With Malaysia’s daily cases hitting all time highs, one particular free online store has risen in popularity as a convenient way for Malaysians to sell products via WhatsApp and social media.
Also known as Beepmix (not to be confused with Beepit Food Delivery), the company reported a surge of over 500% in new seller signups in the past month alone — where over 80% of them being home-based / micro sellers.
A free all-in-one online store
Founded with a mission to help small sellers thrive, Beepmix is a Malaysia-based company that provides free “brandable” online stores that can be set up in one’s own brand in under 5 minutes with minimal technical knowledge.
Unlike many other stores in the market, Beepmix’s Online Stores are focused towards extremely simple hyper-local selling, and comes bundled with multiple payment gateways, delivery management, loyalty/promoter programs, WhatsApp notifications, and more — all designed to make it extremely easy for anyone to start selling very quickly.
There are no upfront or subscription fees to set up a store, and sellers only cover the 2.9% payment gateway fees on a successful sale.
Sellers on Beepmix are from all walks of life
In an interview with News Asia Today, the company shared that many sellers come from all over Malaysia, selling various products ranging from fruits, home-made food, desserts, snacks, among others.
Many sellers expressed that they could not afford the subscription costs set by more established platforms in the market, and started using Beepmix mainly because it was very simple, affordable, and allowed them to receive notifications on WhatsApp.
A large number of sellers are also women, many who resorted to starting their home-based businesses after being furloughed or losing their full-time jobs due to the prolonged Movement Control Order (MCO).
“We wanted to create something that was super easy to use, and was free of charge for any sellers to start. We found that most solutions in the market were too complicated, or forced sellers to pay upfront fees just to start. With Beepmix, sellers only pay 2.9% per transaction, and that’s it.”
A wave of Malaysian-made products
Just this week, the country reported over 21,000 new daily infections, the highest ever in Malaysia’s history since the start of the global pandemic.
With no end to Malaysia’s lock-downs in sight, citizens worry that this may result in further collapse of businesses and more job-cuts.
With mobile-focused commerce stores like Beepmix in the market, not only has the barrier of entry to starting a business been lowered tremendously, this could potentially spark a revolution of more Malaysian-made products exported worldwide in the coming years.
Interested sellers can set up a free store of their own via the Beepmix official website.