Ecommerce Malaysia August 2026
August’s numbers are out, and the early recovery we were hoping for hasn’t arrived.
Shopee’s July pickup reversed, while Lazada fell for a second consecutive month. Last year, both platforms saw a small improvement in August. This year, both moved in the opposite direction.
For now, our website traffic tracker is not showing an early end to the ecommerce “winter”.
I went back through August to see what might explain it. It certainly wasn’t because the platforms went quiet. Shopee had its 8.8 Merdeka campaign, and Lazada ran its 8.8 Gemilang Sale. The promotions were there, but they weren’t enough to lift the full month’s web traffic above July.
The commission changes on 14 August are also worth watching. For sellers facing higher costs, there may be less room to offer discounts or spend on ads. That could affect how competitive their offers are, although I wouldn’t blame the traffic drop on fees alone.
What caught my attention more was TikTok Shop’s move during the same month. Its JomLokal Booster 2.0 announcement added RM70 million in support, including zero platform commission for another 44 subcategories. TikTok also reported strong year-on-year growth in LIVE sales.
That makes me wonder whether we are looking only at a longer slow season, or whether some of the activity is moving elsewhere.
This tracker measures website traffic, not the full picture of app usage and sales. I would be careful about “saying people have stopped shopping” just because these two lines are falling.
My view for now: the early August recovery did not happen, and September’s full-month results will matter more. I’m still hoping for a stronger year-end pickup, but I wouldn’t commit to extra stock or a bigger ad budget purely because that was the pattern in previous years.
How was August for your store — fewer visitors, weaker conversion, or better results on a different platform?
This report is powered by website traffic analytics. Always remember that there may be slight variations from real-time statistics.
