SHOPLINE, the global smart commerce platform, has announced the official expansion of its services to Malaysia following a soft launch earlier this year.

The start-up, originally founded in Hong Kong, enables merchants to easily set up online stores and offers a wide selection of shop designs, payment gateways, and shipping carriers tailored to the needs of local and cross-border merchants. It has grown over the last six years to become the market leader in Asia, helping more than 150,000 entrepreneurs, SMEs and large enterprises such as Durex, Bee Cheng Hiang and Hiwalk go digital. In 2018, SHOPLINE’s merchants reached over 200 million customers.

Empowering Malaysian businesses and merchants with smart, omnichannel tools

E-commerce in Malaysia is booming, with recent figures from the Department of Statistics (DOSM) suggesting that ​income from e-commerce transactions has grown at a rate of approximately 6% per year, totalling RM447.8bn (USD107.5bn) in 2017 compared to RM398.2bn (USD95.6bn) in 2015​. However, according to the same research, little over a third (37.8%) of Malaysian organisations ​had a web presence by the end of the survey period, demonstrating a significant gap in brands making the transition from physical to digital.

Following the expansions into Taiwan, China and Vietnam, SHOPLINE now aims to introduce its portfolio of smart commerce solutions to Malaysia, enabling merchants to quickly and affordably build their own online stores. With a dedicated team of 12 on the ground in Kuala Lumpur, the platform launches having already helped a number of local brands begin their online ventures, including Slimworld Beauty House, My Kitchen, health food brand Pinnoqio and Six sigma synergy.

Thomas Cheah, CEO and Founder of Pinnoqio said: “We sell fresh, healthy food products like nuts and muesli, and want to ensure customers receive the freshest products from us. Unlike physical stores that pre-packaged items to be stored on shelves, running our business online means we’re able to package our produce on-demand, once a customer has made an order. This is how we guarantee our food is of the highest standards and maintains its fresh and wholesome taste.”

Building a seamless online to offline future

In the coming months, SHOPLINE will expand its Malaysia offering to include its range of online to offline (O2O) solutions, which enable merchants to connect across channels and optimise the customer’s shopping experience.

Services will include the SHOPLINE Kiosk, a CRM tool that allows users to sign up for a membership with a mobile number or email in seconds, and the SHOPLINE Broadcast Center, a marketing automation tool enabling merchants to reach customers via Facebook’s chatbot, SMS and email. Shoplytics is a proprietary smart analytics dashboard that allows merchants to visualise and analyse data related to their store’s web traffic, revenue, product performance, customers, marketing and promotion campaign performance.

Cheah added: “We’ve been thoroughly impressed by SHOPLINE’s focus on customer service, and their comprehensive, easy-to-use solutions—it was so simple to set up. And with SHOPLINE’s omnichannel offering, we’ve already noticed a real increase in reach as we better engage with both online and offline audiences.”

Later this year, SHOPLINE will further look to introduce its cloud-based point-of-sale (POS) system tailored for retailers, enabling them to keep an accurate record of store transactions, track and manage store inventories, generate real-time sales performance reports, track staff performance, manage payroll, memberships, and more—creating a unified omnichannel solution over multiple store locations.

Tony Wong, Co-founder and CEO of SHOPLINE said, “We’re delighted to be bringing our portfolio to Malaysia in this exciting era of digitisation for the nation. The government has made significant investments to accelerate Malaysia’s digital economy, so there has never been a better time for local merchants to open their online doors and capitalise on the opportunity to engage new audiences—both in Malaysia and beyond.”

“For the consumer, it’s all about creating a consistent, connected shopping experience that is fast, simple and available everywhere. As we further expand our Malaysia footprint and introduce our wider range of solutions such as O2O and POS, our mission is to, therefore, help brands expand their omnichannel presence and ensure seamless movement from online to offline to ultimately retain customers for the long-term.”