Gift exhibitors interested in Malaysian market

TAIPEI: Most of the Taiwanese gift exhibitors met at the Giftionery Taipei 2018 here do not have a presence in Malaysia and have expressed their interest to enter the Malaysian market via local distributors, partners or e-commerce.
Apart from selling domestically in Taiwan, most of the gift exhibitors also cater mainly to the US, Europe and Japan markets.
Taiwanese gift suppliers see Malaysia and its neighbour Singapore to have a high purchasing power and higher standard of living compared with countries like Indonesia and the Philippines. Malaysia’s economic growth is also a pull factor for them.
“We want to test the (Malaysian) market first... but we’re definitely interested. We have stylish products that would fit Asians, especially in Southeast Asia,” Yu Living planning & strategy director Tina Lai told SunBiz.
The influx of foreign direct investments and foreign brands into Malaysia is also encouraging, as gift suppliers opined that Malaysians have an appetite for new things.
Meanwhile, at the seminars on global design trends and retail expansion here, Malaysian speaker Eve Lim urged gift suppliers to provide multi-lingual descriptions for their products to appeal to a wider range of audience.
Lim is also the founder of lifestyle store Ninth Gallery, which carries Taiwanese lifestyle products at its store in Kuala Lumpur. She spoke on homegrown brands and the distribution strategies for foreign products to Singapore and Malaysia.
Malaysian buyers (38 visitors) are the fifth largest buyers by country at Giftionery Taipei 2018, after China (397 visitors), Japan (187 visitors), US (78 visitors) and Hong Kong (47 visitors). – by Ee Ann Nee