About

  1. Our company, Aunco Services, is registered in Malaysia under SSM No. PG0496603-H.
  2. Our shop offers professional-grade products, mainly tools, from established brands for workshops, field service, marine, HVAC, MRO and DIY.
  3. Our logo represents the first letter of our company name, inverted. Engineering professionals recognize the “for all” mathematical symbol ∀, reflecting our goal to provide comprehensive listings for every customer.
  4. Our shop, inspired by AuₙCo clusters (gold-cobalt at the nanoscale with a catalytic potential), aims to catalyze results for customers with precision.
  5. Our shop mainly operates online, strengthening our presence in the digital ecosystem through ongoing MDEC government agency trainings, as well as ecommerce technologist’s mindset and tacit knowledge.
  6. Our base is in Puchong, Selangor. Our customer service languages are Malay and English.
  7. Our owner’s employment history with Swiss, French and Fortune 100 American engineering companies serving electrical, maritime, and oil and gas professionals from 2002, including APAC regional roles, provides us with hands-on experience in the products we now offer.
  8. Our owner is an ordinary man handling hands-on electrical, electronic, mechanical, masonry, roofing, plumbing, coding, olericulture and aquariology maintenance.
  9. Our owner is a simplicist who drinks coffee plain black, no sugar, no milk and not margarine-roasted, as well as enjoys various raw ulam with rice.
  10. Our owner is an old-fashioned uncle. Our shop runs like the good old days: simple, straightforward, point-by-point. Gaya lama, janji teguh.

Our business principles

  1. We apply engineering knowledge and technical reasoning.
  2. We value concise and purposeful communication to bring matters forward with minimal back-and-forth, focusing on facts, actions, and solutions.
  3. We build a tool for our customers to buy tools. Less time browsing and shopping, more time on what matters. Reduce ordering cost. In and out.
  4. We apply poka-yoke, kaizen and lean six sigma to mistake-proof our operation, including in critical flows such as the checkout process.
  5. We practice single pricing, even long before it became a legal requirement.

How we differ from domestic marketplaces

  1. We steer clear of misleading, clickbaity and circus-like what-on-earth marketing lines, such as “50% off capped at RM0.3“, “Free shipping capped at RM3“, “Free shipping by securing a voucher between 12:00:00am-12:00:01am“, “All products RM30 off with minimum spend RM500“, “Congrats! A discount for you after buying something and winning a lucky draw“, “Enjoy! RM338 vouchers for you if you can successfully grab all of them at specific times on selected dates“, “Receive your order NOW but first you have to place an order” or “Your upsized OFF is here, TODAY ONLY after you sign up for something, but if you do use the given discount, we may freeze your account for some reasons that we dictate“.
  2. With us, customers know whom they are dealing with. On marketplaces, an order passes through multiple large departments, e.g. finance, IT, legal, frontend, shipping, all with different reporting lines and office politics. This often results in slow decision making when any issue arises. Despite many people being involved, customers cannot reach any single real person’s email address. Even contact info of the actual seller is unobtainable. The people behind remain hidden and no one will be accountable for any poor decision. They are accountable to corporate hierarchy and investors. We are accountable to customers.
  3. Marketplace sellers may exit due to marketplace policy changes, penalties, erroneous account freeze, rising fees, or short-term hit-and-run operations. Our online shop is built for continuity, transparency, and repeat business. We are always here.
  4. In our point of contact, we do not pass our customers from one representative to another, and another, and another, where each is unaware of the previous conversation. No “Whac-A-Mole” game.
  5. We value customer’s privacy. We do not profile or judge our customers, but just serve them. We do not monitor customer’s whereabout, in contrary to marketplaces that monitor and freeze customer’s accounts for reasons like “two persons at the same location using the same WIFI”.
  6. We use our language, while marketplace support is often outsourced internationally, leading to communication gaps. Marketplaces widens the gap further by censoring words in customer messages. With us, customers can communicate freely without having to retype or restructure their messages.
  7. We answer like real people. No boilerplates. No answering without answering. No 20-question limbo. Customers often deal with demotivated or lifeless marketplace employees. This is because marketplaces treat their employees as data points and replaceable modules rather than living individuals. Their employees are not delegated to make even a small decision although they say they come to provide assistance (without providing assistance). Customers do not want another “we have escalated the matter to our internal team for further investigation”. On the contrary, we want to understand the customer’s need by looking at the genba and we can make decisions for resolutions. No escalation theater. No stonewalling. No stall tactic. No corporate runaround. No procedural distancing. No institutional gaslighting. No attack on sanity.
  8. Order-related communication is more on-time with us. Communication in marketplaces is strictly by app only where any urgent order-related messages may be missed and buried among spams from marketplaces themselves.
  9. We believe our customers are smart. No “safety tip”. No unsolicited advice. No customer parenting. No infantile paternalism. No info overload.
  10. Customers can see our straightforward product description. Marketplaces, albeit not knowing the products, dictate how product description must be written. Quite a number of words are censored, e.g. grease gun applier, M16 metric 16, knife cutting tool, slim thin, brand name Arrow Arrovv. Ban malevolence, not material.
  11. Marketplaces may presume searching for, for example, a utility knife or an M16 fastener as attempting a revolution, and secretly red-flag the finder for future actions. We do not censor searches. No making a mountain out of a molehill.
  12. Our product search is not rigged. Marketplace algorithm does not show the best products, but ones with the highest ad bidding.
  13. Our prices are straightforward and not fragmented. Marketplaces show one price on the catalog, another on the product page, another in the cart and yet another on during checkout.
  14. Our price tags are friendlier than marketplaces and we treasure all buyers. Marketplace vouchers or subsidies inflate prices. Some marketplaces even restrict buyers who use a certain number of vouchers that are already hard to grab. They only value buyers who pay the inflated price tags without using any voucher.
  15. Auto free shipping to West Malaysia. No voucher hunting. No timing them with campaign days. No gimmicks.
  16. We have inherently lower environmental impact. In marketplaces, every extra layer of bureaucracies and departments consumes more energy in handling orders.
  17. Marketplace accounts attract cyber-attackers because marketplaces request for a lot of sensitive information and often wants customers to save a payment card in the account. We don’t request such information.
  18. Our webstore has no auto pop-ups. Marketplaces love pop-ups, including clickwraps, that cannot be closed unless customers tick “I have read and confirmed that I am given a full opportunity to understand the terms of the Terms of Use”.
  19. Our webstore has no layout shifts. In contrast, the marketplace website suffers from substantial layout instability. As a result, customers interacting with the page before it fully stabilizes often accidentally click unintended links, forcing them to navigate back and wasting their time.
  20. Marketplaces prioritize short-term optics (e.g. GMV that includes unpaid, cancelled and returned orders, as well as discounts, shipping fees and taxes). We instead believe in cultivating long-term value for our customers, knowing that a thriving business will naturally follow.
  21. Some marketplaces view price comparison as a threat. They are reluctant to let customers view prices freely. Sharing their product link can be inconvenient because the recipients must have an account and log in to view it. Customers are also discouraged from browsing multiple product pages around the same time. Often, customers are required to solve verification- puzzles or have their account restricted. For example: “Your account has been temporarily restricted due to automated tools detected. Please refrain from continuing this activity, as it may lead to a permanent ban of your account. If you believe this is an error, please contact customer service.” In contrast, we just show our prices unless the product is sold out. We even offer price matching.
  22. What marketplace customers see may not be what they get. Marketplaces curate listings, but since they are not well-versed in the products, they sometimes display inaccurate or poorly represented items. They also combine reviews from different sellers, creating a misleading impression. Marketplaces rely on scripted responses and hallucinatory contents, which may appear illogical to customers. For example, they may modify tool seller’s product photos to depict a pair of pliers placed on a chopping board surrounded by vegetables. In contrast, We know the products and make sure our customers get what they see.
  23. When customers raise concerns about a product at a marketplace, they have to wait for the marketplace, which has limited knowledge of the product, to review the case, interpret its policies or approve the proposed remedy. Involving more parties in the communication can create confusion like a fifth wheel. Marketplaces may hide behind their corporate shield and extensive legal teams, even when concerns are escalated to the consumer protection agency, and it is not surprising that complaints are closed in favor of marketplaces. In contrast, we can respond directly, without waiting for an unnecessary middleman.
  24. On marketplaces, customers deal with sellers whose identities are obscured by the platform. Seller anonymity can shield those who prefer not to be identified. This anonymity brings about a low-trust environment, where escrow becomes necessary. At our webstore, we operate under our registered business identity and take direct accountability. We believe trust should begin with an accountable seller, not depend solely on a platform’s escrow.
  25. A red flag with some marketplaces is their legal team’s wipe-’em-out blanket. Rather than understanding the legal requirement and engaging in nuanced negotiation with the external regulator, the legal team declares “this is the law” to silence fellow colleagues and customers. While the legal team enjoys the easy work of just passing the buck, this political maneuvering offloads the burden onto customers, creating friction in the use of marketplace service. The imposed friction is not backed by citing a specific legal clause because citation requires full understanding of the clause. In contrast, we focus on minimizing every bit of friction in buying from us. No compliance theater. No risk-averse bureaucracy.
  26. Marketplaces continue to add more pain points to browsing and ordering, piling on gimmick after gimmick. Structural decay in marketplace ecosystems filters out good sellers and filters in hit-and-run operators who run disposable accounts. This is gradually turning the marketplace into a dump site for low-quality items. In contrast, patronizing and ordering from our shop is meant to be easy as we focus on reducing pain points. The checkout on our webstore is easy for both new and existing customers.
  27. Marketplaces will only act on customer feedback when the financial report can no longer be made to look good. They ignore the feedback as short-term transaction volumes appear healthy on paper. At scale, customers are treated primarily as data points in analytics models or as sources of transactions and monetizable engagement, rather than as individuals whose concerns require timely attention. The consequences take time to translate into measurable financial deterioration. Strong headline metrics from other business divisions may also be used to offset weakness in the marketplace division in consolidated financial results, further delaying the action. Even when they eventually respond, their “repentance” is not genuine, driven by the fear of facing the consequences. Once the financial pressure subsides, they may revert to their previous practices. In contrast, we pay attention to customer feedback.
  28. We treat customers like real people, unique, individual and worth building relationship with, not commodities to be owned and traded.

Thank you

We are grateful that our shop continues to do well, thanks to our valued customers.