E-commerce isn't dead. It's finally back to business basics
Originally written in Chinese. Translated with AI, reviewed by Gary. Read the Chinese original →
Recently some friends asked me: is e-commerce getting harder and harder? Is traffic getting more and more expensive? Does it end up feeling like we're all just working for the platforms? So can you still do e-commerce or not?
I don't think this question can be answered with a simple "yes" or "no".
If you ask me whether the e-commerce market has shrunk?
Actually, no. E-commerce's share in Malaysia is still growing, consumers keep buying online, and channels like Shopee, TikTok Shop, live streaming and short video are still eating into traditional retail's share.
But if you ask me whether e-commerce is harder than before?
Then the answer is also yes, and much harder.
The boom years are over
E-commerce used to be on the way up. Back then you could go to Yiwu, Guangzhou or a Malaysian wholesale market, bring back some stock, open a shop, list it, run a few ads, and you basically had a shot at selling.
In those years, plenty of e-commerce groups and Facebook groups were full of people showing off their numbers: tens of thousands today, hundreds of thousands tomorrow. It felt like everyone was about to be financially free.
Now it's different. What you see more of now is: business is hard, ads are too expensive, stock won't move, shops are up for transfer. So lots of people say e-commerce is finished.
But I don't think e-commerce is finished. It's the old kind, "grab any stock, list it anyhow, throw traffic at it", that's becoming less and less workable.
It used to be the boom period. Now it's the mature period.
A mature market doesn't just need you to watch ROI. It needs fine-grained operations. You need to know who sees your product, who clicks, who buys, why this image works, why this host's script works, and why the same product gets completely different results with different copy, a different cover or a different live-stream script.
Put simply, e-commerce is no longer just a traffic game. It's a game of understanding customers.
I've been talking with friends who've done e-commerce for many years, and with others in the industry, and we share the same feeling: since last year, white-label products have become harder and harder. Just picking up random stock to sell is hard; just piling on lots of SKUs is hard; just opening lots of store clusters is hard; just grabbing traffic with low prices is even harder.
E-commerce isn't a magic wand
So what kind of e-commerce can still work?
My own observation is that brands can still work. Not every brand can do tens of millions a month, but there are actually plenty doing a steady one or two million a month, profitably. What matters is whether you clearly know what you sell, who you serve, and why customers buy from you instead of someone else.
The biggest misunderstanding people have about e-commerce is treating it as a magic wand, as if putting a product on Shopee or TikTok will suddenly make it sell. It won't. E-commerce is just a channel, a route to market, not a magic wand.
It's like being a char kway teow seller. Early on you get influencers to film you, traffic is cheap, and maybe a lot of people really do queue up. But when traffic gets more expensive and kopitiam rents keep rising, you can't suddenly become Oriental Kopi just by hiring more influencers.
In the end you have to go back to the most basic questions: is your char kway teow any good? Who are your customers? How much are they willing to pay? Are your costs under control? Is the taste consistent?
E-commerce is the same.
So can you still do e-commerce?
I actually think the question itself is wrong. The real questions should be: does your product still work? Does your brand have value? Who are your customers? Can your supply chain support it? Does your team have what it takes to run this channel?
The most comfortable year
Honestly, this past year has been the most comfortable stretch since I started in e-commerce.
The most painful times used to be when competitors copied one or two of your designs and then dumped prices on purpose. It wasn't about who understood customers better, but who could keep losing money longer. This year I've seen a change: many of the reckless competitors are gone, and many plays built only on low prices and buying traffic have stopped working.
That's actually given people who genuinely want to build products, brands and customer relationships a chance to slowly rise to the surface.
We've run our fashion brand for a few years, and this year has actually been our best year for gross margin. Because I can finally focus seriously on making clothes customers like, at a price I think is fair, instead of being forced into a price war with everyone else every day.
I don't think e-commerce is finished.
If anything, I think e-commerce is finally back to the basics of business.
Before, the boom gave lots of people a chance. Now the market has started sorting people out. Expensive traffic isn't the biggest problem, and platform commission isn't the biggest problem either. The biggest problem is that if your product has no value, your brand has nothing memorable about it, and you don't know who your customers are, then whatever channel you're on, you'll find it hard.