Malaysia – Malaysian shoppers may spend more time in stores than the average Asian, but it doesn’t translate to more shopping, a new report has found.

A study on Malaysians' shopping habits, Grey and G2's 2010 Eye on Asia - Retail study, showed they preferred to look for buys that gave them value for money. And while you would think that retail therapy is exciting, Malaysians find it monotonous, viewing the activity as functional.

They are also constantly on the look out for information that leads to value for money.

When a supermarket does not have a promotion on a desired product, the Malaysian shopper goes to another supermarket with a promotion.

This leads to the key ‘confession' - Promotions are ‘wasted' on 3 out of 5 Malaysian shoppers, as these are placed in the shoppers' blind spots.

Furthermore, most Malaysian shoppers already have a brand in mind before entering the store. A total of 60 per cent of Malaysians have a brand in mind before entering the store and 95 per cent end up buying one of the brands they had in mind.

This concludes that a large proportion of promotions are not as effective in recruiting news customers, but reward shoppers who already had the particular brand in mind and those already loyal to it.

Malaysian shoppers also look for an emotional experience, especially in the health and beauty categories.

Communication that provides diversion and invites participation is compelling to the casual browsers. Complimentary products hanging on shelves invite shoppers to touch and feel, cashier counter displays provide distraction, and sales assistants create excitement around the displayed products.

The retail findings are based on real-time conversations with over 2,100 shoppers from eight countries namely Malaysia, Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea and Vietnam.