Should You Use Shopify? An Honest Review for Malaysian Sellers (2023)

With Shopify, you don’t need to be an expert programmer to set up your e-commerce website. In fact, you don’t even need to know how to program. You can set up your website just by using Shopify’s drag and drop feature.

This makes Shopify’s platform suitable especially for beginners.

But with so many local Malaysian options for website builders at a cheaper price than Shopify, how does Shopify compare to them?

Is it worth the money to use Shopify rather than a local website builder?

This is a tough choice, but I hope to help you make a decision by taking a look at:

  • Shopify’s pricing and explaining how each Shopify plan is different from the other
  • Shopify’s key features and how they can help your e-commerce business
  • Shopify compared with other site builders (Malaysian and non-Malaysian) as well as free (opensource) e-commerce CMS

By the end of this post, you’ll hopefully be able to make a decision on whether to use Shopify to build your e-commerce website.

What is Shopify and What it is Not

Shopify is website builder to help you build your own e-commerce website. You use Shopify to build a website where you will upload your products and customers will buy from.

Shopify is not an online marketplace like Lazada, Shopee, 11Street or Lelong where you simply list your products and everything else is taken care of.

With Shopify, you will be building your own website. As such, you will be the one designing the website, setting up payment and shipping systems as well as doing the marketing for your site. (If this is not something you want to do, I recommend checking out online marketplaces instead.)

Shopify Plans and Pricing

Now, let’s take a look at Shopify’s plans, how much they cost and what you will get with them.

Shopify starts at $29 (~RM120) a month for Shopify Basic, $79 (~RM320) a month for Shopify and $299 (RM1,200) a month for Advanced Shopify.

What are the differences between the plans and which one should you pick?

For me, what matters most is the transaction fees.

When you are on a cheaper plan, your transaction fees will be higher. The transaction fee for the cheapest US$29/month plan is 2.0% while for the US$79/month plan it is 1.0% and for the US$299/month plan it is the lowest at 0.5%.

If you are a complete beginner in e-commerce, it would be better to start with the more affordable US$29/month plan and then upgrade your plan as your business grows.

Even though the transaction fees are higher, the price of the plan at just US$29/month would make it much more affordable than the US$79 or US$299 plan with a lower transaction fee.

On the other hand, if you expect high sales volumes, going for the more advanced plan with lower transaction fees will be cheaper on the long term.

For example, if your sales are RM2,000 a month, going for the US$29/month plan would mean you pay RM40 for transaction fees. This brings your total monthly expenses to US$29 (~RM120) + RM40 = RM160.

On the other hand, if you use the US$299 plan instead with a sales of RM2,000, your transaction fees will be just RM10. However, your total monthly expenses will be much higher at US$299 (~RM1,200) + RM10 = RM1,210!

Therefore, choosing a plan really depends on how big your sales volume is.

You can always start off with the cheaper plan and upgrade as you see your sales volumes increase.

Let us help you:Don’t want to DIY set up your Shopify store? Why not use our service and have a Shopify approved Partner set up your store for you? 

It starts at just RM199 and you get an extended trial (more than 14 days!). Click here to jump to the end of this post to get more details on this exclusive offer! Store is ready in 5 working days 🙂

Who is Shopify Best For?

Shopify is best for beginners who don’t know how to program but want full features on their e-commerce website.

With Shopify, you can set up everything from your store, cart, payment, marketing and promotion under one roof. This reduces the need to have to look for different programmers to help you set up different parts of the system.

Let’s take a look at Shopify’s key features to show you what I mean:

Shopify’s Key Features

Tip: What makes a complete e-commerce website?

Before we jump into Shopify’s key features, I want to spend some time to explain the components that make up a complete e-commerce website. These are the must-have components that ensure that your customers can find what they want, discover more about it and buy it. This will help you better understand if Shopify has all the features you need to set up your e-commerce store.

For any e-commerce store, these are the essentials:

  • A store.
  • Cart.
  • Checkout.
  • Fulfillment.
  • Payment.

While the above are essentials, if you want to grow your business, you will need more than that.

You will need:

  • Marketing features. This would allow you to do things like SEO, content marketing on your website.
  • Promotions features. This would allow you to provide discount, sales features that drive customers to specific products.

Having said that, let’s now take a look at Shopify’s key features:

Easy Storefront Setup

Shopify’s drag-and-drop feature makes it easy for anyone to set up their e-commerce site storefront.

With this drag and drop feature, you can position your website modules exactly where you want them.

Check out this video to see it in action:

Mobile-Ready E-commerce Website

E-commerce websites created using Shopify will be mobile-ready. This means that your e-commerce website will adjust according to the mobile device it is opened on.

This means that your website will look good whether on desktop or mobile.

By being mobile responsive, you will be able to help smoothen the shopping and checkout experience for your potential customers on their mobile phones.

This is an important feature as more and more people are accessing websites and buying through their mobile phones.

Payment Gateway Support for Malaysian and Other Countries

With Shopify, you can integrate your site with local Malaysian payment gateways like iPay88 and MOLPay without touching any code either.

With 1-click integration, you can set up your e-commerce website to start collecting payments using online bank transfer from local Malaysian banks or credit cards.

Here is the full list of major payment gateways Shopify supports in Malaysia:

Shopify stores are Hosted

When you sign up for Shopify, you don’t need to worry about hosting anymore. All Shopify stores are hosted by Shopify.

This means you won’t need to worry about your website maintenance and any of the more technical backend stuff.

If you ever encounter problems with your website, you can always contact Shopify’s 24/7 support via live chat, call or e-mail.

Integration with Local Malaysian Logistic Solutions

Shopify easily integrates with local Malaysian logistic solutions such as EasyParcel.

Shopify POS

Shopify POS will enable you to collect payments offline also. This is especially useful if your business is both offline and online.

App Store

The Shopify app store is probably one of the best features of Shopify.

The App Store is where Shopify has worked with hundreds of vendors to come up with 1-click integrations to services that can help you with things like marketing, sales, product sourcing, analytics, logistics and so on.

There are hundreds of services for you to choose from!

Some popular apps include:

Shopify Messenger. With the live chat feature, potential buyers will be able to ask you questions live.

Oberlo. Oberlo enables you to dropship from AliExpress.

Google Analytics. With Google Analytics integrated, you will be able to track what your website visitors are doing.

However, do note that you may need to pay fees for the services you integrate. These are not included in your Shopify plan.

Let us help you:Don’t want to DIY set up your Shopify store? Why not use our service and have a Shopify approved Partner set up your store for you? 

It starts at just RM199 and you get an extended trial (more than 14 days!). Click here to jump to the end of this post to get more details on this exclusive offer! Store is ready in 5 working days 🙂

Shopify vs. Other Website Builders

Now, let’s take a look at how Shopify compares with other local Malaysian website builders available.

With these comparisons, I hope to help you answer the question:

Is this the best website builder I can get for my money?

Let’s take a look:

Shopify vs EasyStore

EasyStore is the cheaper, local website builder alternative. It is a sister company of Exabytes.

Let’s take a look at how EasyStore compares with Shopify:

 Shopify BasicEasyStore Basic
Rating5/5imghttps://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/11/svg/2b50.svg?is-pending-load=14/5imghttps://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/11/svg/2b50.svg?is-pending-load=1
Cheapest Plan$29 (~120)/monthRM32.5/month
Transaction fees0.5 – 2.0% if not using Shopify payments0%
Number of productsUnlimitedUnlimited
DomainNot included. Need to buy separately.Not included. Need to buy separately.
Drag and Drop BuilderAvailable, intuitiveNot Available
LogisticsCan connect with most Poslaju, GDex, NinjaVan, Skynet, EasyParcel etcCan connect with most Poslaju, GDex, NinjaVan, Skynet, EasyParcel etc
Payment GatewaysiPay, MOLPay and moreiPay, MOLPay and more
Marketplace SyncAvailable for a monthly feeIncluded in the monthly fee
POSAvailableAvailable
App StoreAvailable, hundreds of appsAvailable, less than 100

As you can see, the biggest advantage that EasyStore has over Shopify is its price.

At US$29 (~RM120) a month, Shopify costs almost four times more than EasyStore.

The question is: is Shopify’s higher price justified?

In my opinion, Shopify’s price difference is justified thanks to its drag-and-drop website builder feature and its hundreds of apps available in its app store. This means that you will be able to easily change the layout of your website and it’s likely that the app you want is already inside Shopify’s app store.

EasyStore, on the other hand, has limited theme features and does have a drag-and-drop website builder feature. This will make it difficult for you to make basic customizations to your site layout.

EasyStore’s biggest advantage over Shopify, however, is its marketplace sync. Whereas in Shopify you will need to pay for an app to help you sync your website products to online marketplaces, for EasyStore, this feature is included in the plan.

Shopify vs SiteGiant

SiteGiant is one of the pioneer website builders in Malaysia.

Let’s take a look at how SiteGiant compares with Shopify:

 Shopify BasicSiteGiant UniCart Basic
Rating5/5imghttps://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/11/svg/2b50.svg?is-pending-load=12/5imghttps://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/11/svg/2b50.svg?is-pending-load=1
Cheapest Plan$29 (~120)/monthRM590/year
Transaction fees0.5 – 2.0% if not using Shopify paymentsNot stated
Number of productsUnlimited500
Domain nameNot included. Need to buy separately. Included
Drag and Drop BuilderAvailable, intuitiveAvailable, chunky
LogisticsCan connect with most Poslaju, GDex, NinjaVan, Skynet, EasyParcel etcNot available for cheapest plan
Payment GatewaysiPay, MOLPay and moreiPay, MOLPay and more
Marketplace SyncAvailable for a monthly feeNot available for cheapest plan
POSAvailableNot available
App StoreAvailable, hundreds of appsNot available

As with Shopify, the biggest advantage SiteGiant has over Shopify is its price.

At just RM590 a year for its cheapest, it’s around 50% off of Shopify’s basic plan.

However, should you go for it just because it is cheaper?

For SiteGiant, the cheapest plan is the most limiting plan across all website builders in Malaysia.

Unlike EasyStore where you can upload an unlimited number of products, SiteGiant’s cheapest plan limits you to just 500. This means that once you have more than 500 products, you will need to upgrade to SiteGiant’s next plan which will set you back at RM1,090 a year (almost the same as price as Shopify’s basic plan).

Other than that, this plan does not allow you to sync with logistics or marketplaces. If you want both these features you have to upgrade to the more expensive RM1,090 a year plan.

When placed side by side, SiteGiant’s UniCart Basic plan is a limited and restrictive option compared to Shopify’s basic plan.

If you even want the most basic options available, you will need to upgrade to UniCart Pro. At RM1,090 a year, the UniCart Pro plan is slightly cheaper than Shopify’s Basic plan and comes with logistics and marketplace sync. However, none of SiteGiant’s plans come with access to an app store.

Without an app store, you will have to hire a programmer each time you want to integrate with a service outside of what is already made available by SiteGiant.

Shopify vs Free (Opensource) E-commerce Solutions

All the website builders we have seen above are paid e-commerce solutions. However, that is not the only option available.

A popular alternative to paid website builders is free ones. These include solutions like WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, and OpenCart. Most of these free CMS come with full features that make it easy for you to set up your e-commerce website from A to Z.

So you must be wondering:

If there are free e-commerce solutions to help you build your e-commerce website, should you even pay to get one?

To answer your question, let’s take a look at the differences between Shopify and free CMS solutions:

 ShopifyFree E-commerce CMS
Logo
Pricing $29 – 299/monthFree
Payment Gateway IntegrationOne-click integration for available gateways.Usually, require plugin installation. Plugin purchase mostly required.
Drag and Drop Website BuilderDrag and drop builder available.Drag and drop builder usually not available, but can be bought at a fee.
SupportAccess to support 24/7. Problems are solved quickly.Non-official support in the form of open source community.
HostingWebsite is hosted by Shopify. Cost of hosting is included in monthly fee.Does not provide any hosting. You need to host the website yourself.
App StoreHas an app store offering one-click integration with hundreds of services.No app store. Normally has marketplaces that sell plugins for service integration.

The biggest advantage that free solutions have over Shopify is that well, it’s free.

The downside is that almost all free CMS also do not come with a well-developed drag-and-drop website builder. This means if you want to make changes to your layout, it will be slightly harder to do it on a free CMS when compared to a platform like Shopify.

Compared with a more intuitive platform like Shopify, you will need some amount of technical skills to set up your e-commerce website with a free CMS.

To make matters worse, all free e-commerce CMS solutions don’t come with 24/7 support. If you encounter any issues, your best bet is to post your question in a forum and wait for people to reply. To be an effective user of free e-commerce CMS solutions, you must be willing to learn and test.

In the end, if you don’t know how to set it up, you will need to pay someone to set it up for you.

Also, free CMS does not mean everything and everything will be free. If you need features that are not included in the base version, you will need to pay for plugins, extensions, and customizations to come up with a website that is good enough. This can add up to a few hundred or thousand RM extra.

From a payment point of view, most free CMS is developed outside of Malaysia so though they come ready with payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe, they don’t come with Malaysian ones like iPay88 and MOLPay.

To integrate a payment gateway into your website will mean either buying a plugin or getting a developer to do it for you. In Shopify, you can integrate these for free.

Finally, on Shopify, your e-commerce website will be hosted by Shopify so you don’t have to worry about the backend technical and maintenance stuff. These are taken care of by Shopify. For free CMS to work, you will need to buy and manage your own hosting.

Personally, I love both Shopify and free e-commerce CMS.

However, I only recommend free CMS to people who have at least some amount of technical skills or you will spend too much money getting people to help you with this and that.

For people who can’t be bothered learning how to build a website and just want to get started selling, I highly recommend using a website builder like Shopify.

Well-Known Websites in Malaysia that Use Shopify

Shopify’s websites are beautiful, responsive and easy to manage. Here are some examples of popular websites that use Shopify to power their online businesses to give you an idea of how your site can look:

FitGear

FitGear is a Malaysian brand that sells high-quality activewear at affordable prices.

Check it out at www.fitgear.shop

Storming Gravity

Storming Gravity is a Malaysian brand that products that make life more convenient.

Check it out at www.storminggravity.com

The Verdict: Is Shopify Worth Paying $29 – $299 a month for?

Shopify is the best, full-featured e-commerce website builders in the market.

Starting at just $29 (~RM120) a month, it’s well worth the price thanks to its drag-and-drop website builder feature, payment gateway availability and access to hundreds of services through its 1-click integration app store.

Even though free e-commerce solutions have zero initial setup costs, you are likely to need to add many paid extensions to your website to make it function the way you want it to. The costs of these extensions can add up and you may end up needing to pay a few thousand RM to have a fully functioning site.

With Shopify, all the necessary features are available and you can get started selling right away.

All the features that Shopify provides make it worth the price.

Which Shopify Plan is For You?

If you’ve decided to get started with Shopify, your next question might be:

Which plan is the best for my needs?

As I covered in the earlier section on plan and pricing, the simplest answer to this is: it depends on how big your business is.

The bigger your business in terms of products sold and potential sales volume, the more advanced the Shopify plan you should go for as your transaction fees will reduce so as to reduce your overall expenses.

Generally speaking, if you are a 1-man show, or you are just getting started in e-commerce with less than RM10,000 in sales, you should start with the $29/month Shopify Basic plan with 2.0% transaction fees.

When your business grows large enough for you to need at least 5 staff to handle your orders and sales of RM30,000 and above, it’s time you go for the $79/month Shopify plan with 1.0% transaction fees.

Then, finally, if you are banking in a few hundred thousand RM a month and need at least 15 staff to handle your online sales, you can go for the $299/month Shopify Plus Plan with 0.5% transaction fees.

Frequently Asked Questions about Shopify

Can I accept payments through online bank transfer from Malaysian banks?

Yes. Shopify comes with 1-click iPay88 and MOLPay integration so you can accept any online bank transfer payments through your Shopify website.

Do I need to know programming to build my Shopify store?

No. You can use Shopify’s drag-and-drop builder to set up a basic store yourself.

What if I need to customize my store? Do I need to know programming?

If your needs go beyond setting up a basic store and you want to customize your site, you will need to be good at Shopify’s programming language Liquid.

The good news is that there are many Shopify Experts you can hire to get this done for a nominal fee.

Setting Up Your Online Shopify Store

If you are ready to set up, the good news is, it’s pretty easy.

Step 1: Sign up for Shopify’s 14 Day Free Trial

The first step you need to do is to sign up for Shopify’s free 14-day trial. This gives you ample time to check out all of Shopify’s features:

Just enter your email to get started with the trial.

Step 2: Provide the basic details for your store

Once inside, you will be prompted some questions about yourself and your store. This will help Shopify decide on the best route forward for you:

Step 3: Add Products to Your Store and Customize your Store Theme

Once you have answered the questions, you will be shown the Shopify dashboard. Here you will get to see all the features available. On the homepage, you will see the action items you need to take to get started.

The first step is to ‘Add a product to start selling’ and the second one is to ‘Customize your online store to match your brand’.

Click on the ‘Add Product’ button to add a new product to your store. When you do, you will get to this page where you can add all relevant information about your product including a title, description, images, weight and so on.

Once you filled up all the product information, click on ‘Save product’ at the end of the page to add the product to your store.

You can keep adding as many products as you have.

Step 4: Choose and Customise your Store Theme

Once you have added your products, the next step is to choose and customize your theme. As I’ve mentioned before, there are free and premium themes available.

To explore the free themes, click on ‘Explore free themes’ and to explore the premium themes, click on ‘Visit theme store’ at the bottom of the page.

You can start with either theme types.

If you want to customize your theme, you can click on the ‘Customize’ button on top, which will lead you to this page:

You can edit how your homepage looks and how your products are showcased on the page and so on. The best thing about the customizer is that it is all drag-and-drop so you can do it yourself.

Step 5: Buy a Domain Name

Once you are happy with how your store looks, it’s time to make things official by buying a domain name.

Buying a domain name gives your store a more professional feel and people will be more likely to buy from you than if you used a free domain name with another company’s extension on it.

Here are some tips for choosing a domain name:

  • Choose domain names with 2-3 syllables to make it easy for people to remember. This means names like PetStore, MyPetStore will be fine. But KajangPetSupplies will not be a good choice.
  • Use easy to spell words so people don’t make mistakes spelling them. 
  • Don’t use a domain name that is completely different from what you are selling. For example if you specialise in dog supplies only, don’t use the word ‘cat’ or ‘horse’ in your domain name or it can confuse your customers.
  • As much as possible, try to go for a .com instead of .co, .net and so on. This is because most people online still think about the internet in terms of .com. If your business is based in Malaysia, you can go for .com.my or .my also. But if you want to serve customers outside of Malaysia also, I would not recommend going for .com.my or .my as this would give your customers the impression that you only ship to Malaysia.

Once you have added products, customized your theme and bought your domain name, you’re good to go!

However, if after doing all this you still need some help with your store, don’t forget to check out our special offer for Shopify store setup and customization services at the end of this post!

Conclusion: Get Shopify to Set up your Online Store Quickly

Shopify is the best website builder for e-commerce stores available in the market today. Starting at just $29 (~RM120) a month, you can set up everything from your storefront to your payment gateway as well as your marketing strategy all in one place.

It’s especially useful for beginners who don’t know how to code or don’t have a lot of money to spend to get started selling.

You can set up your store within an hour and start selling. However, if you want to make some advanced customizations to your site, you can always consult a Shopify Expert to help you do so at a nominal fee.

Join other smart people who like to read about business

Subscribe and get my weekly newsletter packed with the latest insights about business in Malaysia so you can make smart decisions for yourself.

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

55 Responses

    1. Good to know that! Thanks for your support Maxwell. I don’t have a group, unfortunately! But feel free to send me an email if you have any questions.

    1. I recommend you invest some money in setting up a website. Here’s a guide on how you can do that for under RM400:
      https://entrepreneurcampfire.com/create-a-website-malaysia/

      After you’ve set up your own website, then you can start blogging. I will be preparing a guide on how to blog next week so stay tuned.

      I don’t recommend setting up a free blog. I’ve found that people who use free blogs don’t take their blogs seriously and stop after a short while.

      If you are serious about blogging, the cheapest and easiest way to start is by setting up a WordPress website. Done right, you can make back your RM400 investment.

      All the best!

  1. great article, but one thing you didnt mention, whats/how the process to withdraw money from shopify to malaysian bank account.

    1. It depends on which payment gateway you pick, but generally with popular gateways like 2Checkout, MOLPay and iPay88 they will payout at a minimum of RM100 weekly or bi-weekly.

  2. Hi Miss Lu, thank u for the in depth article. you have explained it much better than anyone else on the internet! hope to get your reply on this – shopify can sync to marketplaces but that is only for the American marketplaces right? It will not be able to sync to Lazada, Shopee, etc that is based in Malaysia/Asia, am i right?

    1. Hi Sarah,

      Thanks for the compliment! I’ll try to do better! 🙂

      That’s correct. Right now I haven’t found any good apps that sync to our local marketplaces 🙁

      – Lu Wee

      1. Appreciate the reply! I seriously love this article, it has been a wonderful find. I was desperately trying to understand what Shopify is vs Big Commerce and its advantages. So many articles i read, i couldn’t see the big picture until yours and u are a Malaysian! Good job! many thanks!

        1. Glad you found it useful! Coincidentally, I have some BigCommerce related content planned so hope you’ll find some answers then too! Thanks again for dropping by!

          – Lu Wee

  3. Hi Miss Lu,
    Please mention the add section feature is only applicable to home page, there is no such thing as drag and drop feature in other pages even it is a paid theme. So would you suggest that we should get a page builder app such as Shogun instead of getting a paid theme?

    1. Hi Nick,

      Yes – that’s right. I’ll try to amend and be more specific about the drag and drop feature. Thanks for pointing that out Nick. On whether to get page builder app – that really depends what you want to achieve. For paid themes, it goes beyond just page building features. Some include marketing features which page builders won’t be able to achieve.

      What is your main goal with page builder app?

      – Lu Wee

  4. Hi Miss Lu,

    My first thought was to get a paid theme until I found out that the drag and drop feature doesn’t work in other pages. I just need to create an About us page with the image with text overlay feature. Do you recommend me to get the paid theme and edit with page builder app? Or is there any other way to customize a page?

    1. Hi Nick,

      You’re right – you’ll need a page builder if you want to customize the page element positions. Even the best premium themes have limited features when it comes to page building features.

      No other way that I know of, short of going to the backend and amending the code for page templates!

      Hope this helps 🙂

      – Lu Wee

  5. Hi Lu Wee,
    Thank you for the valuable information you have shared on this article. I am in the midst of gathering info about Shopify with the goal of having my store up and running soon. I seem not to be able to find some answers on weather i need to have a registered & licensed business to have a Shopify store (Sdn Bhd or Enterprise etc) or i can simply operate from home to start under my name with no registered business (perhaps a rented PO box to )? Thank You!

    1. Hi Fred,

      I’m glad you found the information useful.

      Generally speaking, you won’t need a company to create a Shopify account. But when you set up payment gateways you’ll usually need a company to set them up. Besides that, for any online business, you are legally required to register your business.

      So I would advise you to register a business. Even enterprise is fine. You can do it using your home address as well usually. Go to SSM website and register first. This will make your life very convenient.

      I won’t advise using POBox. You can either use your home address or a virtual address. You can rent virtual address for as low as RM99/year.

      Hope this helps!

      – Lu Wee

      1. Hi Lu wee,

        Thank you for sharing info, can you please help me to start my company products? actually I’m looking for some merchant who can help me to explore more about shopify online system, but for me it’s hard to find.
        Thank you.

        1. Hi there,

          You’re welcome. Are you looking for a service provider to set up your Shopify store?

          Kind regards,
          Lu Wee

  6. Hi Lu Wee,

    I’m a beginner that about to start up my online business in Msia. Thanks for your great works on deep analytical articles that made up most of my questions in my mind. However, there are still some queries here, hope you don’t mind.

    1) Does Shopify supports integration with local e-commerce apps like Lazada etc? or it is just like its own website? As i found that Easystore supports with these local e-commerce apps. If so, how it really works with these local e-commerce apps like Lazada etc?

    2) Since im new and i would like to focus more to my products instead of using drop shipping features provided by Shopify, Is this still worth for me to startup with Shopify?

    Im just afraid it is not so user friendly to local markets. , hope you can enlighten me. Thank you!

    1. Hi Danson,

      Thanks for your message. Glad you found the information useful. To answer your questions:

      1) Currently, there is no stable sync between Shopify and local marketplaces like Shopee and Lazada. If this is a big deal for you, Shopify won’t be the right platform.

      2) Shopify is a web builder tool and drop shipping is one fulfillment model you can consider. Personally speaking, I’ve helped my clients set up stores with Shopify and all are doing OK. For web store alone, there are no issues. Malaysians can buy and sell with Shopify easily.

      Hope this clarifies!

      Best,
      Lu Wee

  7. I am starting up a brand with only 2 products on hand. Potentially expanding to more products once the brand catch on.

    1. Should I straight start on shopify? Or start elsewhere cheaper and migrate onto shopify? Is it possible to migrate at a later stage?
    2. I still can’t understand on the payment. Do u have any articles on the different payment with shopify and its charges? I want to have options for customers to pay with Malaysian bank, but want to also minimize charges from this payment gateways.
    3. Is it possible to do a dual language on shopify? E. G. At main landing page to have the option to choose language in malay or English.

    1. 1. Not easy to migrate from any platform to another. Would recommend just picking a platform you see yourself building your business on for the next 3 years at least.
      2. Nope, this is the only article for now. There is very little you can do (especially when you sell at low volumes) to minimize charges for payment gateway as these are all fixed charges.
      3. You can do that, but it can get a bit technical.

  8. Hi, it’s a great comparison with the different types of eCommerce platform. Sometimes is not about the monthly fees, but is the site able to cater to huge traffics when is the business owner doing flash sale/ flash launching/ promotion? If you could share more on their server capacity would be a bonus!

    1. Hey, yeah! You bring up a good point. I should also include that comparison for the purpose of scalability. But for your quick info, you can easily scale with Shopify on any plan as they don’t impose any bandwidth limit! 🙂

  9. Hi…im a newbie in shopify
    Can i now how you set up your shipping, taxes and checkout..im a little bit confius because all tutorial are from overseas…im malaysian btw…hope to hear from you soon

    1. Hi Lynn,

      Oh I see… hmm, maybe I need to create a tutorial on that for anyone who wants to know. For now, shipping fee will depend mainly on your courier. You can set this up based on “Zones”. In Malaysia, East Malaysia / West Malaysia are 2 big zones with very different shipping fees. So you might want to set up different rates.

      For taxes, currently Malaysia charges 0% GST, so you won’t apply any tax to your customer. SST is not included as a tax in Shopify unless your business model is more of a B2B.

      Hope this helps!

      – Lu Wee

  10. Hi Lu Wee,
    I’m from Malaysia and had signed for basic shopify to enable shoppable tag in instagram. I had built catalogue in Facebook using shopify online store. But then it showed that Instagram did not approve my application. It says Malaysian address is not eligible to apply for shoppable tag in instagram. Is there any way to solve this? Thank you.
    Regards,
    Fazlina

    1. Hi Fazlina,

      Sorry I’ve never used the shoppable tag in IG before so I won’t be able to provide any advice on that.

      – Lu Wee

  11. Thanks for your article.which I find informative. But I think your basis for comparison i.e. the cheapest package for each platform would look a bit skewed and seems unfair. I think it would better to compare the packages at similar price range. For example, Shopify cheapest package at USD29 is about RM120/month or RM1440 per year. For a similar amount you could get a reasonable package from SItegiant or Easy Store with lots more features than you described in your article.

    1. You’re welcome. For any comparison, you need a baseline. It could be anything. You could go for the number of products, storage, features, price range (in your case)… anything at all. But for a comparison to make sense, you need a baseline. Of course, there are advantages and disadvantages of using any baseline, but I don’t think any single baseline is less skewed or fairer than another. Everyone will see things differently.

      For your information, at RM1440/year, you don’t actually get that much more with SiteGiant or EasyStore because neither one has access to 3rd party apps or third-party themes. If you wanted to add any feature not available in SiteGiant core or EasyStore’s core and connected apps, you will need to spend quite a lot of money to get a developer to do so. In Shopify, you get access to plenty of free or paid apps to do just about anything you want.

      These two are very important features for many people who have picked Shopify. Your personal comparison is also skewed based on your own preferences, so hope you keep that in mind as well.

      Hope this helps.

    2. Hi! I have been really interested in dropshipping with shopify. Is shopify only limited in malaysia? I want to sell products to foreign countries like United States but I am worried about legal issues and shipping problems. Appreciate your help 🙏😅

      1. Hi,

        Shopify isn’t limited in Malaysia. You can sell anywhere in the world. Won’t have legal or shipping issues if you co-ordinate this well. Many Malaysians are making money by selling to the Big 5 markets.

        Hope this helps.

        Best,
        Lu Wee

  12. Hi Lu Wee Tang,

    I am located in Malaysia (with a Malaysian IP address). My Shopify online business tranasctions will be run through my USA registered bank and LLC. My customers will only be in USA and we only accept USD.

    The problem I experienced was Shopify was closing my stores down after a few days prsumably with autobot and after 72hours Shopify Risk says I cannpt use Shopify as it presents too much risk. My store is a general ecommerce store.

    How do I avoid Shopify keep shutting my stores down. Is it because I am using a VPN pointing to LA, USA from Malaysia? https://community.shopify.com/c/Shopify-Discussion/Shopify-Suddenly-Closed-Stores-For-No-Reason/td-p/411674

    Also can I use Shopify payments if I sell in USA or because I am located in Malaysia or am I limited to Malaysian Gateways, like 2Checkout, Stripe, iPay etc..

    1. Hi A,

      This really depends on how you have been doing business on Shopify. If you’ve secured your IPs on both desktop and phone but still get shut down, is there anything else that might trigger this? E.g. are you getting customer complaints?

      For Shopify Payments, this is not available in Malaysia yet sadly.

      Hope this helps!

      Best,
      Lu Wee

  13. Dear Lu Wee

    Wonder where your team is based in Malaysia?
    Is it possible to arrange for a meeting for us to understand more about Shopify?
    Our company already has an existing website using other platform with our own domain. However, it seems a bit difficult to control.
    We would like to understand more on Shopify.

    Thank you.

    1. Hi Liew,

      Thanks for your interest. We are based in Sarawak. If you would like, I can arrange a video call with your team to share with you more about how you can use Shopify for your business. So far all my Shopify clients have been able to cut down operations time by 50 – 70% after migration.

      If you are interested, do let me know and I can send you an email to schedule the time.

      Thank you.

      Best,
      Lu Wee

  14. Hey Lu Wee,

    I might need your help to link our Gdex account together with shopify, in order to print consignee note and tracking the delivery easily. Any possibility for you take this job? Please email me in details.

    Thank you!

    1. Hi Stella,

      Sure, let me send you an email to find out more about your requirements.

      Thanks!

      Best,
      Lu Wee

  15. Hi,
    I just heard about this app, am really interested in doing this for my next kiosk.
    Was wondering would u share some ideas on setting up this online platform?

    1. Hi Rick,

      Sure – I’m actually building some tutorials around Shopify setup. Hope you’ll like them when they’re up 🙂

      Best,
      Lu Wee

  16. Dear Lu Wee,

    I am from a chain retail store in Malaysia base in Kuala Lumpur and we are looking into migrating our website to Shopify. Could you please get in touch with me via email so we can discuss further on how we could use your service?

    Thank you.

    1. Hi Ann,

      Thanks for your inquiry. I’ve sent you a message by email. Look forward to discussing your requirements further.

      Kind regards,
      Lu Wee

  17. Good Day Lu Wee

    I am dropshipper from Malaysia and I have store in Shopify ,Selling products to US market . I am using third party fulfillment services from CJ drop shipping . I would like to check can i add more fulfillment service like 1688 , Taobao etc in Shopify. Do you have the user guide how to setup all this . ?

    On the other hand after read your article , Shopify can work in Malaysia and if i want to create a store in malaysia , i have to open another store or i can combine with existing store that i running now ?

    Thank and looking forward your reply

  18. hi,

    interested in getting help setting up shopify page. appreciate if you can contact me via e mail. and thank you for the detail and in-depth review.

    1. Hi Fang Hooi,

      Sure, I’ll reach out to you by email. Thanks for your interest.

      Kind regards,
      Lu Wee

  19. Hi, if I already have an existing subscription with another website building platform (and is in the process of setting up the website), can I migrate it over to Shopify?

    As otherwise I may have wasted whatever I have built so far / paid for so far if I were to start afresh on shopify. Do advise. Thanks.

  20. Hi do you any thermal printer that available here in Malaysia to use for shopify? Do you provide service to setup shopify acc?

  21. Hi Lu Wee, i want to set up a shopify account and I have several questions. Can you reach me out in email? Thank you so much, i really like your article by the way.

  22. Hi Lu Wee,

    If i have shop in Shopify can the delivery been done in the same day? By the way, i have a food company and delivery need to be done in the same day.

    Thank you

  23. Lu Wee

    I’m wondering if there is an update to the original article and could you now include Shopify Plus which seems to be gaining traction in Malaysia.

    Best regards

  24. Hi Lu Wee,

    I have several questions regarding the payments setup in Shopify from Malaysia,
    Appreciate if you could reach out to me in e-mail.

    Much thanks.

    Best Regards

  25. Lu wee,

    I am looking for your services to set up shopify website for my spa businesss. I sell spa services & beauty products at my spa & I want to use shopify for online and off line selling

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *