GEMFIVE is an online shopping site (an e-commerce marketplace) owned by Hong Leong Group. Hong Leong Bank is the fifth largest bank in Malaysia.

GEMFIVE was launched in May 2015 to much fanfare, and has since invested sizable resources on business development, marketing and headcounts.

GEMFIVE’s traffic drop since Jan 2017

At one time last November (2016), we had recorded GEMFIVE’s growth shooting up to the fifth most visited online shopping site in Malaysia, after heavy marketing investments.

However, the growth has stalled after December 2016 and traffic is dropping since then, a 47% decrease from January to February alone.

Up to 80% of staffs retrenched

According to our insider’s sources today, GEMFIVE has just announced internally to cut down its headcounts by close to 80%, retaining only its core employees. The question of whether more than 50 staffs are being retrenched or reallocated remains unclear at the time of writing.

This is not the first time we witness the struggle of e-commerce companies here, even the Japanese e-commerce giant, Rakuten has ceased its operation in Malaysia.

It is not a surprise that, a business conglomerate as huge as Hong Leong Group finding e-commerce a mis-match with its  traditional business of finance, property development and so on.

Losing to the BIG players

Fighting within the domain of e-marketplaces alongside Lazada, 11street and Lelong.my is even more challenging, how do you win this battle without heavy marketing and discount? Not to mention it takes years for this kind of business just to break-even, if it ever happens.