Malaysia Manufacturer and Supplier

Finally, I have established a directory, called Malaysia Manufacturer and Supplier Directory. (http://www.manufacturer-supplier.com/lma/directory) I impoted data from DMOZ, which is one of the most reliable database in the world.

I planned to build a directory for supplier and manufacturer long time ago, but didn't find a good tool to build it. By building this directory, i hope it can help Malaysia manufacturer and supplier to explore more international market.

I hereby also encourage Malaysia manufacturers and suppliers submit their URL in the directory.

How to find Malaysia good web hosting company ?

Dear all,

For those want to find a good, reliable web hosting company in Malaysia, please visit my new article : http://webhostingmalaysia.blogspot.com , Remember, price is not the main issue, the SUPPORT of the web hosting is the most critical !

5 tips for building a good and effective website

Hi, for those who plan to ask a web developer to design a website, I had writen an article called " 5 tips for building a good and effective website" , ( http://website-design-malaysia.blogspot.com/) you can click it to read this article.

Website Design for Malaysia companies : A lesson should be learnt
( If you plan to have a website, you should not miss this article - especially for Malaysian companies)

Malaysian companies could be the luckist companies in the world. Why ? Because they are a lot of government’s incentives to help Malaysian companies to promote their products. Including subsidy the companies to build a website.

The financial assistance started few years back in the year 2000. The government launched a grant called “ E-commerce Grant”, The grant’s objective is to help the Malaysian companies to sell products online through portals and payment gateway. The government appointed a list of portals providers to implement this project.

Unfortunately, the grant targeted to the wrong group - the SMI (Small and medium industries, who are merely manufactures). The SMI were keen to have a website, but when it comes to online transaction, most of them were not interested.

Why ? The reasons are simple, they are manufacturer, they don’t like to accept the order piece-by-piece, they wanted to accept the order bulk-to-bulk. Furthermore, the only mean to do online transaction is through credit card. Some manufacturers worried on frauds, and others found credit card is not practical in the bulk order which involved hundred thousands dollars.

At the end, the so called “e-commerce grant” merely became “website grant” because most of the SMI didn’t do transaction online at all.

And guess how much the portal providers charged for building a so called “website” for each SMI ? the answer is RM 10,000 (USD 2,800). Obviously, it was over-charged. A domain name, a 50MB web hosting, a few pages with products catalogue and some programming for shopping cart, these were all the SMI get. Of course, the portal providers also claimed that they have done SEO ( Search engine optimization) for the website they built for SMI.

Luckily, the chief officer of the government department who in-charge of the grant, was not stupid. He asked the providers to demo one-by-one the websites they built, starting from searching through search engines, found the website, click and browse throughout the website to make sure the website was fully function before the government release payment to providers.

Although it was tedious works, but it delivered one message to providers : you want to get money, you have to do your job. I still remember there was a provider , claiming that the website appeared in google and yahoo, the chief officer just said “show me”. The provider browsed through the page 1 to page 99 of Yahoo and Google searching the keywords but could not find the website, only showing his face that turning red and sweating…….

The story was not end there.


Few years later till now, many SMI who obtained the grant are not continued with their website. Reason being : the providers are either closed shop, OR, the maintenance cost is too high ! Some providers charge RM 1,000 (USD 280) just for maintain a so-called “website”.

Unfortunately, the government can’t help. The money was paid and the project is over.



What you should learn from the above lesson :

1) Never build a website that cannot deliver the results you want.
2) If the providers promised they can deliver the results, ask them “show me” before you pay. ( or request money back guarantee)
3) Beware of yearly maintenance fee.
4) Make sure your website appear in search engines, preferable on Top 30 position.
5) Find a reliable, history-proof web design company to design a website.

James Tan

Malaysia Professional Web Design Company and SEO Specilist

Web Design and Web Hosting Price War

I feel it is more and more difficult to do web hosting business and web design business in Malaysia.

Why ?

Because there are many idiots are playing cut-throat price war. If you read Sin Chew Daily, you can always find kind of advertisement : RM 299 full package include domain name, hosting, design....... RM 100 for web hosting.....

at the end , can they survive ?

Probable yes if they are one-man-show and can close many deals and leverage from the bulk orders. But when times go on, can they handle ?

People in Malaysia are funny, they want to see the salesperson, see the product before they want to buy. That's why e-commerce is still not popular in Malaysia. (among Malaysian buyers)

similarly, If you charge RM 299 to include web design, hosting and domain. Well, I think you need to travel to client site to collect the information at least once. Then, just imagine how many tolls in Klang Valley and how terrible is the traffic jam, and calculate how many clients can be approached a day and how much is the cost per visit.

So, tell me back, how much is the profit if the selling price is RM 299 ?

Of Course, from the consumer's point of view, they may love this price. But I always believe that a long term business is based on the mutual benefits and win-win situation. If kind of price jeopardize the seller, it will not survive longer.

At the end , who suffer ? The consumers.

Another key element that the consumers always ignore is , after creating a web site , what's next ? Many website owner just wait the visitors come and visit, then can get more enquiries from the visitors and eventually sell the products.

The fact is , No one VISIT !

If a website owner want to get more visitors ( traffic) to their website, just asking yourself : how do you find a company or product in Internet ? The answer : Search Engine like Yahoo, Google or MSN.

similarly, listing the website in search engine is a MUST. If you don't, then prepare to spend more money on off-line promotion : TV, Radio, Newspaper. You can still get many visitors : - but , mostly are local visitors. (unless you promote to overseas media)

That's why I recently always advise the website owner to go for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Only with SEO, your website will not turn to white elephant project.

Hopefully, the SEO service many not become the price war too in Malaysia. At least, to do SEO is not as simple as web design and web hosting.

James Tan
Malaysia Web Design Company and SEO Specialist