
The support team is experienced and knowledgeable, and are quick to understand the problem you’re facing with their theme, then taking additional initiative to make sure the problem is solved.
Disadvantage of Kadence Theme
The only downside for Kadence theme is the cost of their Lifetime Subscription (USD599) if you plan to go for the premium version.
Compared with other themes that provide lifetime subscription, Kadence has the highest price tag among all.
Overall the free version is more than enough for most people, but if you need more advanced features, then you would have to take this into factor.
3. Neve
Neve is another WordPress theme that we recommend if you’re looking for a fast and mobile responsive website.
What we like about Neve is that they provide a decent number of free starter sites that are professionally designed for you to choose from.
If you go with the premium version, there are more than 100 unique starter sites that are meant for a specific industry such as pet shop, medical industry, financial industry, SaaS industry, and more.
Benefits of Neve Theme
Compared with other trending WordPress themes in the market, Neve is considered one of the more stable themes where it has been in the market for quite some time before Blocksy Theme, Kadence Theme enter the market.
That is also the reason why there are so many starter sites provided by Neve.
For me, Neve is much simpler to use among the remaining 4 themes recommended in this article.
Neve also gives you the ability to customise your website header, footer, and layout exactly the way you wanted it to be, making it one of the highly customisable themes you can get in the market.
Disadvantage of Neve
The only downside for Neve is that the website speed on mobile devices is not as good as desktop views.
4. GeneratePress
GeneratePress is another light-weight and highly customisable WordPress theme that is designed for bloggers and web developers.
GeneratePress performs well in terms of website speed, SEO, user friendliness, as well as their pricing.
Advantage of GeneratePress Theme
The main selling point for GeneratePress is their ability to provide designs that are lightweight and mobile responsive, ensuring that your website will load fast.
In addition, with its ability to add hooks and filters without the need to make changes to the theme files make it a good reason for developers to consider using GeneratePress.
GeneratePress provides extensive documentation for their theme.
This is something good for the users because most of the issues they may be facing can be found there with proper solutions to it.
Disadvantage of GeneratePress Theme
If you are planning to go with the free version of GeneratePress, the features you will be receiving are extremely limited.
This means that you won’t be able to customise your website as freely as you wish.
Another disadvantage we discover from GeneratePress is that most of their starter sites are dated.
Therefore, if you wish to have a nice website design, it may be harder for you to achieve it through GeneratePress.
5. Astra Theme
Astra Theme is another famous WordPress theme that is used by more than 1,00,000 websites all around the world.
Astra is the perfect WordPress theme that you can use for your portfolio, online shop, blog, and even your business.
With Astra, you can use it with any of your preferred page builders such as Elementor, Divi, Gutenberg, WPBakery, Brizy, and more.
Benefits of Astra Theme
Astra Theme, like other WordPress themes we recommend here, is very easy to use, giving you a reasonable amount of customisation even on the free version.
With Astra, you can customise your website’s global styling, header, footer, sidebar, and even WooCommerce pages.
There are also a lot of free starter sites you can use to choose from with Astra Theme.
Each starter site is designed specifically for a certain type of industry.
If you are not planning to pay any money on WordPress themes, this may be a good choice for you to consider.
Disadvantage of Astra Theme
If you are looking for more customizations on your header and footer, then Astra may not be a good choice for you as the styling options provided for headers and footers are slightly limited as compared with other themes.
Best WordPress Theme
In our opinion, Blocksy is the best WordPress theme you can get your hands on in 2021.
With Blocksy, it provides a perfect balance between website performance, appearance, as well as affordability.
Even though Blocksy currently does not have a lot of starter sites for their users to select, we can see that the team has put in efforts to launch more new starter sites so that their users will have more options to choose from.
Some of their latest starter sites are “Wedding”, “Web Agency”, “Persona”, and “Yogi”.
Gentle Reminder: Do not install null themes just to save a couple of bulks.
It may be tempting to purchase a null theme because by doing so, you can potentially save up 90% of your expenses.
While it is good to save costs for your business, installing null themes on your website will make your website more vulnerable to malware infections and may cost you more money in the long run.
I hope this article will give you a better understanding of these WordPress themes, and have an idea which is the best WordPress theme that is more suitable to you.
If you plan to build a website for your business with WordPress, visit our website here for more details.
Did you know that more than 400,000 COM.MY/.MY domains have been registered as of June 2024?
Did you know how can a .COM.MY/.MY domain help your business?
Read on to find out more!
1. Malaysian Digital Identity
.MY domains provide a unique identity to Malaysian businesses and individuals.
.MY domains, one of the critical digital components in the Digital Economy System, is a must if you want to build a website for your business.
In fact, .MY domains offer additional value to individuals/businesses based in Malaysia compared to .COM.
While anyone can register a .COM domain, ,MY domains require its registrants to provide identity verification for registration.
Therefore, if you run a Malaysia based online business on a website, social media or e-marketplaces, .MY gives your online business an upper hand when it comes to business identity.
2. High Search Ranking on the “Search Engine”
Do you want your WEBSITE or BLOG to appear on the first few pages of Google search results?
One of the deciding factors of good SEO is having a localized domain name, which in this case, is a .COM.MY/.MY domain.
Google has changed its algorithm several times and one of the purposes is to prioritize the search results from local sources.
This shows the importance of having a .MY domain for your business or brand.
Around 89% of customers start their purchase process using a search engine and the global online community uses Google search 7.8 Billion times per day.
It’s a huge market with great potential out there!
With a .MY domain, when someone searches using a “Malaysia” keyword, your website has higher chances of appearing on the first page of Google Search results, which means higher chances for you to grab sales leads from your competitors.
3. A Broad Market
With a .MY domain, you are able to reach a large number of potential customers who want to purchase your products or services online.
Your potential market is broad and you won’t regret it.
4. Safety Assurance
As Malaysia ranks third in the world in availability and commitment to cyber security (Source: Global Cyber Security Index, Nov 2020), .MY domains are safe to own and offer high security.
As .MY domains are governed by Malaysian Communications & Multimedia Commission (MCMC), your domain or brand is protected even when someone tries to steal it and resell back to you with a higher price.
5. Digital Branding Protection
The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) has outlined Domain Names as part of “Trademarks” & Intellectual Properties.
As “digital properties”, some popular domains are worth millions.
If you own a .MY domain, you will be able to protect your digital brand against being misused by “Cybersquatter” or other irresponsible parties such as scammers.
6. Tax Exemption
Good news for Malaysia entrepreneurs! Entrepreneurs who own a .MY domain name for their e-commerce website can obtain certification from the Malaysian Communications & Multimedia Commission (MCMC).
Next, you can apply for tax exemption on website construction costs.
Do you have any .MY domain on your mind now?
Search your desired .MY domain below or visit our website for more details!
Advertising is a marketing communication method that companies use to not only promote products or services but also build up their brands. It is one of the ways marketers expose brands to mass target audiences via different platforms.
Marketers today have started to focus on running advertisements digitally on online platforms, especially social media. Mastering a digital advertising strategy will surely help increase traffic to your website and lead audiences to explore more about your brand.
To stand out from the competitors, you need advertisements that do more than hard-sell your products or services.
A good advertisement should have strong and creative content or tell a story that triggers the audience to find out more and learn more about your brand.
What You Will Learn
Many businesses are undergoing digital transformations, so business owners such as SME owners, e-commerce merchants, and start-up founders have started to build their brands by improving their online presence via advertisements.
In this webinar, the speakers will reveal advertising strategies that can help you build up your brand within this competitive digital world.
The Speakers
We are pleased to have Shanker Joyrama, Founder & CEO of Orion Digital and Beng Lim, founder of #dropthetop to share their valuable insights on these interesting topics.
You can expect to walk away with useful and practical knowledge about digital advertising.
Event Details:
Date: 24 August 2021 (Tuesday)
Time: 2.00 PM to 4.00 PM
Venue: Zoom Webinar
Agenda
2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.: [The Art of Storytelling to Create Brand Love]
by Shanker Joyrama, Founder & CEO, Orion Digital
By seducing your target market instead of hard-selling, you encourage consumers to seek you out, creating a deeper connection with your consumers and, therefore, brand affinity and brand love.
More and more brands are seeking to create authentic stories, especially on social media, but how can you cut through the clutter and make your brand stick with your consumers?
3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.: [Attracting Traffic through Organic Reach]
by Beng Lim, Founder, #dropthetop
As the founder of her own brand, #dropthetop, Beng will share organic advertising strategies.
Beng reaches her audiences by utilising current trends and various online platforms to advertise her products in a zero-cost method, which helps her gain organic website traffic.
Take action and register now! Save your spot today to learn from our experienced speakers!
Online shopping in Malaysia has never been more competitive. From daily essentials and electronics to Korean beauty and second-hand collectibles, Malaysians now have more platforms to choose from than ever before — and new players like Temu are shaking up the market fast.
Whether you’re a seasoned online shopper hunting for the best deals, or just starting to explore what’s out there, this guide breaks down the best online shopping sites in Malaysia in 2025: what each platform sells, who it’s best for, how to pay, and what to watch out for.
Shopee is consistently Malaysia’s most-used ecommerce platform — and for good reason. The sheer volume of products, aggressive promotional campaigns (11.11, 12.12, birthday sales), and a highly polished mobile app keep millions of Malaysians coming back.
You’ll find virtually everything on Shopee: electronics, groceries, fashion, health and beauty, pet supplies, event tickets, and more. Shopee Mall gives buyers access to official brand stores with authenticity guarantees, while local sellers make up the bulk of the marketplace.
What sets Shopee apart is its loyalty ecosystem. Shopee Coins can be earned by shopping, watching livestreams, completing in-app games, and leaving product reviews — then redeemed for discounts on future purchases. ShopeePay, its built-in e-wallet, also unlocks additional cashback deals.
Best for: Daily essentials, fashion, electronics, health and beauty, flash sales, and buyers who want a strong mobile-first experience.
How to pay:
ShopeePay (e-wallet)
FPX online banking
Credit and debit cards (Visa, Mastercard)
Cash-on-delivery (COD)
Cash payment at 7-Eleven, 99 Speedmart, and KK Mart
Instalment plans via selected banks
Watch out for: Price variations between sellers can be wide — always check seller ratings, review counts, and whether the item is sold through Shopee Mall for added protection.
Lazada was one of the pioneers of ecommerce in Southeast Asia. Founded in 2012 and backed by Alibaba since 2016, it remains one of the largest and most trusted platforms in the region.
Lazada is structured into three shopping zones: LazMall (official brands and authorised retailers), Local Sellers (Malaysian-based merchants), and LazGlobal (international sellers, mainly from China and the wider region). This layered approach gives buyers flexibility — you can shop premium-authenticated products or hunt for budget deals from the same platform.
The Lazada app is highly rated, and the platform runs some of the biggest sales events of the year, including the annual 11.11 and 12.12 campaigns with deep discounts across categories.
Best for: Electronics, home appliances, health and beauty, and shoppers who want access to official brand stores with buyer protection.
How to pay:
Lazada Wallet
Touch ‘n Go eWallet
Boost Wallet
FPX online banking
Visa and Mastercard
Cash payments at 7-Eleven and 99 Speedmart
Instalment plans via Maybank, CIMB, and others
Watch out for: LazGlobal orders can have longer shipping times — always check the estimated delivery date before purchasing.
Temu is the fastest-growing shopping platform in Malaysia right now. Launched globally in 2022 and expanding aggressively into Southeast Asia, Temu has attracted millions of users with its extremely low prices across a vast range of product categories.
The platform stocks everything from sports gear and furniture to electronics, pet supplies, jewellery, kitchen tools, and office accessories. Flash sales and regular promotional events push prices even lower, and new customers often qualify for free shipping or generous welcome discounts.
Temu’s goods ship primarily from China, which means delivery can take 7–15 days depending on the item and promotion. Quality is variable — the platform is best suited for non-branded, functional items where price is the main priority.
Best for: Budget shoppers, non-branded household items, novelty products, and those happy to wait a little longer for delivery in exchange for very low prices.
How to pay:
Credit and debit cards (Visa, Mastercard)
Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) options
Cash on delivery
Watch out for: Shipping times vary and can be longer than local platforms. Read product reviews carefully and manage expectations on quality for ultra-low-priced items.
Taobao is one of the largest ecommerce platforms in the world. Owned by Alibaba, it was founded in 2003 and hosts hundreds of millions of products — almost exclusively from Chinese sellers. The range is staggering: fashion, homewares, electronics, beauty, niche hobby items, fabrics, and much more.
Prices on Taobao can be remarkably low, especially for fashion and home goods. However, the site is in Mandarin Chinese only, and shipping from China to Malaysia requires either using Taobao’s own international shipping option or going through a local forwarding agent who consolidates your parcels, handles quality checks, and arranges last-mile delivery in Malaysia.
Several popular Malaysian Taobao agents include Peeka, OneStop, and Sea Parcel — they typically charge a handling fee and per-kg shipping rate, but can save you significantly compared to buying locally.
Best for: Fashion, home décor, fabric and craft supplies, niche items, and shoppers comfortable navigating a Chinese-language site (or using Google Translate) for big savings.
How to pay:
Credit or debit card (via Taobao’s international checkout)
Various payment options if purchasing through a Malaysian agent (FPX, cards, e-wallets)
Watch out for: Quality can vary significantly between sellers. Always check seller ratings and buyer reviews (use Google Translate). Shipping costs can erode savings on lightweight or bulky items — calculate total landed cost before ordering.
Mudah.my is Malaysia’s largest classifieds platform, established in 2007. Unlike Shopee or Lazada, Mudah.my does not process transactions itself — it connects buyers and sellers directly, who then arrange payment and delivery (or pickup) between themselves.
The platform covers an enormous range of categories: cars, motorcycles, property, electronics, furniture, fashion, jobs, and services. It’s particularly strong for second-hand vehicles and property listings, where it rivals dedicated platforms.
Because there is no integrated payment or buyer-protection system, Mudah.my works best for local, in-person transactions where you can inspect an item before paying. For higher-value purchases, always meet in a safe, public location and verify the item thoroughly.
Best for: Second-hand goods, vehicles, property, and local transactions where meeting the seller in person is practical.
How to pay: Arranged directly between buyer and seller — cash is most common for in-person transactions; bank transfer for remote deals.
Watch out for: Scams exist on classifieds platforms. Never pay upfront for high-value items without verifying the seller and inspecting the goods. Be especially cautious of deals that seem too good to be true.
Founded in Singapore in 2012, Carousell is a peer-to-peer marketplace for buying and selling new and pre-loved items. It has a strong following in Malaysia for fashion, electronics, collectibles, sports equipment, and lifestyle goods.
What differentiates Carousell from Mudah.my is its more polished app experience and the optional Carousell Protection feature. When you buy through Carousell Protection, your payment is held by Carousell and only released to the seller once you confirm you’ve received the item in the expected condition — reducing the risk of fraud or item-not-as-described disputes.
Carousell also has business listings alongside individual sellers, so you’ll find a mix of casual declutters and small retail businesses on the platform.
Best for: Pre-loved fashion, electronics, collectibles, hobby items, and buyers who want some transaction protection in a peer-to-peer environment.
How to pay: Varies by listing and seller — Carousell Protection (via debit/credit card), bank transfer, or cash on meetup.
Watch out for: Not all listings have Carousell Protection. For high-value items, opt for listings that offer it or meet in person.
Zalora is Southeast Asia’s fashion-focused ecommerce platform, offering a curated selection of clothing, footwear, accessories, and beauty products. It caters to women, men, and kids, with a price range that spans affordable everyday basics all the way to designer and luxury brands.
The beauty section on Zalora has expanded significantly and now covers skincare, haircare, fragrances, and gift sets from both well-known and emerging brands. Zalora also runs regular sales events and has a loyalty programme that rewards repeat shoppers.
Zalora is particularly strong if you’re looking to shop international fashion brands that aren’t widely available in Malaysian physical stores.
Best for: Fashion, beauty, and lifestyle products — especially international and designer brands.
How to pay:
Visa, Mastercard, and American Express
Buy Now, Pay Later via Atome and Split
Online banking (FPX)
Cash on delivery
Watch out for: Return policies vary by seller type — read the return window carefully before purchasing, especially for sale items.
PGMall is a homegrown Malaysian ecommerce platform that positions itself as a champion of local brands and SMEs. It offers a wide range of product categories including electronics, fashion, home appliances, groceries, and personal care, with a strong focus on Bumiputera and Malaysian-owned businesses.
PGMall has grown steadily since its launch and regularly runs promotions tied to Malaysian festive seasons. The platform also supports government-linked initiatives, including eRezeki and SME empowerment programmes, which help small Malaysian sellers come online.
Best for: Supporting local Malaysian brands, groceries, everyday essentials, and shoppers who prefer a Made-in-Malaysia buying experience.
How to pay:
FPX online banking
Credit and debit cards
Touch ‘n Go eWallet
PG Mall Coin (loyalty points)
Watch out for: Seller quality and product availability can be less consistent than the larger platforms — read reviews carefully.
Lelong.my is one of Malaysia’s oldest ecommerce platforms, having been around since 1998. It operates a hybrid model of auctions and fixed-price listings, making it an interesting option for bargain hunters and collectors.
The platform covers electronics, home goods, fashion, health products, and a variety of niche categories. The auction feature allows buyers to bid on items, sometimes securing products well below market value — though popular items can attract competitive bidding.
Lelong’s seller base is a mix of individual sellers and small businesses, and it has a buyer protection programme for eligible transactions.
Best for: Auction hunters, bargain shoppers, and those looking for products not easily found on mainstream platforms.
How to pay:
FPX online banking
Credit and debit cards
Cash on delivery
Bank transfer
Watch out for: The platform’s interface feels dated compared to Shopee and Lazada. Stick to sellers with strong ratings and use the buyer protection feature where available.
Amazon doesn’t have a dedicated Malaysian storefront, but Malaysian shoppers can access the global Amazon website and purchase from international sellers who ship to Malaysia. Amazon Singapore can also be a useful starting point for finding sellers willing to ship across the border with relatively shorter transit times.
International shipping adds cost — factor in delivery fees and potential import duties for higher-value items. That said, Amazon remains unmatched in terms of sheer product range. If you’re looking for something you genuinely cannot find on any Malaysian platform, Amazon is where you’ll find it.
Best for: Specialty items, imported books, niche electronics, international brands not available in Malaysia.
How to pay:
Credit and debit cards (Visa, Mastercard, Amex)
Amazon gift cards
Watch out for: International shipping costs can be significant. Always check the full landed cost (product price + shipping + duties) before purchasing.
Sephora’s Malaysian online store gives beauty lovers access to one of the world’s most respected beauty and skincare retailers. The online platform mirrors the in-store experience with detailed product descriptions, ingredient lists, ratings, and a Beauty Insider loyalty programme.
You’ll find a wide range of global prestige brands — from Charlotte Tilbury and Fenty Beauty to Drunk Elephant, Tatcha, and Sulwhasoo — alongside Sephora’s own collection. The platform regularly runs exclusive online promotions and birthday gifts for loyalty members.
Best for: Premium skincare, luxury makeup, fragrance, and beauty tools from international prestige brands.
How to pay:
Credit and debit cards
GrabPay
Buy Now, Pay Later via Atome
Sephora gift cards
Watch out for: Product availability can differ between online and in-store. Some limited-edition items sell out quickly online.
Shopback isn’t your typical online purchasing website. Their mission is to make online buying in Malaysia as affordable as possible by offering regular discounts on other e-commerce sites.
In Southeast Asia, Shopback is a first-of-its-kind service. Users that create an account with them will be eligible for discounts or cash rebates while shopping on other sites. After a set amount of time, cash reimbursements are deposited into users’ bank accounts.
Expedia, Taobao, and Asos are just a few of Shopback’s noteworthy partners. This is in addition to over 400 other e-commerce sites and online hotel and flight booking services.
How to Build a Strong SEO Campaign for Your Online Shopping Site in Malaysia
75% of internet users never look above the first page of search results, highlighting the importance of SEO for your website, especially if you want to increase conversions and sales.
The issue with investing in SEO is that calculating the return on your investment is difficult. As opposed to sponsored advertising, you can’t put a monetary figure on each improvement. Regardless, its impacts are evident, especially if the correct tactics are employed.
Another issue with SEO is the lack of clear guidance. Google and other search engines alter their ranking algorithms on a regular basis, but they keep the details hidden to prevent anyone from tampering with the system.
However, SEO strategies does not have to be difficult. While no one knows how Google’s algorithms function, the goal is clear: to provide the best possible answer to searchers. With this in mind, you may develop a strong SEO plan to help your online fashion store in Malaysia to grow.
Want to Sell? Build Your Own Online Store
Shopping on these platforms is convenient — but selling on them means competing on price, paying commission fees, and operating within someone else’s rules.
If you’re a Malaysian business owner or entrepreneur ready to take control of your online presence, building your own ecommerce website is the smartest long-term move. You own your customer data, set your own margins, and build a brand that isn’t dependent on a marketplace algorithm.
Exabytes helps Malaysian businesses build and grow their online stores with:
Ecommerce hosting — fast, reliable hosting optimised for online stores
EasyStore integration — a leading Malaysian ecommerce platform to launch your store quickly
Domain registration — secure your brand’s .my or .com domain
SSL certificates — build customer trust with secure checkout
Business email — professional communications with your own domain
The Best SEO Strategies for eCommerce Websites in Malaysia
1. Research
The most important part of SEO is research. It’s a waste of time and money to target the wrong keywords because it just delivers low-quality traffic. Competitor research is also necessary if you wish to adopt techniques that will offer you an advantage over your competitors.
You can use keyword research to find out what words your target audience uses on Google. Relevance, search volume, and ranking difficulties should all be considered while selecting keywords.
Prioritize placement over frequency when incorporating keywords into your text. Keywords should ideally be in the title, headings and subheadings, URL, and picture descriptions, among other places.
It’s also a good idea to optimise for semantic search. This means that your keywords should be relevant to the context and, more crucially, align with the user’s goal.
After you’ve finished your keyword research, you should concentrate on competitor research. You’ll learn why other businesses in your niche are outranking you and what techniques you can use to beat them to the top of the SERPs by doing so.
If you rank better on Google than your competitors, you’ll benefit from the 14.6 percent lead close rate that search engines guarantee.
2. Evaluate Your Websites
After you’ve finished your study, review your website to identify what needs to be improved.
Checking for errors, such as broken links, duplicate content, missing tags, and redirects, is the first stage in site auditing. Manual inspection can be exhausting and useless, so it’s best to utilise a tool for this.
After you’ve fixed the errors, you should concentrate on website speed. According to Google Webmasters, waiting for a page to load is the most frustrating feature of web browsing for 46% of consumers.
If your website is slow, visitors will seek for a better option, which is likely to be a rival. You can speed up your site by switching hosts, switching to a quicker CMS, and compressing files and images.
On-page optimization is the next area where you should concentrate your efforts. The goal should be to give your visitors the best possible experience. Make sure that your website is simple to use and navigate. A website with good information architecture is more usable, ranks higher on Google, and converts more visitors.
With the majority of Malaysians accessing the internet via their mobile phones, having a mobile-friendly website is critical. The best part is that you won’t have to spend a fortune developing a new mobile-only website. Install one of the many responsive templates accessible on the internet to make your desktop site responsive.
3. Testing
After you’ve finished with on-page SEO, test your site to check if the methods are working.
To find out which keywords are generating the most conversions, use tools like Google Analytics. If you’re short on keywords, PPC campaigns can help you uncover high-converting keywords to use in your SEO plan.
Additionally, you should run an A/B test to discover which content on your site generates the most engagement. This method is so useful that 63% of marketers use it to test and optimise their websites in order to increase revenue.
You will always improve if you have a consistent testing habit. Lack of testing, on the other side, may harm your rankings and result in fewer leads due to lower conversion rates.
4. Add Blog Content
Blogs are a great approach to rank for keywords that you aren’t targeting on your main website pages. Surprisingly, 80 percent of consumers prefer to learn more about a brand through articles rather than advertisements.
Your blog content, like your webpages, must be high-quality, relevant, and beneficial to the reader. You should also compile your articles into a downloadable resource, such as an eBook or PDF, which you can use to collect email addresses. The emails can then be used to send marketing messages and turn leads into customers.
5. Link Building
Quality should be emphasised while adding inbound links to your eCommerce website. Google will penalise you if you have low-quality backlinks, and the traffic you obtain from them is useless. Staying away from content farms is one approach to avoid bad backlinks.
Instead, concentrate on obtaining high-quality links from trusted websites. This can be accomplished by writing high-quality guest posts, developing a fantastic infographic, offering useful statistics, and so on. Backlinks from an eCommerce website should point to product reviews and high-quality content.
6. Local SEO
If you have a physical address as well as an online store, you should invest in local SEO. 78% of location-based mobile searches result in an offline purchase, according to this survey. Create a Google My Business page and make sure your name, address, and phone number are accurate and consistent across all of your web platforms to optimise for local search.
In addition, you should submit your company’s information to all main and specialist directories that are relevant to it. Make sure your description includes keywords that are specific to your locality.
Google combines local and organic search ranks, which is another reason to invest in local SEO. This means that your local SEO efforts can help you rank higher in organic search results.
How Do You Market Your Online Shopping Site That is Based in Malaysia?
Even if you have the right products for your target demographic, finding the strategy to persuade them to buy from you might be difficult. According to HubSpot’s State of Inbound study, generating traffic and leads is the biggest difficulty for 63% of marketers.
1. Invest in Google Ads (Google AdWords)
Paid search is the easiest approach to promote your website. The best part about this strategy is that it is suitable for all budgets, especially those of startups.
Google Ads is a popular pay-per-click advertising network that may help you drastically improve the amount of visitors that visit your site. You only pay for the service if someone clicks on your ad, ensuring that you get the most bang for your buck.
This advertising approach can be used in a variety of ways, including listing your business in search results, displaying banners on websites, running YouTube adverts, and promoting smartphone apps.
To increase your ROI, it’s critical to track the success of your campaign and make adjustments as needed. To avoid overspending, allocate your budget before running your campaign.
Contact us now to discuss how our Google Ads service can propel your online advertising efforts to new heights.
2. High-Quality Content
92% of marketers believe that blog content is important to their company’s success. Only a few current eCommerce websites, on the other hand, invest in developing high-quality content.
The majority of customers visit an eCommerce website for reasons other than to buy your stuff. Using a blog to provide value to your consumers is a smart move. It also makes people want to come back to your site.
You should write news articles, tutorials, and product reviews to entice people to visit your site. Make sure your material is useful, interesting, and, most importantly, relevant to the purchasing decision. Remember that 84% of millennials say user-generated content influences their purchasing decisions.
3. Leverage SEO
A search engine is the initial step for 93% of internet experiences, including e-Commerce purchases. As a result, you should consider investing in SEO.
Although search engine optimization is a large topic, it may be divided into two categories: on-page SEO and off-page SEO. On-page optimization is primarily concerned with increasing the user experience and content quality on your website. This implies that your website should be quick to load, simple to navigate, and provide high-quality, relevant information.
On the other hand, link building is the main focus of off-page SEO. Make sure the links to your site come from a trustworthy source, or you risk being penalised by Google and receiving low-quality traffic if you do not do so.
4. Start a Referral Program
Starting a referral programme is a great approach to market your eCommerce website to your existing consumers. According to Forbes, word-of-mouth advertising can increase marketing effectiveness by up to 54%.
Offering rewards is the greatest method to ensure that your referral programme is successful. Starting a referral programme is a great approach to market your eCommerce website to your existing consumers. According to Forbes, word-of-mouth advertising can increase marketing effectiveness by up to 54%.
Offering rewards is the greatest method to ensure that your referral programme is successful. If a client refers a friend who buys your goods, you should reward them with a discount, a coupon, or free shipping.
Although your eCommerce blog can help your marketing efforts reach a wider audience, you can take it a step further by publishing guest posts.
You normally obtain a backlink to your website when your writings are published on another website. In the article you submit to the publishing blog, you can also include a link to your own website. Your website will be known to the audience of the website where the post is published.
The only disadvantage of guest posting is that it takes time to work. However, it compensates for this disadvantage by expanding your website’s exposure, particularly to a previously untapped demographic.
6. Email Marketing
The most effective digital marketing method is email marketing. Email is reported to be the most important source of ROI by 59% of marketers.
Most marketers make the mistake of focusing solely on acquiring new consumers, forgetting about their existing customers. You can develop different email campaigns based on your audience’s different needs.
Customers who have never purchased your items, those who have previously purchased your products, and those who have abandoned your website before completing the purchase, for example, can all be targeted.
The subject line of your emails should be engaging enough to entice the receiver to open the message. The email should provide useful information and be free of distractions. Furthermore, the call-to-action should specify what you want the reader to do.
7. Use Social Media and Video Content to Your Advantage
This year, video content is estimated to account for 80% of all web traffic. This is understandable, given that video creates the highest levels of interaction of any sort of material. Using video to market your eCommerce website is a smart move.
Social media is one of the most effective tools for promoting video content. As of January 2021, statistics showed that 86% of Malaysians are active on social media. Even better, all of the major social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, make it simple to post such information.
Make sure your content isn’t longer than one minute in length to maximise its reach. You should also research your target audience to find out when they are active on various social media channels.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is the best online shopping site in Malaysia? Shopee is consistently ranked as Malaysia’s most popular ecommerce platform due to its wide product range, competitive prices, strong mobile app, and frequent promotions. Lazada is a close second and is particularly strong for electronics and premium brands.
Which online shopping site is cheapest in Malaysia? Temu and Taobao generally offer the lowest prices, particularly for non-branded goods and fashion. However, both ship primarily from China, so factor in shipping time and costs. For local deals, Shopee and Lazada run frequent flash sales and voucher campaigns that can match or beat international platform prices.
Is Temu safe to use in Malaysia? Yes, Temu is a legitimate platform and is safe to use for most purchases. It is owned by PDD Holdings, the same parent company as Pinduoduo in China. The platform offers buyer protection and refunds for items not received or not as described. As with any marketplace, exercise caution and read reviews — quality on very low-priced items can vary.
What is the most popular shopping app in Malaysia? Shopee consistently tops app download and usage charts in Malaysia. Its in-app features — including games, livestreams, and Shopee Coins — drive high engagement beyond just shopping.
Can I shop on Amazon from Malaysia? Yes. While there is no dedicated Amazon Malaysia storefront, Malaysians can shop on Amazon’s global site (amazon.com) and find sellers who ship internationally to Malaysia. Alternatively, Amazon Singapore stocks some items that can ship cross-border more quickly.
What are the safest payment methods for online shopping in Malaysia? Using platform-native payment options (like ShopeePay, Lazada Wallet, or Touch ‘n Go) is generally safest as they come with built-in buyer protection. Credit cards also offer chargeback rights if a purchase goes wrong. Avoid paying sellers directly via cash transfer outside the platform.
Which platform is best for buying second-hand items in Malaysia? Carousell and Mudah.my are the leading platforms for pre-loved goods. Carousell has an edge for fashion, electronics, and collectibles, and its Carousell Protection feature adds a layer of buyer security. Mudah.my is stronger for vehicles and property classifieds.
Final Takeaways
The ultimate goal of any eCommerce website is to maximise conversions and sales. The difficult part is attracting visitors to your website and persuading them to buy your stuff.
The aforementioned suggestions are a great way to start when it comes to growing your website popularity in Malaysia. You must also conduct frequent testing to determine which tactics are effective and which are not.
You’ll be able to make changes and achieve even better outcomes this way. Certainly, to run a successful e-commerce site, you should also take full advantage of technology, for example, having a good eCommerce website.
In today’s fast-paced world, everyone wishes they could have more time. In this regard, buying online is one of the most efficient methods to save time. That is what makes eCommerce so popular now.
Contact us today to get an amazing eCommerce website (come with payment gateways and free credits for parcel delivery) for your business!
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The skincare industry is a highly competitive one. With a plethora of products and brands on the market, it has become a saturated market. So, when Sulie set out to create a natural skincare product line, she knew she wanted to do something fundamentally different.
Sulie wanted to create products that not only give back to the people producing and using them but also help reduce farmers’ poverty in Borneo. That’s why she co-founded Sluvi Natural in 2018 with a social enterprise mission in mind.
Fast-forward to today, Sluvi’s business is, well, thriving. The company has helped increase farmers’ income by 300% in the past three years alone.
Tune in as the Founder of Sluvi, Miss Sulie Abell speaks to Exabytes on the challenges she faces when helping the farmers and marketing her natural skincare products.
1. Please tell us about yourself and your entrepreneurship journey as social enterprise.
My name is Sulie Abell, the founder of Sluvi Natural, a Malaysia social enterprise that helps reduce farmers’ poverty in Borneo by planting natural ingredients and creating skincare products with chemicals free.
To be honest I never thought that I would become an entrepreneur one day. As my family members work with the government, there’s not a lot of entrepreneurial background in my family.
The reason I want to become a social entrepreneur is that I got inspired by Muhammad Yunus (Read more about his story here) in the first semester of my university day. He is a great man and also a social entrepreneur who does microcredit and microfinance to empower small businesses to qualify for small loans and escape poverty in Bangladesh.
So, after I quit my job, I decided to become a social entrepreneur too, empowering farmers by sourcing ingredients from them and increasing their income.
The reason why I quit my job is that I struggled with chronic eczema when I first started working. During that time, I couldn’t find a single product that I could use safely on my sensitive skin, and my skin got worse day after day.
Every time I go to the office, everybody is staring at my face and not even talking to me. It really degraded me and I got a bit depressed that time.
Eventually, my doctor advised me to try skincare products with natural ingredients. After that, my skin improved significantly.
With painstaking research, I handcrafted my own skincare products using natural ingredients that can be easily sourced from my village – Melugu in Simanggang, Sarawak. From there, I met a bee farmer who revealed that half of Melugu farmers earn less than RM200 per month from their output.
I was shocked and sad when I heard that story, then I started to think about how I could solve farmers’ poverty, and here is how Sluvi Natural was born.
2. What is Sluvi Natural all about?
Sluvi Natural focuses on helping the farmers increase their income and their productivity. Second, obtaining the ingredients directly from the farmers and manufacture in our own factory. Third, managing the whole supply chain.
From there, we not only help the farmers to increase their income but also help their families to have access to better healthcare and education.
At the moment, we are working with four farmers. It’s not a big number, but each of them has quite a number of family members they need to take care of. So now, we are focusing on these four farming families first, and hopefully, we can help more. But still, we need to consider our capacity.
Besides this, most of our beneficiaries are low-income farmers, especially those who have financial difficulties sending their kids to school and provide better healthcare for their families. So now we offer training to widen our horizon and empower the farmers, especially in our neighbourhood and villages to produce more natural ingredients.
Why do we need to provide training to the farmers? During the research, we found out that they did not realise what the natural plants they were planting in the backyard could do for them.
They have the resources but don’t know how to bring in more income until we give them the idea to utilise these resources as ingredients in our products. By having more income through Sluvi, life could be better for them.
Besides, Sluvi also targets B2B and B2C markets and events souvenirs.
After we get the farmers to get onboard with Sluvi, we educate them on what they could do for their output, and now we can see their productivity increase and their income increase by 300% as well.
So in Sluvi, we educate the farmers to be great entrepreneurs, in terms of sustainable farming techniques to mitigate the use of pesticides in their plantation while increasing yield.
So in the future, if they are no longer with Sluvi, they can still move on and make money from what they farm with better knowledge.
Simply said, Sluvi is a platform for B40 farmers to learn how to farm natural ingredients and do business.
3. Please share with us some memorable challenges you’ve faced so far (communicate with farmers, market your products etc), and what did you do to overcome them?
After the social enterprise was up and running, the farmers in my village did not fully join. I tried to spread the news through word of mouth, social media, and phone calls to have the farmers come work with us, but after a month, we didn’t receive a single response.
I believe those farmers didn’t trust how legit my company was. So I decided to go on the ground and meet with the villagers from house to house to explain what Sluvi was all about and what benefits they can get to help their families.
Initially, we realised the farmers actually planted using pesticides. As we want to produce 100% natural ingredients that are chemicals free and focus on the well being of human beings and the environment, pesticides are a big no-no for us.
Even though it’s difficult for the farmers to absorb that kind of knowledge, we took extra effort and time to get the farmers’ mindset aligned with Sluvi.
4. You shared that the previous larger product range did not do well as compared to the current product range. Why was it so? Would you share with us how do you intend to expand the product range in the future?
Back in 2018, we originally launched the business selling 10 products, packaged in just brown ziplock paper bags to accommodate our low capital of RM800.
Initially, we thought that with more variety of products, it would make the customers excited to browse the items on our social media and other eCommerce marketplaces.
But it turned out we had a confusing product line — which products are suitable for what type of skin. Thus we needed extra time and effort to provide explanations on the benefits of a wide range of products.
After 6 months, we realised it was a waste to produce so many products since it cost us more time and money than it gained.
So we decided to cut the product variants to 5 to help both our customers and team to stay focused, and now it’s better in terms of production, time and profit. We are really glad we have done this, in this startup with small capital, we do while we learn, and be as simple as possible.
The other reason was, we want to speed up customers’ decision and purchase flow, and get their feedback and testimonials. This helps us gain the trust of other potential customers.
If there are too many products, it might slow down the customer decision-making process and we need to spend more time on product explanation.
In the future, we will definitely produce more products, but 1 set at a time, to keep our customers focused and maintain our product quality, this is the most important for me.
5. What does your typical workday look like? How do you keep yourself productive?
For my team, 5 days a week, Monday to Wednesday. We focus more on production and visit the farm. Thursday to Friday are more to handling paperwork and meetings. While the weekend will be more on courier delivery arrangement.
We only have around 3 hours of sleep per day during the peak season (Christmas, Hari Raya etc).
For myself, 24 hours is not enough. I usually wake up at 8 am and start working until 5 pm, then take a rest and start work again around 7 pm.
Some people will go for short vacations to take a break, but for myself, whenever I have free time, I rather go to bed to have a long sleep to retain my energy. This is how I reward myself.
6. What is/are the marketing strategies you are using right now? What do you look for in an online business? What were your digitalisation challenges before moving online?
Luckily we are living in the IOT (Internet of Things) era, where most of the knowledge and inspiration could be obtained from Youtube, Google, Facebook, especially when it comes to branding and marketing strategies.
Especially during this pandemic, we leverage our social media (Instagram and Facebook) and eCommerce platforms (Shopee and Poptron).
The advantages of online business that we can see for the Sluvi is borderless in which people from all over the world can buy our products online.
As long as we promote our products strategically on online platforms, it can really reach the worldwide market, so far our products have been able to reach the US, Australia, India, Singapore, Brunei, Philippines, Indonesia and so on.
At the moment we still stick to the offline method (list our products at in-store pharmacies, retail shops, direct shops, grocery etc) but not that much.
7. Compared to selling your products in in-store pharmacies and retail outlets, how can online platforms/marketplaces help your business?
Initially, before the pandemic, we focused on the art market. After the pandemic, we became aware of how important it is to digitise our businesses.
Meanwhile, our customers kept asking us whether they can pay via eWallets. Initially, we were using the traditional method to sell our products, and have since lost a few of our potential customers.
This was also a wake-up for us that we really need to digitalise our business to accommodate today’s customer behaviours.
After we digitise our business, it really helps a lot and we are able to track where our customers came from, and we save more money such as consignment fees paid to the physical store. But it doesn’t mean we will give up on physical stores. We will go both ways.
As mentioned earlier, before the pandemic, we had no problem selling our products. We fully focused on how to increase the natural ingredients from my villages. Because our production was located in the city, we delivered all the ingredients from the village to the city by ourselves.
We got the farmers to send the ingredients to us by bus, and for other reasons, our sales dropped 30%. So it really pushed us to think outside the box to deal with the current situation.
Before that, whenever we received an order, we ourselves will be the delivery man to send the order to our customer in 1-hour time. However, outside Kuching, will be through courier service.
At the moment we have IG, FB, Shopee, and other eCommerce platforms, as now we are a small team with a small capacity. But we are open to any new ideas that can help us expand our online presence.
It’s challenging for us to catch up with the trend of selling online, but we look forward to growing our online presence in the near future.
8. What did you learn from this pandemic? How does it affect farmers and your business? What’s your biggest takeaway?
It’s really essential to be flexible when doing your business and leverage online tools. Without these powerful tools, any business wouldn’t survive this pandemic, and we can’t imagine if we are not in the IOT era.
Furthermore, with these online tools, now everything is possible. Moreover, most of the tools are free, so, why not give ourselves a shot and take the business online.
9. In your opinion, what types of materials/support are needed by traditional businessmen in order to take their business online? Knowledge and education? Or Money?
Besides financing, I really hope that the government can support digital courses in towns and villages to let them have an opportunity to learn about running a business online.
I really have sympathy for small businesses in the villages as they are not tech or online savvy. I strongly hope the government would do something to educate and support them in terms of digitalisation to get them aligned with society.
Take me as an example, before MCO I didn’t really use any online tools to grow my business. After MCO, I realise how online tools can help our business grow stronger and reach more markets and even go international.
10. Could you share with us your business plan? What are your future plans for expansion?
In 3 years’ time, we hope to increase our farmers’ income to RM2,000 and above per month, through agricultural training and workshops conducted by the team at Sluvi. Our plan will impact 15 families and educate more Malaysian consumers about the benefits of natural products.
For the long term goal, we want to create a better farming ecosystem in all the villages in Sarawak. Through this project, the farmers can have a sustainable income, improve their farming skills and knowledge, produce quality natural ingredients and create more job opportunities.
Besides, there are a lot more we can do for the villages, such as make it a tourist destination, educate the villages using productive workshops, and other related efforts that can give back to the community and benefit all the people in the village.
In terms of marketing, we are also looking forward to expanding our product range to secure more B2B customers like retailers and distributors which sell our products in big volume.
We are aiming at the hotel and the spa and beauty industry as well.
Financially, we intend to raise RM100k funding to grow our business bigger and improve our company operation, product development, and marketing strategies.
Taking up a bank loan is the worst-case scenario, so we prefer raising the fund by crowdfunding, pitching, grants etc for our social enterprise.
And yes, we are going to have our own website in the future, but now we are quite overwhelmed by almost everything in our social media, eCommerce and partners. It’s difficult for us to take care of other things. We will only consider building our own eCommerce website when we have more funds to expand our capacity.
In Malaysia, we definitely need more risk-takers and innovators who can offer end-to-end support to the micro and small businesses that face challenges in the pandemic.
Thank you to Sulie for sharing this interesting and inspiring story with Exabytes. We wish Sluvi all the best in growing the business online. We hope more farmers from Sarawak (and the whole of Malaysia) will join Sluvi and get out of poverty soon.
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