Top 20 Ecommerce Websites in Malaysia and How They Make Money Online
As e-commerce continues to grow in Malaysia, more and more people see the potential of selling online in Malaysia.
As such, the biggest e-commerce websites in Malaysia continue to get even bigger every year and new e-commerce websites get launched every month.
With so much activity in the e-commerce space in Malaysia, one can’t help but wonder:
Which websites and brands dominate the e-commerce space?
By knowing which websites are dominating, existing e-commerce business owners or people who want to start an e-commerce business can have a good reference point to learn from.
These websites can teach them ways to improve their own site design, marketing strategy as well as their product and/or service features.
If that sounds like you, you will find this list informative and useful in growing your own e-commerce business.
Below, I list down the top e-commerce websites based on their Alexa rankings.
As you will notice, the e-commerce space in Malaysia is shared not only by self-owned, branded e-commerce websites but also big online marketplaces.
No matter what type of website it is though, I believe that you will be able to gain some insights on how to improve your own e-commerce business based on what you observe from the websites.
So let’s get started!
Note: Traffic estimations by SimilarWeb. All traffic and ranking figures are accurate at the time of publication. They will shift based on the time you check.
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Lazada.com.my
Category: Online marketplace (C2C & B2C)
Alexa Ranking: #5 in Malaysia
Monthly Visitors: 31.29 million
Year of Establishment: 2011
Started in 2011 by the Rocket Internet SE, Lazada has grown into Malaysia’s most popular online marketplace where sellers and buyers can trade. Lazada acts as a middleperson, guaranteeing delivery to buyer and payment to seller.
In the early days, Lazada fueled its growth by giving out massive discount vouchers as well as offering free shipping to its customers.
Lazada makes money primarily by charging sellers a commission every time a sale is made. Most recently, Lazada has also started making money by selling sponsored product ads to sellers on its website.
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Shopee.com.my
Category: Online marketplace (C2C & B2C)
Alexa Ranking: #12 in Malaysia
Monthly Visitors: 10.88 million
Year of Establishment: 2015
Like Lazada, Shopee is another e-commerce marketplace in Malaysia. Its core service is to facilitate transactions between buyer and seller. But unlike Lazada which began mainly as a desktop online marketplace, Shopee began with a focus on mobile shopping, prioritizing growth on its app.
Despite only getting started in 2015, Shopee has surpassed online marketplaces like Lelong and 11Street to become the second most popular e-commerce marketplace in Malaysia.
Its growth has been fueled by offers of free shipping to buyers as well as not charging any commission to sellers on its platform.
At the moment, it is unclear how Shopee plans to make money in the long-term, but for now, it is making some revenue through its sponsored ads.
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Mudah.my
Category: Online marketplace (C2C)
Alexa Ranking: #13 in Malaysia
Monthly Visitors: 12.37 million
Year of Establishment: 2007
Mudah.my is Malaysia’s largest classifieds listings website. Unlike e-commerce marketplaces like Lazada and Shopee, Mudah does not facilitate buy and sell transactions on its site. Rather, deals found on the website are transacted outside of the website between buyer and seller.
In its early years, Mudah grew through conventional advertising like TV ads.
Since Mudah does not charge its sellers any listing fee, its main revenue source appears to be from display advertising as well as a service known as ProNiaga where sellers can set up a personal shop on Mudah.
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11street.my
Category: Online marketplace (C2C & B2C)
Alexa Ranking: #28 in Malaysia
Monthly Visitors: 8.40 million
Year of Establishment: 2014
11Street is another e-commerce marketplace like Lazada and Shopee. It started in 2014 as an expansion of its main company in Korea which was established in 2008.
At one point, 11Street was the second largest online marketplace in Malaysia. But as I mentioned earlier, that place has now been taken over by Shopee.
Like Lazada, 11Street makes money from charging a commission to sellers each time a sale is made on its website as well as selling sponsored product ads.
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Lelong.com.my
Category: Online marketplace (B2C)
Alexa Ranking: #67 in Malaysia
Monthly Visitors: 5.47 million
Year of Establishment: 2007
Lelong is Malaysia’s pioneer e-commerce marketplace. Before brands like Lazada, 11Street or Shopee entered the e-commerce space in Malaysia, Lelong was once the biggest e-commerce website here.
Though it has since lost its top spot, Lelong still remains the top five e-commerce marketplaces in Malaysia.
Like Lazada and 11Street, Lelong makes money by charging a commission to sellers each time a sale is made as well as selling sponsored ads to its sellers.
On top of that, however, Lelong also makes money by charging sellers an annual listing fee.
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Hermo.my
Category: Beauty E-commerce Site
Alexa Ranking: #140 in Malaysia
Monthly Visitors: 718,000+
Year of Establishment: 2012
Hermo started in 2012 by riding on the Korean wave and selling products from Korea. Since then, however, Hermo has expanded its product range to include non-Korean brands. Now, Hermo is more of a general beauty products e-commerce site.
Like most e-commerce websites, Hermo’s early growth was fueled by discount coupons.
Hermo is not an e-commerce marketplace so it makes money by taking profits on the difference between its product’s cost and selling price.
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Zalora.com.my
Category: Fashion online marketplace
Alexa Ranking: #170 in Malaysia
Monthly Visitors: 1.66 million
Year of Establishment: 2012
Zalora is an e-commerce marketplace in Malaysia with a focus on fashion. Like Lazada, Zalora is another e-commerce brand established by Rocket Internet in 2012.
As of now, it remains the most popular fashion e-commerce marketplace in Malaysia.
As with any other e-commerce marketplace, Zalora makes money by charging commissions to sellers on its platform for each successful sale.
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Carousell.com
Category: Online marketplace (C2C)
Alexa Ranking: #194 in Malaysia
Monthly Visitors: 12.63 million (12.75% Malaysia)
Year of Establishment: 2012
Carousell is a C2C online marketplace. Like Mudah, people who want to sell can list on Carousell for free. If anyone is interested to buy, they can make a deal outside of Carousell.
Since Carousell does not charge its buyers or sellers, it makes money mainly by selling display ads on its site and app.
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Ezbuy.my
Category: Daigou
Alexa Ranking: #374 in Malaysia
Monthly Visitors: 555,000+
Year of Establishment: 2010
Ezbuy start off as 65Daigou in 2010. It is a website specialized in helping Malaysians buy from websites that do not normally ship to Malaysian addresses. These include websites like Amazon US, Amazon Japan, Taobao and Tmall.
It makes money by charging buyers a service fee on top of the retail price of the item that is bought.
Although when Ezbuy entered the buyer space in 2010, there were not many competitors, these days Ezbuy competes with the likes of Lazada and Shopee which allow Taobao sellers to list directly on their websites.
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Ebay.com.my
Category: Online marketplace (C2C)
Alexa Ranking: #397 in Malaysia
Monthly Visitors: 1.06 million
Year of Establishment: 2004
Ebay is a popular e-commerce marketplace from the US that started off as an auction and used goods marketplace. These days, Ebay is trying to shed off their image as a used goods marketplace to take on the image of a general e-commerce marketplace.
Since its establishment in 2004, however, Ebay in Malaysia has never grown big enough to become the most popular e-commerce marketplace in Malaysia.
Though, it remains in the top five most popular e-commerce marketplaces in Malaysia.
Like any other e-commerce marketplace, Ebay makes money by charging commissions for sales made on its platform as well as selling sponsored product ads.
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Qoo100.my
Category: Korean products online marketplace
Alexa Ranking: #550 in Malaysia
Monthly Visitors: 910,000+
Year of Establishment: 2011
Qoo100 started off in 2011 was Kmarket, an e-commerce marketplace specialized in selling products from Korea to Malaysia. It has since rebranded as Qoo100.
Like other e-commerce marketplaces, Qoo100 also makes money by charging commissions to sellers and selling product ads.
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MyFave.com
Category: Deals site
Alexa Ranking: #750 in Malaysia
Monthly Visitors: 1.19 million (35% Malaysia)
Year of Establishment: 2017
Fave is a website started by serial entrepreneur Joel Neoh after a sustainable business model was not able to be achieved with his fitness startup KFIT.
KFIT subsequently bought over Groupon Malaysia and rebranded it to Fave in 2017.
Like Groupon, Fave is a website that features deals on travel, food, services, and products.
It makes money by charging the deal merchants a commission on the sales made through Fave.
However, Fave is not a marketplace so each deal on the Fave website was curated and packaged individually by the Fave team.
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FashionValet.com
Category: Fashion E-commerce Site
Alexa Ranking: #958 in Malaysia
Monthly Visitors: 357,000+
Year of Establishment: 2010
FashionValet is a fashion e-commerce website in Malaysia specialized in modest wear. It began as a fun project between the popular blogger Vivy Yusof and her husband Fadza Anuar in 2010 when they were both students in London.
Its growth in the early years, as well as today, is mainly fueled by Vivy’s popularity.
Now, FashionValet has grown to become the non-marketplace e-commerce website in Malaysia with the largest collection of modest wear in Malaysia.
As it is a branded e-commerce site, FashionValet makes money by profiting the price difference between cost price and selling price.
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Sephora.my
Category: Beauty E-commerce Site
Alexa Ranking: #1,036 in Malaysia
Monthly Visitors: 291,000+
Year of Establishment: 2016
Launched in 2016, Sephora made its way into Malaysia by acquiring the then biggest e-commerce site for US beauty brands, Luxola.
As with any e-commerce site, Sephora makes money by profiting the price difference between cost price and selling price.
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Althea.kr
Category: Korean Beauty E-commerce Site
Alexa Ranking: #1,273 in Malaysia
Monthly Visitors: 427,000+
Year of Establishment: 2015
Althea is an e-commerce site specialized in selling Korean products send directly to the doorsteps of Malaysians from Korea.
It boasts one of the biggest collection of Korean beauty and makeup products in Malaysia.
As with any e-commerce site, Althea makes money by profiting the price difference between cost price and selling price.
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TheOneMall.com
Category: Fashion E-commerce Site
Alexa Ranking: #1,579 in Malaysia
Monthly Visitors: 174,000+
Year of Establishment: N/A
TheOneMall is a website that sells affordable, China-imported products to Malaysians looking for a bargain on fashion items online.
As with any e-commerce site, TheOneMall makes money by profiting the price difference between cost price and selling price.
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Shashinki.com
Category: Camera E-commerce Site
Alexa Ranking: #2,013 in Malaysia
Monthly Visitors: 125,000+
Year of Establishment: 2005
Shashinki is a website specialized in the sales of cameras and their accessories in Malaysia.
As with any e-commerce site, Shashinki makes money by profiting the price difference between cost price and selling price.
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Youbeli.com
Category: Online Marketplace
Alexa Ranking: #2,633 in Malaysia
Monthly Visitors: 191,000+
Year of Establishment: 2015
Youbeli is another e-commerce marketplace in Malaysia. Though established in 2015, Youbeli has not grown enough to match the sizes of bigger players like Lazada and Shopee.
For now, Youbeli appears to make mainly by charging a transaction fee whenever a sales is made on its platform.
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Mysale.my
Category: Deals Site
Alexa Ranking: #3,060 in Malaysia
Monthly Visitors: 206,000+
Year of Establishment: N/A
MySale.my is the subsidiary of the Australian deals site of the same name.
It makes money mainly by taking up bulk quantities of clearance items from different countries and selling them at discounted prices to Malaysians.
As with any e-commerce site, MySale.my makes money by profiting the price difference between cost price and selling price.
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Motherhood.com.my
Category: Baby Products Online Marketplace
Alexa Ranking: #3,949 in Malaysia
Monthly Visitors: 422,000+
Year of Establishment: 2016
Motherhood.com.my started off as a content website where mothers or expecting mothers can learn about how to deal with the issues that are prevalent with motherhood.
It subsequently rebranded to include a marketplace selling baby products whereby vendors can list their products on the site.
It is unclear how Motherhood.com.my makes money, but I am guessing that they do it by charging their vendors a commission on sales like any other online marketplace.
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ChristyNg.com
Category: Shoes E-commerce Site
Alexa Ranking: #7,056 in Malaysia
Monthly Visitors: 130,000+
Year of Establishment: 2010
The Christy Ng shoe brand started off as a small project by its founder and shoe designer Christy Ng. As she saw her brand name grow in fanbase on Facebook and orders coming in every month, Christy Ng continued growing the brand with some help from prize money won from participating in various business competitions.
Now, Christy Ng is one of the most well-known local shoe brands in Malaysia.
As with any e-commerce site, ChristyNg.com makes money by profiting the price difference between cost price and selling price.
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Conclusion
As you can see, the biggest e-commerce websites in Malaysia are mainly dominated by online marketplaces.
What this means for you is that on top of building your own e-commerce website, it is also worth adding e-commerce marketplaces as a distribution channel if you haven’t done that already.
Nonetheless, other than leveraging on the e-commerce marketplaces as distribution channels, you can also take the lessons of growth and apply them to your own website.
The same can be said of the branded e-commerce sites that have grown even in the presence of competitive prices offered by e-commerce marketplaces.
That’s it! Do let me know what you think of this list 🙂
Have I missed any top e-commerce websites in Malaysia? Let me know in the comments and I’ll include them!
18 comments
Can you do a write up on amazon reseller in malaysia and how to get started doing it in Malaysia ?
Thank you.
Hey Nicholas,
I’d love to, but it’s not something I’ve explored personally yet. Nonetheless, when I do manage to profit from Amazon I’ll do a write-up.
– Lu Wee
Thank you
What is your opinion on alidropship e-commerce ?
Hi Nicholas, you mean the plugin for WooCommerce?
For both the plugin and custom store.
Thank You
Oh I see, I’ve not used any of them before unfortunately! I’m testing Shopify related plugins mostly like Oberlo.
Nonetheless, I think Alidropship is worth trying too. I’ll test it out and write a review for it after! Thanks for the suggestion Nicholas!
Thank you
Hi, may i know the date this article is published?
Hi Aiman,
List articles like this are constantly being updated, so I’m unable to give you the publish date, or it will be misleading to yourself and other readers.
Hi,
Would you give us advice on paymer gateway and how to set it up if I operate the e-commerce site from Malaysia but targeting internatiinal customers ?
Thank You
Hey Nicholas,
Sure – PayPal is one of the best ones to start with, because it is globally recognised and Malaysians can open account. Hope it helps!
– Lu Wee
Thank you.
Hi Wee Tang,
Can you include Reebonz Malaysia? They are selling luxury items.
Thank you
Hey Vincent,
Sure – I’ll add it in when I refresh this list. Thanks!
Hi,
What is your opinion on Shophelper by Cason and Alidropship ?
Can one really succeed bearing in mind that there are thousands and thousands of people doing the same thing with the same strategies by these companies ?
Thank You.
Hi,
I’ve never tried Shophelper or Alidropship so I can’t give my opinion on that. For Alidropship, I am coming up with a case study in the future so that will give you a better idea.
Depends what you mean by success. Is it making $1m/year, $1m/month, or RM1,000/month?
Personally speaking, you always have a chance, but you need to put in the time, energy and money investment first.
Hope this helps!
– Lu Wee
Thank You