Two of the biggest e-commerce players in Malaysia aren’t even Malaysian. Vettons, another e-commerce player who just entered the scene with a July 2020 launch, wants to change that.
It’s a platform by a Malaysian company, and it has big plans to set new standards for our local e-commerce scene by having same-day delivery, working only with brand owners and main distributors, and merchant filtering by geolocation, amongst other things.
With those features alone, I believe that Vettons can certainly set itself apart, but when I checked out the app, I definitely saw some areas for improvement.
1. Increase The App’s User Friendliness
When you’re on the main home page, you’ll be able to see the 5 tabs at the bottom which let you browse: Vettons’ homepage, My Shipments, Zoni, My Boards, and My Vettons (your profile).
However, the moment you click into a product listing, those buttons disappear.
They disappear if you search for a product as well, which means that to get back to the homepage or to access any of the other tabs, you have to keep clicking back, back, back.
I found this irritating when I wanted to add several different products to my cart, but I suppose I won’t have to worry about this in the future as the team shared that they’re working to improve this.
2. Include A Review Section Of Merchants
Reviews are a majorly important part of the e-commerce experience for me, so even though I’m comforted by the fact that Vettons only works with brand owners and main distributors, the lack of a review section still worries me a little.
A brand owner or main distributor may be able to provide me with the genuine products, but reviews will still be very helpful to gauge the merchant’s overall service, like their speed of delivery or the condition that the product comes in.
But good news—the team said that they’re in the midst of building the review and rating system now.
3. Improve Zoni, Its Resident AI Feature
As it is, the current version of Zoni that’s on the Vettons app doesn’t help much with my shopping experience, I’d say.
What she’s able to do right now is introduce product listings to you based on what you speak into the microphone. For example, saying “shoes” would bring up several different listings of shoes.
However, that ability is rather basic and offers no more value than when I type “shoes” into the search bar myself. I don’t feel like it makes the process any faster either.
I don’t see myself using this feature much as of now, but once again, it’s still a work in progress.
The team shared, “We are trying to build Zoni to be like Alexa within our ecosystem,” so we should be seeing more of Zoni’s capabilities in the coming future.
On The Path To Becoming A Super App
“We want people to be able to use our whole ecosystem (which is a work in progress too) within their phone,” the Vettons team shared.
“The current trend is pointing towards mobile devices, and the mobile penetration rate in SEA is a lot higher compared to desktop.”
These are why Vettons is sticking to an app-only approach instead of being present on multiple device platforms.
As they tweak the app, the team is also working on bringing more features to it.
One example is an Augmented Reality feature where consumers can get a rough idea of what a pair of shoes will look like on their feet, or how a specific refrigerator would look like in that corner of their kitchen.
Being so new, there are bound to be major hiccups at first, and right now the Vettons team is tackling the issues of merchant service and customer support.
Some merchants on Vettons are still unfamiliar with updating their product status, meaning that sold-out products are still shown as available and purchasable.
Of course, this means that customers won’t be getting their products for a while, leading to complaints.
Vettons also struggles with a lack of manpower. For most e-commerce marketplaces, customers liaise directly with merchants, but Vettons handles all enquiries from customers, leading to a bottleneck in the system.
To overcome these issues, Vettons has hired a better Head of Customer Support as well as allocated a few people to manage the merchant cancellation issues.
Once these have been resolved and the app improved, I do think that Vettons has a good chance of playing alongside the existing e-commerce giants in Malaysia.
