This avenue for making various purchases has also been a good deal for Malaysians since the imposition of the goods and services tax (GST) in April 2015.
Besides the lure of features like discounts and online vouchers, they have found buying goods and services on the platform to be a valuable lifestyle choice.
E-commerce cashback market player, ShopBack Malaysia, observed significant growth in customers since starting operations in February 2015 with only 5,000 users. Today it has more than 850,000 users.
Shopback country general manager Alvin Gill said the company initially faced the challenge of educating people who had not heard of the online shopping concept before, with many having expressed concern over its authenticity fearing it was some sort of scam.
He said the company’s findings showed several factors, including the petrol price hike and increase in food costs, had caused Malaysians to optimise their spending.
“After the implementation of GST, we saw that users shopping via ShopBack were especially treating it as a way of saving money on their purchases.
“Data shows that when it comes to savings, Malaysians are more aggressive and increasingly choose cashback platforms as a convenient way to accumulate cashback rewards for every transaction,” he said.
Gill said the 850,000 Malaysians who used the site had enjoyed over RM25 million in cashback from their purchases.
“Their purchases also include services such as rides from Grab and Uber,” he said.
The company offers its customers rewards in the form of cash which can be transferred to a bank account once validated.
Gill said the feature was especially popular just before the Chinese New Year period when consumers were observed rushing to do their shopping from Jan 29 to 31, possibly right after they received their salaries.
“Overall, there was a spike in transactions of petrol gift cards, baby milk formula and mobile reloads in January as many turned to ShopBack to optimise their Chinese New Year spending.
“There was also an increase in travel bookings in the second and third weeks of January due to Malaysians purchasing travel deals for the long Chinese New Year break,” he told FMT.
According to Gill, ShopBack is collaborating with more than 500 merchants to offer up to 30% cashback, and the cashback percentage tends to increase during the festive period.
“Online merchants see us as a valuable partner in promoting their business to the right target audience and retaining existing customers.
“We may be earning less by sharing our commission with users as cashback, but this triple-win model will help us go a long way,” he said.
Gill added that more than 30 online merchants had joined ShopBack Malaysia, including Malaysia Airlines, 11street, Uniqlo Online and Kinokuniya.
Updates on latest deals
Another site frequented as a “savings haven” is Shopee Malaysia, whose regional managing director, Ian Ho said the company found that Malaysians were becoming increasingly savvy when shopping online.
“A survey done on 7,500 online shoppers across Malaysia showed that 97% plan their online shopping around discounts, flash sales and vouchers availability.
“It appears that getting maximum value out of online shopping has become a lifestyle choice among Malaysians.
“Users even log in multiple times a day to get updates on the latest deals when they intend to buy something online,” he said.
Based on the company’s survey, over 46% of respondents indicated that they browsed Shopee three to six times daily to compare prices and check for deals.
Over 26% indicated that they would log in more than six times a day to hunt for deals.
“Based on these findings, Shopee Malaysia decided to launch a new daily campaign called Shocking Sale to cater to the demands of Malaysian online shoppers,” Ho said.
“The Shocking Sale campaign started on July 9, 2017 where it featured curated flash deals at deep discounts, including ‘shocking’ RM9 deals updated daily that month.
“After July 15, these special RM9 deals continued to run on the 9th of every month,” Ho said.
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Caption:
ShopBack Malaysia country general manager Alvin Gill.