Online stores rarely stall on design. They stall on three decisions that have nothing to do with how the site looks, and that nobody warns the owner about until the build is already finished and waiting. Here they are, in the order they bite.
1. Which payment gateway — and who applies for it
You cannot take money online until a payment gateway approves you, and that approval is a merchant application: business registration, bank account, director details, a description of what you sell, sometimes a site visit. It takes days to weeks depending on the provider and how clean the paperwork is.
The common mistake is leaving this to the end. The site is finished, everyone is ready to launch, and the store sits dark for three weeks waiting for a gateway. Start the application while the site is being built. It is the single most effective thing you can do for your launch date.
The second mistake is choosing the gateway on headline rate alone. What matters as much:
- What your customers actually use. In Malaysia that means FPX online banking and e-wallets, not only cards. A store that takes cards only will lose a large share of buyers at the last step.
- Settlement time. How many days before the money is in your account? This is cash flow, and the difference between providers is real.
- Who you call when a payment fails. Both the gateway and whoever built your store need to be reachable, because the first question is always whether it is the gateway or the site.
EZsite stores integrate with Fiuu (formerly MOLPay), iPay88, eGHL, Billplz, Stripe, NewebPay and direct bank transfer, and senangPay, revPAY and Curlec can be arranged on request. We are a reseller, so you can apply through us instead of negotiating with the provider yourself — and at the moment the RM499 gateway setup fee is waived.
2. How the parcel gets there, and who tells the customer
Delivery is where online stores quietly lose repeat customers. Not because parcels are late — parcels are sometimes late everywhere — but because the customer has no idea where theirs is and has to ask.
Three questions to settle before launch:
Flat rate, by weight, or free above a threshold?
Flat rate is simplest and easiest to communicate. By weight is fairer on heavy goods and harder to explain. Free shipping above a threshold is the strongest nudge toward a larger basket. Pick one you can state in a single sentence on the product page, because a shipping cost that only appears at checkout is the most common reason a cart is abandoned.
Which courier, and is it connected to the store?
A courier integration means the order, the address and the parcel details flow from the store to the courier without anyone retyping them. EZsite connects to EasyParcel, DHL and ML Express, and tracking is written back into the order — so your staff and your customer are looking at the same status instead of two different answers.
Who handles the "where is my parcel" message?
Decide this before you have customers, not after. The answer is usually the same person who packs, and they need to be able to see the tracking without asking anyone.
3. Whether you are also selling on Shopee and Lazada
Most Malaysian merchants are, and this is the decision that is easiest to get wrong, because it looks like a question about channels and is actually a question about inventory.
If you sell the same stock in three places and the three do not talk to each other, you will oversell. Then you cancel an order, your marketplace rating drops, and the marketplace rating is a thing you cannot buy back.
Your options, honestly:
- Keep stock separate per channel. Simple, safe, and wastes stock. Works if you hold plenty.
- Sync products and orders. One catalogue, one view of orders. EZsite syncs with Shopee and Lazada so listings and orders stay in step with your own store.
- Use your own site for the things marketplaces are bad at. Bundles, pre-orders, corporate or bulk enquiries, membership pricing, and anything where you want the customer's details rather than the marketplace's.
That last point is the real argument for having your own store at all. On a marketplace you rent the customer. On your own site you keep them — their email, their order history, and the ability to tell them about something new without paying for the privilege.
A sensible order of work
- Start the payment gateway application. Day one, before anything else.
- Decide your shipping rule and write it in one sentence.
- Build the store and load the catalogue while the gateway application is in progress.
- Connect the courier and run a real order end to end — pay it, ship it, track it — before you announce anything.
- Then open the marketplace sync, once your own store is known to work.
Nothing on this list is design work, and all of it decides whether you launch on time.
Planning a store and unsure which of these applies to you? Tell us what you sell and we will walk through it with you before you commit to anything.