{"id":2750,"date":"2013-06-19T00:16:14","date_gmt":"2013-06-19T05:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/?p=2750"},"modified":"2013-06-19T00:16:27","modified_gmt":"2013-06-19T05:16:27","slug":"shopify-off-the-rack-asia-e-commerce-hots-up-in-malaysia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2013\/06\/19\/shopify-off-the-rack-asia-e-commerce-hots-up-in-malaysia","title":{"rendered":"Shopify, Off The Rack Asia &#8211; e-commerce hots up in Malaysia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"A trolley in love by byte, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/byte\/119794118\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/55\/119794118_427788b9a8_n.jpg?resize=320%2C213\" alt=\"A trolley in love\" width=\"320\" height=\"213\" align=\"right\" hspace=\"5\" vspace=\"5\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a>Some interesting news happening in the Malaysian e-commerce space today.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.shopify.com\/\">Shopify<\/a>, the Canadian company, is now in Southeast Asia thanks to <a href=\"http:\/\/e27.co\/2013\/06\/19\/shopify-marches-into-southeast-asia-with-backing-from-singtel\/\">SingTel backing<\/a>. Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and India get access to Shopify, and by September, you can work with local payment gateways as SingTel will help Shopify get onboarded. In Malaysia, that means working with MOLPay (NBEPay) or iPay88. Both have woefully terrible pages that break the flow.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>With Maybank pushing e-commerce and &#8220;blogshops&#8221;, I&#8217;m surprised they didn&#8217;t have the foresight to do this. Shopify could have chosen Malaysia as a headquarters, no? Alas, the sufferance when Singapore is your much more welcoming neighbour.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<li>I <a href=\"http:\/\/www.digitalnewsasia.com\/sizzle-fizzle\/startup-hopes-social-fashionistas-will-buy-off-the-rack-asia\">read<\/a> about a startup, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.offtherack.asia\/\">Off The Rack Asia<\/a>, that aims to compete with Zalora\/FashionValet\/Rakuten\/etc. The story broke at <a href=\"http:\/\/fz.com\/content\/rack-asia-injects-social-media-online-shopping\">FZ<\/a>, which is also worth a read. They don&#8217;t disclose how much Cradle gave as a grant? It&#8217;s anywhere between RM150,000 &#8211; RM500,000 isn&#8217;t it (CIP150 or CIP500)?<\/li>\n<ul>\n<li>This is great for merchants. They have more places to distribute their goods. Love that they&#8217;re supporting locals.<\/li>\n<li>Target market is 18-35 &#8211; I think that&#8217;s two broad, you get at least 2 distinct age groups there, if not three!<\/li>\n<li>I checked out the site &#8211; nice design. I notice that the items are generally quite pricey, so definitely not mass market fast fashion prices.<\/li>\n<li>Checkout page can do with improvements. (I must accept terms but can&#8217;t read it via a clickable link?) Payment page basically sucks, it heads to MOLPay.<\/li>\n<li>No idea if they&#8217;re drop shipping or holding inventory. Zalora started via drop ship, but soon realised that fulfilment was an issue, so they have a warehouse with inventory.<\/li>\n<li>Zendesk is their Q&amp;A platform (odd choice that you&#8217;d pay for such a service).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Overall, I&#8217;m hoping to see improvements in payment gateways with lobbying by all these players. And I wish the girls at Off The Rack the best, it&#8217;s a tough space to be in, but one that can only grow as Malaysia itself grows digitally (as does the region).<\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-email\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-email sd-button share-icon\" href=\"mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20Shopify%2C%20Off%20The%20Rack%20Asia%20-%20e-commerce%20hots%20up%20in%20Malaysia&body=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bytebot.net%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2013%2F06%2F19%2Fshopify-off-the-rack-asia-e-commerce-hots-up-in-malaysia&share=email\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to email a link to a friend\" data-email-share-error-title=\"Do you have email set up?\" data-email-share-error-text=\"If you&#039;re having problems sharing via email, you might not have email set up for your browser. You may need to create a new email yourself.\" data-email-share-nonce=\"d8b9d20246\" data-email-share-track-url=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2013\/06\/19\/shopify-off-the-rack-asia-e-commerce-hots-up-in-malaysia?share=email\"><span>Email<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-facebook\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-facebook-2750\" class=\"share-facebook sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2013\/06\/19\/shopify-off-the-rack-asia-e-commerce-hots-up-in-malaysia?share=facebook\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Facebook\" ><span>Facebook<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-linkedin\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-linkedin-2750\" class=\"share-linkedin sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2013\/06\/19\/shopify-off-the-rack-asia-e-commerce-hots-up-in-malaysia?share=linkedin\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on LinkedIn\" ><span>LinkedIn<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-twitter\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-twitter-2750\" class=\"share-twitter sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2013\/06\/19\/shopify-off-the-rack-asia-e-commerce-hots-up-in-malaysia?share=twitter\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Twitter\" ><span>Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-end\"><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some interesting news happening in the Malaysian e-commerce space today. Shopify, the Canadian company, is now in Southeast Asia thanks to SingTel backing. Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and India get access to Shopify, and by September, you can work with local payment gateways as SingTel will help Shopify get onboarded. In Malaysia, that means working with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-email\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-email sd-button share-icon\" href=\"mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20Shopify%2C%20Off%20The%20Rack%20Asia%20-%20e-commerce%20hots%20up%20in%20Malaysia&body=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bytebot.net%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2013%2F06%2F19%2Fshopify-off-the-rack-asia-e-commerce-hots-up-in-malaysia&share=email\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to email a link to a friend\" data-email-share-error-title=\"Do you have email set up?\" data-email-share-error-text=\"If you&#039;re having problems sharing via email, you might not have email set up for your browser. You may need to create a new email yourself.\" data-email-share-nonce=\"d8b9d20246\" data-email-share-track-url=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2013\/06\/19\/shopify-off-the-rack-asia-e-commerce-hots-up-in-malaysia?share=email\"><span>Email<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-facebook\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-facebook-2750\" class=\"share-facebook sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2013\/06\/19\/shopify-off-the-rack-asia-e-commerce-hots-up-in-malaysia?share=facebook\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Facebook\" ><span>Facebook<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-linkedin\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-linkedin-2750\" class=\"share-linkedin sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2013\/06\/19\/shopify-off-the-rack-asia-e-commerce-hots-up-in-malaysia?share=linkedin\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on LinkedIn\" ><span>LinkedIn<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-twitter\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-twitter-2750\" class=\"share-twitter sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2013\/06\/19\/shopify-off-the-rack-asia-e-commerce-hots-up-in-malaysia?share=twitter\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Twitter\" ><span>Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-end\"><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[25,1405],"tags":[177,137,1022],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4vJD-Im","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2548,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2012\/10\/20\/the-state-of-e-commerce-payments-in-malaysia-still-terrible","url_meta":{"origin":2750,"position":0},"title":"The state of e-commerce payments in Malaysia: still terrible","date":"20\/10\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Today I tried to checkout RM450 using iPay88. They only accept Visa or MasterCard credit cards, so I pulled my wallet out. I thought I would use the Citibank card today. I got sent to an error page. So I clicked the back button to head back and thankfully this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Business&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2476,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2012\/09\/04\/7-eleven-helps-e-commerce-in-taiwan","url_meta":{"origin":2750,"position":1},"title":"7-Eleven helps e-commerce in Taiwan","date":"4\/9\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I was recently in Taiwan for my very first trip to the country. Staying at the grand hyatt taipei meant I got to see the taipei 101 all the time. Boy is it tall, and boy was it amazing to see the building that displaced the Kuala Lumpur Twin Towers\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Business&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2554,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2012\/10\/22\/mol-at-the-center-of-online-offline-payments","url_meta":{"origin":2750,"position":2},"title":"MOL at the center of online &#038; offline payments","date":"22\/10\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"There's a chance that Malaysian payments will get shook up. From an online perspective, you've got the former nbepay becoming MOLPay. From an offline perspective, you've got a joint venture between softspace and MOL to form MOLCube (e27 cover it too). The center of all of this is MOL. For\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Business&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2441,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2012\/08\/16\/zalora-malaysia-some-quick-thoughts","url_meta":{"origin":2750,"position":3},"title":"zalora malaysia: some quick thoughts","date":"16\/8\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm not your typical shopper, but I've worked with a tonne of e-commerce in my days. From shopping carts to getting the word out, I've probably got to start listing more down here.\u00a0 One of the first shopping malls in Malaysia to me was jipaban. The terms (for sellers) weren't\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Business&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2486,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2012\/09\/05\/my-take-on-rocket-internet","url_meta":{"origin":2750,"position":4},"title":"My take on Rocket Internet","date":"5\/9\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I've wanted to write about Rocket Internet ever since reading an article that appeared in SGEntrepreneurs, written by my friend Bernard Leong, titled Are the Samwer Brothers, a.k.a Rocket Internet really that bad for Southeast Asia? That article appeared towards the end of March 2012, and anyone that knows me\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Business&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/59\/210738795_241ea2845d_n.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2747,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2013\/06\/15\/malaysian-postcode-database","url_meta":{"origin":2750,"position":5},"title":"Malaysian postcode database","date":"15\/6\/2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been thinking about simplifying e-commerce checkouts in Malaysia. At bare minimum you need: Name Email address Phone Street address Postcode State can be derived from Postcode. Country can be set as default, with the option to change it to something else (so a pull-down). I found MalaysiaPostcode as a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Malaysia&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2750"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2750"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2751,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2750\/revisions\/2751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}