Review of the Top Three Shopping Sites in Malaysia

Flood, cyclones and erratic downpours are more than enough reason for anyone to stay at home. Luckily, gone are the days where humans would have to brave Mother Nature’s wrath in order to buy a last minute birthday or Valentine’s Day present. Today’s society can now lounge at home with a cup of warm hot Milo and still enjoy getting their shopping done via the Internet.

However, potential shoppers should be wary as while it’s pretty cosy to think about how a few clicks of a mouse can empower you to have your shopping delivered to your doorstep, the other side of the coin is that you could either end up buying odd trinkets or find yourself spending five hours in virtual stores lost, confused and with nothing of great value to purchase.

The good news is that we will be reviewing the top three online shopping sites in Malaysia.

Site #1: http://www.lelong.com.my

Lelong.my is Malaysia’s most famous auction website, gloriously beating eBay.com.my at its own game. Founded in 1998, the idea behind Lelong.com.my was to build a community of sellers and buyers who could trade practically anything at a low cost while maintaining quality. Just like eBay, everything under the sun is up for sale- from land to photography services, clothing to accessories and pens.

Pros: The layout of Lelong.com.my can be pretty intimidating, but the site also comes with a search engine to help speed up your browsing and shopping process. The site also comes with a double secure and verification system called Buyer’s Protection Program, and SafeTrade.

Even the sellers are protected on Lelong.com.my as bidders would also have to conduct either hand phone or e-mail verification processes in order to bid on an item, which then deters fraud as well. The entire Lelong.com.my website can be viewed in Malaysia’s three main languages- Malay, Chinese and English which makes it easy for anyone to read the content of the site.

Cons: Realistically, any Lelong.com.my seller who offers you a ROLEX Oyster Perpetual Milgauss Bamford Limited Edition Swiss Quality watch for RM123 (plus shipment) simply cannot be selling a genuine ROLEX watch, despite what its rave reviews and positive seller feedback would have you believe.

Speaking of positive feedback, praise and high ratings from other members could simply be dupe accounts created by the seller to create positive buzz about their product and services, which may or may not live up to your expectations. If you’re looking for branded products, then Lelong.com.my is definitely not the place for you to shop at. Also, deliveries are limited to South East Asia users only.

Site #2: http://www.pasar.my

Created in 2008, Pasar.my is Malaysia’s most popular Chinese virtual mall as anyone can setup their very own store on Pasar.my for free. These online stores are divided into three types- senior outlets, intermediate shops and general stores. Senior outlets would be categorized as large virtual catalogues that offer bonus points along with their merchandise whereas the general stores would have the bare minimum amount of products up for sale.

This portal sells plenty of feminine items from clothing to fashion accessories to beauty care and home care products.

Pros: Shoppers are protected with buyer authentication certification and signing up for membership with Pasar.my is free. Just like Lelong.com.my, details of the virtual stalls all come with previous customer feedback and verification to ensure the integrity of the trader.

Cons: Seriously, this website is strictly for Chinese reading mortals. Manually translating each page via Google Translate is both time consuming and highly inaccurate. Those with photosensitive epilepsy will not appreciate the blinking advertisement banners on the front page of Pasar.my either.

The seller rating system on Pasar.my is also pretty confusing. For instance, one seller could be branded with one green diamond and another seller with two hearts. If you’re wondering what the diamond and hearts logo is for, then you are not alone. For instance, a seller rating of 250 points earns you 5 green crowns. On the other hand, a 36 seller rating earns you 4 hearts instead of 1 green crown. Also, each store is independent of Pasar.my so you will have to pay each owner separately.

Site #3: http://www.irenelim.com

Just like the site name suggests, IreneLim.com is an online business personally conducted by Ms Irene Lim who sources for women’s clothing from Hong Kong, China, Taiwan and Malaysia. The interesting thing about this site is that each article of clothing is personally handpicked and selected by the owner herself.

Pros: Unlike Lelong.com.my and Pasar.my that operates like a trading community, IreneLim.com offers shoppers the experience of personally buying items directly from the business owner. IreneLim.com also comes with an active mini discussion board and great after sales service. There is something definitively satisfying about buying merchandise from an actual person who exists, rather than a faceless entity!

Cons: For the moment, IreneLim.com only caters to the women’s wear, children’s clothing and festive hampers.

IreneLim.com and Exabytes

One interesting banner placed on the upper right corner of IreneLim.com testifies that IreneLim.com is being hosted on an Exabytes-sponsored server. Further mouse clicking has then lead us to an Exabytes promotion offering free dedicated servers for sites with high traffic (i.e. a minimum of 3,000 unique visitors daily and a minimum of 3 page view per visitors for the past 3 months). The fact that IreneLim.com is already hosted for free on Exabytes is a pretty big testament to how popular her online store is.

In a Nutshell

If you love buying random trinkets, Lelong.com.my would be a suitable shopping site. If you’re proficient in reading Chinese, then you could also try Pasar.my. However, if you are looking for high quality products that come with an affordable price and a business owner’s personal touch, then you should definitely drop by IreneLim.com.

Contributed by Jasmine from 100 Web Hosting – a reliable web hosting review and resources website.

Announcement

On this romantic and passionate day of the year, do you plan to express your love with a box of chocolates or simply a Valentine’s Day card to your loved one? While Valentine’s Day is celebrated in many countries with different practices, you might be surprised that in country like Japan, only females are supposed to give males chocolates, not the other way round.

And of course, many people nowadays choose to spend time with their friends and family on this special and loving occasion.

Exabytes wishes everybody a Happy and memorable Valentine’s Day! May you and your loved ones have some sweet and quality time together, just like our 2 Exabees

Announcement

7th Day of Chinese New Year, 2 auspicious animals arrive at Exabytes office, bringing together with them the auspiciousness and good fortune to wish Exabytes Happy 10th Birthday. Indeed, 2011 marks the tenth year of Exabytes since its inception, and in celebrating our 10th Anniversary this year, more surprises are in place for Exabees and Exabytes’ valued clients. This morning, Lion Dance is one of the surprises.

At 9.15am, all Exabees wearing in red are anxiously waiting for the arrival of good luck, some even suggest to hide and give the 2 auspicious lions a surprise. 5 minutes later, the first hit of gong is heard, amidst cheering and clapping of hands among Exabees, a gold lion and a silver-red lion danced into our lobby with their full fledged gong equipment. ‘Tuck Tuck Dong Dong Dong Chang’, ‘Dong Dong Dong….. Chang’ is heard everywhere and it is truly ear-shattering, loud enough to scare away all the bad evils and bring in the good luck.

On reaching the lobby, dancing and greetings by the lions are followed by the throwing of tangerines to the Exabee crowd. In Chinese, as the pronunciation of tangerines is similar to gold, we are elated to received gold from the 2 very luck-promising lions. And the first endeavor, are of course to ‘pluck the green’ aka ‘Cai Ching’ in Chinese, using their martial arts skills some say originated from the Kung Fu of Wong Fei Hung.

Approaching the green which is hung around 8 feet high like 2 curious lions, they danced a little bit and fought like 2 giant cats under it before the gold lion making its Wong Fei Hung martial arts still jump and get the green and the Ang Pow (red envelope) in one single attempt. Amidst big round of applause, the lion returns to the ground, spits out the green and keeps the Ang Pow.

Our spirit runs high, adjourning to our desks the 2 lions are now heading to each department of Exabytes to greet us plus helping us to tear up and ‘eat’ the tangerines on our tables.

Thanks very much for the spectacular performance of Lion Dance and our CEO Chan Kee Siak for inviting the lions, auspiciousness and prosperity. Lastly, this enjoyable and motivating event is wrapped up by the group photo taking session with our gold lion, with great luck and more surprises promised in the year of 2011, officially the 10^th Anniversary of Exabytes Network.

For more photos: Please visit our FB Fanpage or Click here.

Announcement

Happy 2011 everybody! While year 2010 had left us about a month ago, we still wish to rewind to the past as the last Star Employee of 2010 is yet to be announced! Yes, things wouldn’t be perfect without us wrapping up our 2010 ETOM with the queen of December. Before we reveal the big secret, we wanna keep you in suspense and let’s see if you could figure out who the big star was for the very last month of 2010.

She is the most caring person at Exabytes who sits at the Customer Service desk and uses the phone as her weapon. She speaks and writes excellent English. She is a big fan of huge teddy bears and likes it the most when it is given by someone special in the office as her birthday present. (It happened only 2 weeks ago) And like many of us, she too has a liking for different cuisine and a discerning palate.

Wait no more! Let’s put our hands together for Sharon Teoh, the Star of December 2010, from Customer Service Department! Sharon, Sharon, your working attitude has always made us proud and we always know that you being an EOTM is just a matter of time.

And this time, she was voted as EOTM of December 2010 because:

• is always able to perform and be outstanding at work.
• comes out with several ways to contact our customers for renewal and follow up with them accordingly.
• performs ABC testing and shares with billing team the successful ways to persuade customers to renew.
• spirit of ‘never give up’ until payment is collected. Since she was assigned to collect debts, the renewal rate among customers has improved.
• does very well in follow-ups with customers on overdue invoices.

Congratulations again Sharon! We salute you

Employee of the Month