Lazada makes waves in SEA

MANILA, Philippines - While the obvious allure of traditional physical stores remains  evidenced by the preponderance and continued upward trajectory of the country’s shopping mall destinations and square footage  an undeniable shift in buying habits has begun. Not so much as migration but an alternative, the World Wide Web’s multitude of sites has gotten major attention and patronage.

Joining the ranks of Amazon, Sulit, and e-Bay is Lazada. Doubtless helped along by very visible advertising and even billboard presence, Lazada has been making waves across Southeast Asia as “the fastest growing online shopping mall with operations in Indonesia (lazada.co.id), Malaysia (lazada.com.my), Thailand (lazada.co.th), Vietnam (lazada.vn), and the Philippines (lazada.com.ph).

Lazada Philippines co-founder and managing director Inanc Balci exclusively tells The STAR via e-mail: “E-commerce is an emerging sector in the Philippines with few players in an under-penetrated market. There has been a lot of opportunities and room to grow. Lazada has filled a big gap between offline retailers and online shopping by providing physical fulfillment of all orders via nationwide cash on delivery with free shipping and 14 days free returns for the first time in the country.” Even mobile people can get in the shopping action by downloading the Lazada application for Android smartphones.

Lazada offers more than 30,000 products in 14 categories ranging from fashion, consumer electronics, to housing goods, toys, and sports equipment. Along with some 700 established international fashion brands, Lazada also supports local designers and smaller brands through its “unique fashion marketplace model.”

In a release, Lazada explains that designers can “create their own online shop-in-shop,” — leveraging on Lazada’s architecture and reach that obviously overshadows traditional offline infrastructure. As part of its aggressive marketing, Lazada also stages its own fashion events and the like.

“Filipino customer behavior is very similar to other Southeast Asian customers,” Balci observes, although he admits that locally, more females are making online purchases. The typical age of customers ranges from 18 to 40. Filipinos, he continues, are “very interested in lifestyle products such as (those for) home and living, appliances, health, beauty, and fashion.” He predicts the “emergence” of non-electronic categories in the next years.

Balci, who’s Turkish, graduated from Purdue University with a double major in Engineering and Economics. Just prior to opening up Lazada in the Philippines, he worked in mergers and acquisitions for an investment bank in London.

He maintains: “Great prices with even better service has sparked the tremendous growth of Lazada — especially (for) people living outside of Manila, even from the remotest islands, now have access to thousands of latest and hottest products.”

Obviously, questions of security, privacy, and protection of buyers’ rights are of paramount concern of people when dealing in the relative uncertainty of the virtual domain. Balci promises that even when customers deal with independent sellers, “Lazada provides 100-percent full guarantee for all transactions. In case the customer is not satisfied for any reason, we make sure that the situation is audited by our customer service team, and resolved with 100-percent customer satisfaction.”

The Lazada exec continues that the site’s marketplace platform is a key distinguishing feature. “Anyone can sell products directly to the customers in the Philippines. Lazada provides payment, customer services, fulfillment, technology, and logistics services to merchants. Through Lazada marketplace, merchants can sell their products nationwide without worrying about anything. We take care of everything for our merchants,” he says.

Balci insists that e-commerce should co-exist with physical stores, as the latter will always remain “the major player in retail.” Still, he predicts that “the e-commerce market share will significantly increase as people understand the benefits of shopping online.”