Aug 13, 2013 (Tue): One of the fastest growing shopping sites in Southeast Asia, Lazada has officially launched its Marketplace, an online platform that allows small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to sell their products online through any of Lazada’s website in Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand or Philippines.
The Marketplace solution allows SME’s, big brands, distributors and retailers to open an online shop without the need for significant upfront capital expenditures and is thus lowering the risk for those merchants. Furthermore, it can help its partners to gain a competitive advantage as it provides access to Lazada’s massive community of fans and customers across the region. According to social-network analytic website Social Bakers, Lazada is one of the most liked pages on Facebook with almost 5 million Facebook fans and an average of 8,000 new “like” every day.
The Marketplace operation is sophisticated but user friendly, eliminating the micromanagement and hassle of updating and keeping track of individual transactions. Merchants are able to build their catalogue, update inventory, and create new listings in their virtual shop via a store management tool synchronized with Lazada’s back-end IT system. Lazada also allocates a dedicated account manager to merchants who will educate on eCommerce best-practices and advice on further growth potential.
One of the early adapters to join Lazada’s Marketplace was Pineapple Computers in Malaysia, a well-established electronic retailer. Dato Mark Lim, founder and Managing Director of Pineapple Computer said, “we faced aggressive competition from larger players as well as high operating costs, limiting our ability to expand the business, even though our prices were competitive. With Lazada’s Marketplace, its capable workforce, logistic management and delivery system we have grown the business by 38 per cent and have now a visibility to hundreds of thousands of Malaysians that were inaccessible to us previously. Pineapple has entered a new frontier.”
Lazada’s Marketplace has also caught the attention of major players such as Philips Electronics, the market leader in several small appliance categories. Ms. Siriwan Nitkitjatorn, General Manager of Consumer Lifestyle Sector at Philips in Thailand said, “Philips will partner with Lazada to make our innovations even more easily accessible to consumers allowing them to enjoy our products wherever they are”. Recognizing the strong growth potential in eRetailing and the convenience it brings to consumers, she pointed out, “Philips has always designed their products around the needs of the customers and nowadays the ability to use an online distribution channel is part of those needs.”
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