Malaysia’s online sales set to quintuple by 2025, fashion leads

Online sales in Malaysia, which is currently just above 1 per cent of total retail market, is likely to quintuple by 2025, says a report. The rise is due to online outpacing store-based retail, especially fashion sales. The Malaysian government has launched a strategic roadmap for e-commerce and rolled out several initiatives in partnership with the private sector.

According to the Malaysia B2C E-commerce Market 2017 report by yStats, more than 50 per cent of online shoppers in Malaysia are less than 29 years old. Meaning, the continued maturity and wealth growth of this demographic sits well for the increase of online sales, said yStats.

Moreover, Malaysia’s internet penetration is one of the highest in the region with approximately one third of internet users make purchases online, said report authors. The product category with the largest share of e-commerce sales in 2016 was clothing and footwear.

Complementing the government-backed e-commerce development projects, other factors encouraging the growth of online retail in Malaysia are the ready infrastructure and favourable demographics in the Asian nation, said the report.

In March, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak launched a digital free trade zone along with Jack Ma, founder and executive chairman of Alibaba. At the time, the Chinese e-commerce company said it would set up a logistics hub in Kuala Lumpur that will serve as a regional distribution hub.

It will be part of a digital free trade zone set to be developed close to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

The e-commerce competition landscape in Malaysia is led by online marketplaces. Lazada.com.my and 11street.my were the most visited e-commerce websites in Malaysia in February 2017, according to a ranking included in the report.