Rising sea freight affects the Malay e-commerce network to buy

KUALA LUMPUR, July 20 - Rising shipping costs have hit Malaysia's e-commerce and online shopping activities, not only causing increased online shopping costs, but also causing shipping delays.

Lim Wai Joon, the president of Malaysia E-commerce Association, said that the rising shipping costs will definitely affect the e-commerce and online shopping activities in Malaysia. In the past, most of the goods shipped by sea can be shipped to Malaysia within 7 to 8 days. How could it be delayed to 14 or even 21 days?

In an interview with Dongfang Daily, he pointed out that the rising shipping costs will certainly have an impact on China's e-commerce and online shopping activities, while there are nearly as many e-commerce companies in China that sell local or overseas products, so the impact will be different for all of them.

"E-commerce is also divided into several categories. Some e-commerce companies are doing overseas products, such as China, the United States and other countries.

"When shipping costs increase, the cost is definitely passed on to the consumer, especially if you have a large supply of goods."

'It's fine if some e-commerce companies are local businesses,' he said.

There are some merchants who do overseas business, but they have already brought the goods to the warehouse in Malaysia and shipped them from here, so the impact level will be relatively small.

He said e-commerce companies in Malaysia also "look at the market" to choose what products they sell, and if sea freight rates rise, they will choose to sell local products.

"Sometimes they sell local products, sometimes they sell overseas products.

There are a lot of options for e-commerce, and it is not too difficult to sell anything if you have mastered the marketing skills.

Just like the students we train, they will change the products they sell from time to time."

Encourage development of local sources of goods

Mr. Lim said the delays have led to customers canceling orders, then canceling orders while the goods are in transit.

These can happen in business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) situations, he said.

"Currently, many e-commerce platforms, such as Shopee and Lazada, ship goods in early from overseas and then ship them to customers from domestic warehouses so that they are faster.

"

He said merchants will bear part of the rising shipping costs and pass the rest on to consumers, who are worried about the high price of their goods because there are so many options in the market.

Asked when shipping costs would return to normal, he said it would depend on the coronavirus situation and whether shipments at the terminals of various countries would return to normal. Otherwise, he believed that the increase would continue.

He also took the opportunity to encourage domestic e-commerce companies to resell local goods and develop local sources.

The cost of shipping between Malaysia and China has skyrocketed, with prices rising more than 150% this week and last month, Oriental Daily reported, citing the difficulty of arranging shipping schedules and the difficulty of obtaining a container due to the disease.

Lumahgo is raising transportation fees by 10 to 20 percent

Chiang You-keung, Lumahgo chief executive, said the company would increase its shipping charges by about 10-20 per cent to cope with the higher costs in the wake of the increase.

He said in an interview with "Oriental Daily" today that the purchasing power of the whole market is weak, even if there is an increase but the extent will not be too big, not all the costs will be passed on to consumers, part of the business will be absorbed by themselves.

He revealed that Lumahgo as Taobao's Malaysia entity store, mainly by sea to deliver goods;

It is also expected to raise freight rates by 10-20%, while commodity prices will rise by as much as 5%.

Does not affect the shipment time

"For e-commerce companies, the increase in shipping fees will increase our costs, because this time the increase is quite high, the cost is more expensive.

Maybe we will adjust the price according to the situation, especially for large goods, the freight will be higher."

He also explained that the problem of rising sea freight does not affect the time limit, as the time limit depends on whether the shipping company has the container and the place of origin.

"Most of our goods are shipped from Guangzhou, China, where there is plenty of space. If we go from Yiwu, there will be fewer containers, so the logistics there will be a little slower, but Guangzhou is not very slow."

"Although it is said that sea freight has been raised, air freight has been adjusted during the period of the order, making air freight more expensive.

So relatively speaking, consumers will still choose shipping, which takes longer but is still affordable."

'Because people don't go out much because of coronavirus, a lot of sales have moved online,' he said.

The company's Singles' Day sales were up 100 percent compared to last year.