Malaysians in general are no strangers to the wonder of the internet and online shopping. According to government statistics, there are approximately 22 million active internet users (roughly 68% of the population) nationwide, and another 5 million are expected to go online next year. The country as one of the fastest-growing online markets in the region, as evidenced by the rise of e-commerce websites and online shopping in Malaysia.
A survey by popular online shopping website 11street Malaysia revealed the 5 online shopping trends in Malaysia for 2017 are:
- Online shopping will only continue to grow.
- Payment methods will increase and become more digital.
- Consumers are willing to shop new product categories.
- Express delivery will become the norm.
- Customers will look beyond price.
(Infographic from Pamper.my)
When online shopping first started going mainstream in Malaysia, most people were hesitant to spend their money online. What if it’s a scam and they get hold of my banking account or credit card details? Fast forward to the present day, there are consumers who do not hesitate to key in their credit card details to purchase electronic and digital gadgets worth more than RM5,000.
Consumers’ mindset about online shopping has changed drastically in the past few years, and as more and more new product categories are introduced into the online marketplace, who’s to say that property or real estate won’t be next to be bought and sold online?
When we talk about online “shopping” for property in the current day and age, it actually means potential buyers going online to do research, compare prices, and basically get more information about the projects or properties they like. Nevertheless, when it comes to the actual transaction (i.e. deposit, down payment, miscellaneous fees, interest, installments, etc), everything takes place offline in an agent’s office or project sales gallery. Take a read at this thought-provoking article about online home buying in India.
(Photo from Freepik)
But perhaps in the future, online shopping for properties will exactly what it means – going online to search for a property, choosing the exact unit, picking your add-ons, adding it to cart, and finally checking it out with your banking details or credit card. Wouldn’t that be (scarily) awesome? In fact, why not go one step further and have mobile apps that allow you to do that? Developers can launch their brand apps in which users can download the app, get information about their projects, and even purchase directly from the app! (Psst… Estate123 has an Android and iOS mobile app for you to search for properties!) After all, 80% of Malaysian online shoppers use their mobile phones for purchases, so it’s not too ludicrous to imagine something like that in the future.
Of course, for this particular category of online shopping to work, there must be a whole lot of other things going on in the back-end that will allow the transaction to succesfully go through, including – but not limited to – criteria such as whether the user is real or fake, their personal details, credit score, financial status, etc.
As for how that will actually work out…. well, that’s a topic of discussion for another day. 😉
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