Half price on Shopee, RM16.40 more at the pharmacy, and it still sells. Why?

I've been doing some market research lately and came across a really interesting case.

L'Oréal's Revitalift Triple Action Serum was selling for RM55.50 on its official Shopee flagship store, a full half-price promotion.

But in a pharmacy I saw the same product at RM71.90. You'd think that with such an obvious price gap, it couldn't possibly sell offline.

So I asked the pharmacy owner. He said: "Actually, this one sells pretty well."

I was a bit stunned at first.

We've always assumed price is king, and people only buy what's cheap. But reality isn't like that.

Because customers aren't comparing prices. They're making a choice.

On Shopee, sure, everything is cheap. But you have to do your own research, read reviews, worry whether it's genuine, worry whether it suits you.

In the pharmacy, the owner looks at your skin, listens to what's bothering you, and then recommends a product that fits. He doesn't push the same thing on everyone who walks in, and he doesn't hard-sell.

What earns a premium isn't the product, it's the relationship. Not the power to recommend, but the sense of trust.

This is what we in e-commerce call "private traffic". But many people mistake it for frantically adding friends, blasting coupons and nagging people to buy every day.

Truly valuable private traffic is like this pharmacy owner: understanding you, listening to you, and then recommending what you actually need.

With that kind of relationship, even at RM16.40 more, customers feel reassured that it's worth it.

A few reflections:

1. Low prices aren't a master key. Trust is the pass. (With trust comes repeat purchase; with a relationship comes a premium.)

2. Building a brand or doing e-commerce can't just be about "attracting traffic". You have to think about "keeping people". (If you can't keep people, cheap traffic is useless.)

3. Of "people, product, place", the most important is still "people". (However good the product or cool the setting, without a trustworthy person to talk to customers and recommend, you end up fighting on price.)

You may forget who gave you the lowest price, but you'll always remember who solved your problem.