Case Study 6: Electrical Appliance Retailers
Online Marketing Strategies for Malaysia Electronic & Electrical Appliance Retailers (Dated 1st Mar 2011)
It was disappointed when I was told the head of marketing of Sen Heng who suppose to meet up with me unable to do so due to some urgent event. Anyway, I decided to share some marketing research information I studied before the meeting.
In this research I’ve discussed the possible online marketing strategies and comparing the readiness of major electrical appliance retailers Sen Heng, SEC, BEST, Harvey Norman and HLSG (the only listed company among them) in term of online marketing.
The online marketing strategies discussed below have 2 goals:
1. To achieve online branding effect.
2. To build long-term relationship.
In Malaysia, the merchants have been trying really hard to bring customers to go online. However, for certain products customers still prefer to experience the products in showroom. Since they have multiple choices for almost every product so why should they choose you?
Lower prices or nearer location? Even if you have a better hand in these points, how long do you think it would last until another merchant offer the same thing at an even lower price?
This is the reason why we should build long-term relationship with our customers.
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SEC – The company takes a step to build its company identity by hiring ad-wow. However, the effort was limited to website design, logo design and mascot design which I don’t think any of these should considered part of marketing.
BEST – The company owned the domain bestdenki.com.my but there is no website on the domain. Either the Malaysia version website is in the development or the company totally not planning to have one.
Harvey Norman – Their Australia website is much better and I wondering why they don’t just follow what Australia website is doing. At the moment, Malaysia Harvey Norman website is simply serves as a “Company Profile” instead of a catalog for customers.
HLSG – The only company has an online shopping cart BUT, it was not functioning. Perhaps they have taken it off due to lack of activities. This is a common problem when you do not have a proper marketing plan to market your product. (In this case, the “product” is the online shopping cart)
Sen Heng – Online marketing should start from redesign the official website because current website In-Site SEO is so badly done (Check the report here). I know they are trying to work this out as they are currently looking for an eCommerce Manager via JobStreet.
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Malaysian needs a REAL Online Store
Lelong.com.my is not bad, but something like Amazon could be MUCH better.
MoreSales.com.my is one of the best of this kind. Their product range covers Electronics, Clothing, Books, Household products and more. The only worry is about the company background because it’s a shop they have never experienced or seen before.
This problem doesn’t applies to Harvery Norman or Sen Heng because public know about them.
See how successful is air ticket selling through online and how well is Dell selling through online. Yes, consumer cannot see nor experience the hardware at retail store but they still purchase Dell computers through online because they trust the brand, the service and they know the price is fair.
Same concept could apply to mentioned electrical appliance stores too.
Some might argue that individual electrical appliance shops offer cheaper price but from my experience, it’s not always true. Certain products could be cheaper but not all and not all the time.
The trend is electrical appliance shops owned by individuals are getting lesser and lesser while the big players Sen Heng and HLSG is expanding rapidly to every town. (Sen Heng has over 100 stores nationwide)
If I’m a Sony supplier, I might already start to decline distribution rights to new applicants. Why should I manage so many distributors when the majority sales coming from the few big players.
This is the reason I believe in the future, the market will be monopolized by a few major chain-stores.
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Be Prepared and Learn from Amazon
– There are more than 30k searches related to “LCD TV” in Google Malaysia every month.
– There are more than 15k searches related to “refrigerator” in Google Malaysia every month.
– There are more than 25k searches related to “air conditioner” in Google Malaysia every month.
Amazon is not only excellent in term of their product range and shopping system, they are also SUPERB in term of search engine marketing.
8 out of 10 products you search in the Google.com, Google will return Amazon product link in the 1st page of the search results.
But if you search the same product in Google.com.my, most of the returned results are not local websites which means if you have a local website with good SEO, your website has high chances to be ranked on 1st page of the search results.
More on email marketing, affiliate marketing and customer relationship management coming soon…
My conclusion: They can and they should do better. The one who takes the first step win.
* This is just my personal thought. If you are the company/website owner and wish me to remove the content, please let me know.