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Which are the most popular product categories bought online in Malaysia? From a couple of data perspectives, it is between the electronics and fashion categories.
If you are an online seller, brick and mortar business, or even e-commerce service provider, identifying the market size and opportunities is crucial for your business.
For example, if your fashion business is generating RM12 million sales online, how much percentage of the market you have captured and how far can you go in Malaysia.
Let’s first check out the data forecast by Statista for 2022.
In case you are wondering, only physical products are included in this report, excluding service and ticketing categories like flights, hotels, movies, etc.
If you refer to the chart above, electronics is the biggest category followed by fashion and toys, hobby & DIY. Following are the top product categories by revenue in MYR:
- Electronics: RM14.1 billion
- Fashion: RM12.2 billion
- Toys, Hobby & DIY: RM5.0 billion
- Beauty, Health, Personal & Household Care: RM4.8 billion
- Furniture: RM3.8 billion
- Media: RM1.8 billion
- Food: RM709 million
- Beverages: RM198 million
Obviously, product categories like electronics and furniture have higher ticket size (average sales per order) so fashion can be top in terms of number of orders or transactions.
So, to answer the question earlier, you are capturing 10% of the online market share if your online fashion store is raking in RM12 million annual sales.
Next, let’s take a look at the report by ecommerceDB.
Top Online Shopping Purchases by Categories in Malaysia
The report above is based on a survey in 2021 on what Malaysians have bought online in the past 12 months. Here are the top categories:
- Clothing: 53%
- Food & Drinks: 39%
- Consumer Electronics: 37%
- Bags & Accessories: 34%
- Cosmetics & Body Care: 34%
- Shoes: 34%
- Household Appliances: 29%
- DIY & Garden Products: 27%
- Drugstore & Health Products: 25%
- Stationery & Hobby Supplies: 19%
If we include bags & accessories and shoes, fashion is obviously the biggest product category for online shopping in Malaysia.
According to the same report, fashion has the highest online share among all categories – 13.5% online sales in Malaysia is generated by fashion products.
Let’s dive into the online sales generated by the top 100 online stores here.
Revenue by Categories of Top 100 Online Stores in Malaysia
Among the top 100 online stores, electronics & media raked in close to RM1 billion online sales in 2020, with 25% of them contributed by Apple.
Food & personal care is the second biggest category in terms of revenue among the leading stores, with Watsons raking in close to 20% of the RM850 million pie.
Led by Zalora, 40% of top 100 online stores in Malaysia are actively selling fashion products which registered RM650 million online sales in 2020.
While Shopee is ranked first in the top 100 online stores with RM30 million sales reported in 2020, do take note that Lazada is not included in the same report.
