ShopBack Malaysia sees 200% sales growth in 2019
By Tan Jee Yee February 22, 2020
- Claims 150% increase in users, over 200% rise in sales compared to 2018
- Highest accumulated cashback by an individual at almost US$16,627
2019 was a good year for ShopBack Malaysia. The cashback service claims a growth of more than 200% in sales enabled through the site last year when compared to 2018, a surge they credit to growing popularity of smarter online shopping among Malaysians.
ShopBack, to summarise, enables users to earn cashback each time they perform online shopping transactions through its website or app. The cashback earned can be withdrawn to the users’ bank account of choice.
“Before the concept of cashback was popularised in online shopping, it only existed within the credit cards or offline transactions space. ShopBack launched the online rewards model in the form of cashback five years ago, and is currently serving over 2.5 million users,” claims ShopBack Malaysia country general manager Eddy Han (pic, right).
“In 2019, we experienced a remarkable increase of 150% in users and over 200% in sales compared to 2018. This growth was boosted by the introduction of new verticals such as Online Survey and eWallet, fuelled by our continued fruitful collaborations with our merchants.”
ShopBack currently has over 500 partner merchants in Malaysia. Popular categories among Malaysians, Han says, are Online Marketplaces (encompassing Shopee, Lazada and Taobao), Fashion, Health and Beauty (Zalora, Hermo, FashionValet) and Travel (Agoda, Booking.com and Klook).
To date, Malaysian users have earned more than US$14.43 million (RM60 million) worth of cashback while the highest accumulated cashback earnings by a single user stands at a whopping US$16,627 (RM69,145).
[US$1 = RM4.15]
Shopping insights
ShopBack Malaysia also released some user insights for 2019. They discovered, for one, that users prefer to shop between 2pm and 3pm for most days. During online mega sales, however, many rushed to checkout their purchases at midnight (12pm to 1pm) in order to secure the best discounts.
The most prolific mega sales in Malaysia, ShopBack notes, is the “11.11 sale”, followed by the 12.12 and 9.9 sales. Han says that the 11.11 online sales saw an 80% increase in sales last year compared to the same day in 2018.
More than 60% of the transactions enabled through ShopBack’s platform were for items sold under Online Marketplaces. The average order value (AOV) for Online Marketplaces purchases is approximately RM200, while users spent three times more for Travel bookings, which averages at RM600 (incidentally ShopBack’s highest AOV category).
“Besides selling products like gadgets and home appliances, Online Marketplaces have now evolved and diversified their offerings to allow users to reload mobile credits, pay their bills, and even grab discount vouchers. It has brought convenience to users and more reasons to transact via Online Marketplaces,” Han shares.
Good prospects
ShopBack Malaysia is projecting a bullish year in 2020, and is confident of maintaining the same growth rate as with 2019. They’re already kickstarting the year with an upgraded browser extension for their desktop users, as part of their fifth anniversary.
The ShopBack Button, as it’s called, is a browser extension that is capable of detecting websites that offer cashback through ShopBack when users search for an item. With it, users can activate cashback at the merchant’s site without going through the ShopBack Malaysia website, which is the typical way to use the service.
The upgraded ShopBack Button now comes with a coupon applier function, where it will automatically scout for available coupon codes online and apply the code with the most discounts for users during checkout.
ShopBack Malaysia’s 5th Anniversary is also seeing a series of offers, which includes a RM50,000 Shopping Spree Giveaway, up to 100% cashback vouchers, and a bonus deal that is exclusive to the ShopBack Button.
Highlights of the upsized cashback include up to 15% from Dahmakan, valid from now until 13 March, as well as 10.5% cashback from Agoda, from 21st February to 23rd February and 18% cashback from Nike, starting February 20th to 24th.
ShopBack will be launching in Vietnam in March 2020.
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