Now the percentage of online shopping apps usage among Malaysians is increasing. This has caused Malaysians to have online buying habits that have given some negative perspectives on online sellers and the online shopping apps they use.
If we have Alexander Graham Bell as the inventor of the telephone, Thomas Edison as the inventor of the bulb, and the two brothers Oliver and Wilbur Wright as the inventor of the airplane so, have you ever asked about who is the inventor to the use of online shopping?
The inventor of online shopping.
Based on information from historyofinformation.com, the founder of the use of online shopping was Michael Aldrich in 1979. He created online shopping to enable the processing of online transactions between users/buyers and businesses, or from one business to another later was known as e-commerce.
The popular online shopping companies in Malaysia and their benefits towards buyers.
So, with that, year after year have been created companies that offer online shopping platforms such as Amazon, Alibaba, Shopify, and more. In Malaysia, we have several popular online shopping platforms such as Shopee, Lazada, Zalora, PG Mall, and several other names.
So, the row of names of online shopping apps above, which on average are community friendly online shopping apps, are beginning to attract the interest of Malaysians, both young and old people. This is because as it can be seen that it is very easy and convenient to use with lots of promotions and sales plus buyers can find various types of items they want. Then they have a variety of delivery services which are most of it were quite fast.
The born of the habit of buying online by Malaysian.
But then from there was born the habit of buying online by Malaysian which is sometimes seems ridiculous. And that has had an impact on sellers as well as the online shopping apps used by them. And, that habit is the only problem against online sellers as well as those online shopping apps. Do you want to know about the habit?
The habit.
That habit is about reviews. Yes, reviews are one of the features available in any online shopping apps whether popular in Malaysia or abroad. Reviews will often be at the bottom for items sold by sellers. Customers will be allowed to write reviews after they purchase the item. Not only can they write reviews about what they like or dislike, but customers can also upload pictures of the items they buy as well as give a rating to the seller.
This review system will often exist in every online apps regardless of whether it is an online shopping apps or a shopping medium through social media such as Facebook or Instagram or phone apps such as Google Play Store for Android and App Store for iOS. All of the online apps do have the reviews features. It is likened to one of the must-have features.
Here we can see where this reviews system is important to every online apps so that users can give a rating that will be a guideline whether the goods, products, or apps of a phone work well or not to the seller or owner of the company that created the phone apps. Reviews can also help online sellers potentially gain customers. This is because it has become a requirement for customers to first research reviews from previous buyers by reading reviews from them whether it is worth buying or not.
Malaysians do not know how to use the reviews features properly.
However, no matter how important this reviews system is to the sellers and owners of the online apps, there are still many Malaysian users who still do not know how to use it properly. Using it well here brings meaning to certain aspects that can be written in the reviews system that can give a positive impact to the sellers and owners of the online shopping apps.
For example, reviews from buyers in the USA in the Amazon apps, users/buyers will give an appropriate rating according to the quality of products and services they receive. They will tell about the packaging of the goods, expiration date, quality of the goods, photos, and videos related to the goods purchased, and some other detailed aspects.
Quite different from consumers/buyers in Malaysia through the Shopee shopping apps where almost all of them give very unreasonable ratings and reviews. Most of them give a high rating but the reviews are only about the goods ordered that have been safely received while the goods safely reach the buyer is not a correct measure to give a high rating.
Ideally, a high rating should be in line with reviews about the packaging of the goods and the quality of the goods received. Malaysians also often give reviews on goods without using them yet, although some goods should be tried first before giving reviews to help the next buyer to find out about the quality of the goods.
Not only that, but many buyers also arbitrarily upload pictures and videos that have nothing to do with the goods purchased such as TikTok videos and pictures of animals or food that are too nonsensical. And this has become a habit among Malaysians and not many people are voicing this.
Fortunately, there is still a small percentage of Malaysians who can give good reviews. Thanks to them from hardcore Shopee buyers!
What should e-commerce companies do to fix this?
Although this habit comes from the buyer, it is not 100% their fault. This is because these e-commerce companies need to play a bigger role in dealing with it. They should carry out a responsibility to make buyers aware of the importance of the reviews space to them and the seller.
A compliment should be given to these e-commerce companies for still providing incentives to buyers if they provide reviews where at least buyers know about the importance of the reviews features. But there is no moderation and sometimes it just makes buyers lazier and only gives reviews just to get the incentive. For example, in the Shopee online shopping apps provides 5 Shopee Coins to buyers who provide reviews.
Solution proposals to e-commerce companies.
If e-commerce companies are aware of this problem, they should look for another initiative. For example, an e-commerce company can still provide basic incentives such as 5 Shopee Coins or 3 Shopee Coins and then provide a button in the buyer reviews column such as the "Helpful?" button for other users to evaluate whether the reviews given are helpful or not. If the reviews get high positive feedback, then the reviewer gets an incentive from the online shopping apps with greater value.
Or maybe these e-commerce companies can provide other incentives such as badges or titles that show they have trusted reviewers like those used by Facebook who uses ‘Top Fan’ badges to active Facebook users. But to get good reviews, most of the buyers were hoping that the online shopping apps could not set the limited words for reviews.
Final Thought.
Let's think for a long time about the benefits of using these reviews features. It not only helps sellers get potential customers and more sales but also helps these online shopping apps like Shopee and Lazada to get a higher percentage of users by raising the buyer's confidence and this might be a good way to expand the quality of the apps to the rest of the world like how Amazon and Alibaba do. So, to all Malaysian and e-commerce companies, we can do it better!
Great input MCM