Lazada banks on AI, product assortment to sustain growth

MANILA, Philippines — E-commerce platform Lazada aims to sustain double-digit sales growth this year by expanding product assortment and using artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the shopping experience.

Alvin Ching, head of seller operations at Lazada Philippines told reporters that the e-commerce platform, which has been enjoying double-digit growth in sales, aims to sustain this performance, with product assortment and AI as drivers.

“We are very, very deliberate in terms of bringing in quality assortment. We want to be able to have everything under the sun in Lazada, but also be very specific in terms of the quality of this assortment,” he said.

He said the platform has also been investing in AI to provide better product recommendations to consumers.

Through its generative AI chatbot LazzieChat, he said the platform is providing product recommendations to guide the consumers as they search for items.

“If we have that better strategy of pushing the right deals and the most relevant and smarter recommendations, we expect that would help us sustain (our growth),” he said.

While discounts and promotions are also expected to give a boost, he said relying on such is not a sustainable path for growth.

“We are going toward a different path of improving how we respond to the needs of the customers. So I think our bets this time would be really more of an internal way of operating, influencing the algorithm to respond better to the user. It’s quite invisible, but it will, over time, start giving us returns. And that would translate basically for us into more sales and more buyers,” he said.

He said electronics, along with women-focused categories like beauty, fashion, groceries and mother and baby products, which have been driving sales on the platform, are expected to continue to support growth this year.

“There’s a big push toward women’s categories because we are betting on that part of our demographic to be able to drive the sales, not just now, but in the future,” he said.

He also said LazMall, a curated section within Lazada featuring authorized sellers and distributors of authentic international and local brands, also continues to support the platform’s growth.

Lazada has a stringent screening process for sellers and an authenticity guarantee in place for products sold on LazMall.

In the event shoppers receive fake items, Ching said they would be given a refund twice the purchase amount.

He also said the Alibaba group, including Lazada, uses a portal, where brands register to protect their intellectual property.

“That would be the basis for enforcing any infringement that might come in,” he said.

Sellers on LazMall found selling fake items would not just face penalties, but also be taken down the platform.

Ching said the platform takes every single case of counterfeit items very seriously as LazMall has an authenticity proposition.

“I think because we have our own mechanism for enforcing it, it just becomes easy for us to work with regulators or agencies here who are working toward the same goal anyway. I think that we have a very robust system in place that allows us to operate very well within this space,” he said.

Lazada is part of an e-commerce memorandum of understanding facilitated by Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines for an efficient takedown mechanism to fight counterfeit products sold online.

The Department of Trade and Industry recently issued an order requiring online sellers of household appliances, electronics and other consumer goods to register with the agency.

Ching said Lazada is also working on how to comply with the government’s requirements.

To celebrate its 13 years of growing e-commerce across the country, Lazada is offering up to 90 percent off branded deals, up to P2,000 off campaign vouchers and 100 percent free shipping with no minimum spend from March 24 to March 29.

“We are extremely grateful for the continued trust and support of our community. Lazada’s journey has been fueled by a commitment to helping entrepreneurs, brands and partners thrive in the online marketplace,” Lazada CEO Carlos Barrera said.