Note: Read towards the end of this post for a special discount code.

Like Threadless in United States, RekaTee is an online community for designers and t-shirt lovers.



Designers can submit their tee design and get voted / commented by the members. Selected designs will be printed as tee from time to time, partly based on the popularity of the designs.

Visit my new blog for more updates & insights on e-commerce in Malaysia: ecommerce.milo

Well, China has 100+ Groupon clones (updates: 4500+ now!) and Malaysia is picking up as well on its own scale.

Group buying sites are popping out lately in Malaysia. It's a bit of deja-vu like many were attempting to build a local social network site some years back.

The barrier of entry though is relatively lower to build a group buying site, technically. If you are too lazy, just buy a groupon clone script from here or here.

It's the business itself that's far more challenging - signing up quality retailers who offer irresistible deals, and basically bridging the gap between (offline) retailers and online consumers.

Before losing count, here's a compilation of group buying sites in Malaysia. Do leave a comment if any is missing, so that I can append to this list. Thanks!

My apology for not updating this blog for months.

Have been really busy this year. If you are not aware already,  I have actually started co-blogging at a new e-commerce blog - ecomZen some months ago.

And yeah, this is one of the reasons for my disappearance here. :)

I have a guest post published at Zippy Cart weeks ago, so here it is for those who have missed it.

It was the first time in history that a Malaysian company made headlines at TechCrunch last December. Friendster, the granddaddy of social networks has been acquired by MOL Global, a Malaysian e-commerce (payment) company.

How much do you know about Malaysia?

Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia which comprises many ethnic groups, with Malays being the majority followed by Chinese, Indians and others. Our multi-ethnic, multi-cultural background also makes us a unique multi-lingual society. A typical Malaysian is usually literate in 2 -3 languages (or more). English is arguably the common language used on the Internet here as many western sites or services are popular and frequently accessed. Some of us are also accustomed to sites from China, Taiwan, Indonesia or even India.

Generally, Malaysians are skeptical or reluctant to shop online due to security concerns among many. We lack smart consumers, as suggested by Danny Foo.

Air Asia did a great job in our e-commerce education. Desperately in need of bargain air tickets? Learn how to shop online and brace yourself by entering the credit card numbers. We need more major players like them, to instill and encourage the online shopping habit into our populations.

Nevertheless, let's not limit ourselves to online ticketing or reservation (airline / hotel / movie). I am not saying that you gotta buy everything online but here are the reasons that you can look forward, especially for Malaysians who never experience buying physical goods online.

Do you have the habit of shopping at foreign online store, especially those from the west? I do, like many others, looking for bargains, stuffs that are special or not easily available here.

I do have an extra small habit though.

Whenever the order arrives, I like to observe the way it is being packaged, and minor details (some are not minor, really) that would make a difference.

Let me share two examples from my own experience recently, Threadless from US and Book Depository from UK.

Q: Do tell us a little on Acmamall’s background? When was it started?
A: Acmamall.com started in Malaysia and Singapore in July 2000 as an online bookstore. Formerly called Acmabooks.com, it was renamed to Acmamall.com in 2007 to reflect its expanded product range of beauty, gifts and apparel.

Acmamall.com vision is to be the regional online shopping mall where we are a familiar household retail name to get products in a safe trustworthy and convenient way.

Q: How did you get inspired to start Acmamall? Is it Amazon?

A: Amazon.com had a part to play in it as an inspiration to dot com companies. At that time, Acmamall.com was under Acma Ltd, a multi-industry conglomerate group that had a strategic thrust to develop twelve dot com companies at a go in hope of riding along with the dot com wave. Acmamall.com was the online bookstore, while the other dot comes dabbled in tourist directories, HR, property and online education. However, like many dot com companies, many fell after the dot com bubble burst. Acmamall.com remained the sole dot com company to survive profitably in the grouping.

Believe it or not, face-lifting and cleaning up this blog is one of my new year resolutions. Don't laugh, resolution does not mean that it has to be tough to achieve but do set small targets to accomplish. Those will lift you on achieving the bigger ones.

So, I am done with the new design thingy, do check it out and tell me what do you think? Kewl?

And here's a memorial for the old Malaysia Crunch, R.I.P.



OK, it's not all about design. As you might have noticed, Malaysia Crunch is and will be having more e-commerce oriented content, and new sections will be introduced too: