7 Places to Find Business Opportunities in Malaysia
Looking for business opportunities in Malaysia? Did you know instead of starting from scratch, you can buy a Malaysia business for sale? Some of you may already know this, but I didn’t up until my mid-20s, so here I am putting that fact out there.
If you’ve always wanted to test your entrepreneurial side, you can buy a business from any of the options listed below, instead of starting one from scratch. Kind of like the same idea as buying clothes off the rack rather than sewing it yourself. Might need alterations, but it’s ready-to-wear.
What type of business, you ask? Oh dudettes. So many types. Anything you can think of. We’re talking:
- Industries: F&B, Manufacturing, Hospitality, Education, Ecommerce, Wholesale, Fashion, Franchise and more
- Capital: From a few thousand to a few million, depending on the type of business
- Customer base: Online, Retail (offline), Malaysians, Global
Oh also. For the sake of clarification, this article is not:
- Businesses teaching you how to start a business in X industry (like buying and repackaging cosmetics or perfumes)
- Businesses telling you how you can be your own boss, but actually you’re a sales agent, or part of an MLM (multi-level marketing) or Ponzi scheme. Actually, I’d go as far as recommend you to avoid the business opportunities which uses variations of ‘Be your own boss!’ as a selling point :/
Anyway, here are some places to look for business opportunities in Malaysia that I personally know of. Feel free to check out any and all of them out.
#1 – Mudah.my’s Business for Sale in Malaysia page (Link)
#2 – Malaysia.BusinessForSale.com (Link)
#3 – BusinessBrokers.com.my (Link)
#4 – Lowyat.net’s Business for Sale page (Link)
#5 – Buy online businesses (Flippa)
Note: Flippa is not the only place to buy an online business in Malaysia, but they’re definitely one of the best, if not the best. That’s a good thing because you don’t want to deal with scammers, especially if they’re not in Malaysia. Cannot Very hard to catch and sue if anything goes wrong.
#6 – Social media
This really depends on your luck but I’ve personally came across the ads in my social media feed. For example:
Idk what happened but ceritakitastudios is selling their business. A shortcut if you’ve ever wanted to start own photography/videography business, equipment is all included. All you have to do is find clients pic.twitter.com/dA00nZhbK0
— Suraya Zainudin (@surayaror) February 7, 2020
Aside from that I’ve also came across people in my feed:
- Selling their ecommerce stores
- Selling all their inventories (if it’s a product-based business, that’s almost the same as selling a business)
For more information, you can learn more about this in my Side Income Malaysia: 4 Fast Ways to Earn Extra Income in 2021 article
#7 – Your own networks
I’ll go ahead and guesstimate perhaps 50% (?) of all businesses for sale is not listed anywhere, except whispered among your networks.
Maybe the percentage is higher for Malaysia/Asians in general because of our ‘save face’ culture. It’s very rare for a businessowner to admit that they’re having business troubles. Some also feel that by listing their business, they’re ‘devaluing’ their business.
Sniff around opportunities around you. If your negotiation skills are on point, you might even convince someone to sell their business to you (a high offer helps), or at least to keep you in mind when they’re ready to sell.
Important note
There are pros and cons to buying a business, definitely. Find seasoned businesspeople and talk to them about it, but the simplest way I can put it, based on my research, is this pros/cons list:
Pros to these business opportunities in Malaysia:
- The fast(er) way to be a businessowner in Malaysia. Someone else did the initial setup for you, which may include: renovations, social media pages, website etc
- Sometimes you can get a great deal, because the owner just wants to sell off the business, fast. They might be in financial trouble and need the money urgently, or they’re leaving the country, or they have too many things on their plate, whatever
- The possibility of high profits, obviously
- Sometimes the owner can help you out, like sharing their business contacts list for suppliers, etc
Cons to these business opportunities in Malaysia:
- You need to apply good judgement and act FAST. Good opportunities don’t last very long
- Obviously that means you need to have ready capital (ie money)
- You still need to do the work. Just because you bought a business doesn’t mean it’ll be profitable. You still need to find clients/customers yourself, and sort out cashflow, and do other business-y things
- You don’t get to learn how to setup a business from scratch
- There’s a possibility of buying a ‘bad’ business, doomed to fail from the beginning. Perhaps the paperwork isn’t in order. Perhaps the retail location has really bad foot traffic. You gotta put in the research
Feel free to add more pros/cons in the comments sections 🙂
To end this article, an invitation to readers – Would you consider buying a business? What type, and why? What’s stopping you from taking action?
I’m also interested to hear from those of you who have bought a business before. How is it like? Any tips from your personal experience? Do share your hard-earned knowledge with us 🙂
Interesting post