A little over a month ago, Vulcan Post wrote about MyCyberSale in Malaysia, the world’s first ever Government-led cyber sale! Admittedly, I was a little doubtful on whether the website would be able to sustain the heavy traffic of the projected 100,000 buyers. I was even more skeptical of the RM50 million target that they hoped to generate, what with this being the first ever effort of its kind.
I’m proud to be proven wrong and to share that MyCyberSale was a big success, earning an impressive RM67.38 million in the three day sales. Go Malaysia!
The sales was active from September 29 to October 1 2014, and had deals offering as high as 90% discount. The Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) responsible for the event had hoped for 100,000 buyers, but managed to hit almost twice that target, garnering the interest of 179,617 local online shoppers!
This sales event is inspired by the famous CyberMonday deals in America that provides huge discounts and promotions on the Monday after Thanksgiving. Our very own version of CyberMonday is hoped to continue next year and stay an annual event in Malaysia.
Despite the tedious application process that vendors have to undergo in order to participate in MyCyberSale, a total of 3,700 merchants from 280 e-Marketplaces took part in the event. During the events, great deals were seen by all kinds of vendors. Dell offered 15% off its Alienware gaming laptops while Astro was offering free flights to new subscribers.
In anticipation of the event, MyCyberSale teamed up with Line to allow consumers to get exclusive deals during the three day sale. Ecommercemilo.com came up with an illustrated step-by-step guide on how to join #MyCyberSale on Line which might come in useful for next year!
According to the Chief Executive Officer of MDeC, Datuk Yasmin Mahmood, 57% of the visits to MyCyberSale website came from mobile phones. Bernama reported that online traffic increased by 222% with online shoppers showing more interest in electronic, gadget and fashion segments.
Datuk Yasmin further added that the results of this successful cyber sale have shown how lucrative e-commerce is in Malaysia. She encouraged local SMEs to delve into e-commerce to increase domestic e-commerce revenue. She assured readers that the event will continue next year, though the MyCyberSale.my website appears to be completely non-functional now.
Compliments aside, I was lurking on the popular Malaysian chat forum lowyat.net during the sale and it appears that the government was less than perfect in choosing the vendors. Many buyers took to the forums to complain about sketchy vendors and overpriced items, though the discussion boards have since been deleted by lowyat moderators. Some even commented on how the vendors increased the price instead of lowering it. Frequent shoppers from some of the sites also claim that the prices did not differ much from normal periods.
In addition, as soon as the site went live at 12:00 midnight, mycybersales.my crashed. This is normal however, as not many sites are able to handle the onslaught of traffic from enthusiastic buyers. Personally, I was very disappointed as I could not find anything worth buying during the sale.
Malaysian vendors need to uphold integrity and practice honesty in e-commerce to build up trust in online shoppers. Maybe next year, we will have more trustworthy vendors on board, actual discounts and more shopping done!