Ever since I went to Chi­na for work, I have had the habit of buy­ing dai­ly items online; Chow mein, gro­ceries, toi­let papers, sex toys, etc.

Today while hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion in my What­sapp group on Shopee, I got curi­ous on how much I have spent on the plat­form. So I pulled the data off Shopee and tab­u­lat­ed it in Microsoft Excel. 

IT turns out, since late 2019, I have spent close to RM38,000 on the platform! 

I am not remote­ly sur­prised giv­en that I am buy­ing lit­er­al­ly every­thing on the plat­form. From hob­bies to gad­gets to groceries.

E‑commerce is noth­ing some­thing new to me. Back in the days way before Laza­da and Shopee, there was Ama­zon, Taobao, and cer­tain­ly 11street. I won’t say the amount that I have spent on the plat­form to be extra­or­di­nary giv­en that my local­i­ty, shop­ping online is much more eco­nom­i­cal for me. 

But it is sad to see how the gen­er­al Malaysians not being able to embrace the e‑commerce as a whole. Look­ing at Shopee’s review it is sad that the amount of trust that we have on the plat­form. I mean, when I click on ‘Prod­uct Review’ I would want to read on, well the review of the prod­uct! Whether the item arrive soon­er or lat­er than expect­ed, that is sec­ondary, in my opin­ion. but look that these review!

Seri­ous­ly meh? It does say Prod­uct Review in the head­er, not Sell­er Review, or Have You Received your prod­uct review. It’s PRODUCT REVIEW, so you write about the prod­uct. If you have not tried the prod­uct, then you don’t review!!11one


In com­par­i­son, on Ama­zon you do get the actu­al prod­uct review. 

Often times, we read about peo­ple pur­chas­ing items from Shopee and did not receive the said item, or the item was DOA (dead on arrival). If you have pur­chased an expen­sive item, would not not be so much of a com­mon sense to 1, not accept an item if there was already phys­i­cal dam­age on the pack­ag­ing? Or 2, record a videp of unbox­ing when there were obvi­ous dam­age on the pack­ag­ing, or 3, record a video of the unbox­ing when the weight is out of the ordinary? 

I have bought mobile phones, lap­tops, hard disk dri­ves and nev­er once did I receive an item that was DOA, or an emp­ty box. I even bought live fish, live plants and they are all thriv­ing upon arrival. Per­haps out of the many times I bought some­thing, 0.01% of the time I got a leaky bottle. 

If you know PosLa­ju is not reli­able in your area, then you don’t use PosLa­ju. J&T Express deliv­ers to my area every day includ­ing Sun­days and pub­lic hol­i­days, so I use them. They do some­times skip a day due to weath­er, but hey at least most of the times they are send­ing. If PosLa­ju only deliv­ers to your area once a week, then you don’t order per­ish­ables with that service! 

Most of the couri­er ser­vice has my con­tact num­ber, and in the event when they have a par­cel and they are not mak­ing the trip over due to only 1 or 2 items, they call me or send me a What­sapp mes­sage. It does not that that much of an effort to be nice to your par­cel deliv­ery guy, be nice to them, and they will be nice to you. 

Some­times I see videos of couri­er ser­vices throw­ing items up their truck and such. Think about this, you paid RM1, RM2 for ship­ping, what are you expect­ing from your deliv­ery ser­vice­men? Red carpet?