Who ate all the pie?

4 minute read

Ask yourself this. Would you rather have a 0.01% / 1% / 5% / 10% market share of a 500 million Euro industry or of a 1 billion Euro industry? It’s a ridiculous question, right? Well… read on to find out how we believe you can wrestle back local shoppers currently lost to international eCommerce sites like Amazon, eBay, Aliexpress etc.

Hi, my name is Marc and I’m one of the co-creators of Malta Virtual Mall. 

I’d like to try and break down one of the biggest challenges facing retail companies in Malta. Competition from the large international retail stores and marketplaces. 

Have you ever looked at your situation and couldn’t figure out what you’re doing wrong? 

We believe that the answer to this is Easy Sourcing. 

If I’m a shopper and I want to buy a set of matching towels, I could either:

1. Go to Amazon and search for “towels” 
2. See over 1000 options from hundreds of shops 
3. Easily sort and filter to specifically find what I want 
4. Select what I want 
5. Pay for it 
6. Have towels delivered to my home or office 

Alternatively, if I want to buy online locally 

1. Try to think of 1 or 2 stores that I remember who may or may not sell towels online 
2. Visit their websites individually  
3. Search for towels on each website  
4. Choose from a very limited list  
5. Select what I want 
6. Pay for it 
7. Have towels delivered to my home or office 

OR 

1. Google “Towels in Malta”  
2. Filter through all the international websites and ads (never seeing any of the smaller online stores which didn’t make it into the first 2 pages of search results)  
3. Visit 2 or 3 websites before I lose interest in searching further  
4. Visit the websites individually 
5. Search for towels on each website 
6. Choose from a very limited list 
7. Select what I want 
8. Pay for it 
9. Have towels delivered to my home or office 

If we’re being realistic, we can all understand why shoppers would rather just buy from Amazon! 

This situation is the same for most things, like electronics, books, toys… in fact it is the same for most of the 50+ categories on Malta Virtual Mall. 

This is where Malta Virtual Mall can add value to local companies. We have made it our business to list as many local retail eCommerce businesses as we could find. 

We have categorised these businesses and we have included a search function that searches through all the listed eCommerce shops to find the keywords that shoppers are searching for. 

This means that if a shopper is trying to source something online locally, they can easily do so by visiting the Malta Virtual Mall website and searching for it. We will then forward these shoppers to local eShops selling what they need. 

We at MVM believe that what we have created is a great tool to support local businesses and just as importantly to help local shoppers find what they are looking for. We believe that with our support, local businesses can wrestle back some of the sales lost to international stores and marketplaces and therefore grow the local eCommerce pie that everyone wants a piece of! 

We’re a proud team with self-belief and creativity aplenty. But pride, self-belief and creativity will only get you so far.  

What we need is to get the word out that we are here to stay; that you can find what you need locally using Malta Virtual Mall and that local businesses are selling what they need! 

To do this, we need to produce extensive marketing campaigns and all this costs money. Should you believe in our project and would like to help us to succeed in supporting local businesses, here is a list of ways in which you could support us: 

• Donations 
• Advertise with us 
• Collaborate with us 
• Follow our socials 
• Share our profiles and social content on Facebook and Instagram with your online network 
• Spread the word – let people know about us

Also, feel free to get in touch with us at anytime via our Contact page to learn how we can help each other succeed or even for a chat.

Thanks for reading!