“We are helping Tmall World to sell the selected products in Malaysia for customers who do not know how to shop online,” said Kong, adding that offline furniture shopping still accounts for 98% of the transactions.

With the new virtual technology introduced, Kong said it allowed customers to visualise and buy the furniture online.

With this partnership, Tmall will promote Malaysian furniture to the world under a multi brand flagship store run by Lumahgo.

The strategic partnership was formed and witnessed by Primary Industries Minister Teresa Kok.

“Our economy has not been very good in the past couple of years, but we have seen an increase in the furniture export industry.

“This year, we predicted that timber exports will increase by 5% compared to last year and I hope that the Lumahgo and Tmall World partnership can further drive the export of Malaysian furniture,” said Kok.

Affordable and quality products from Tmall.com were selected to meet the needs of Malaysian customers.

Tmall is a business-to-consumer online retail website under Alibaba Group.

A second Taobao Selection store is slated to open in January next year in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.