In 2011, the Lazada platform incubated by RocketInternet AG, a German technology incubator known as the Southeast Asian version of “Amazon”, was officially established. Today, Lazada has developed into the largest e-commerce shopping platform in Southeast Asia. In the process of several years of development, Lazada has accumulated a large number of users. At present, its users are mainly distributed in Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia and other places in Southeast Asia.
The products on the Lazada platform mainly include 13 categories of goods including home furnishings, fashion, beauty, health care, and electronics. In the past two years, the sales growth rate of fashion, beauty and health care products on the platform has been very obvious.
The biggest feature of the Lazada platform is its cross-border attribute. Since there are many countries in Southeast Asia, but the population of each country is relatively small, in order to achieve large-scale development, it is necessary to attract more user traffic through cross-border e-commerce. Lazada has established corresponding management teams in the markets of various Southeast Asian countries. While sharing resources, they also carry out targeted localized operations. In terms of supply chain management, Lazada has a professional procurement team located in Hong Kong to purchase high-quality goods from all over the world and uniformly configure the source of goods.
As an e-commerce platform that is good at implementing localized operations, Lazada has rapidly developed into the largest local e-commerce platform after opening up markets in Southeast Asian countries. In the entire Southeast Asian market, Lazada has an absolute leading advantage.
Lazada’s main investors include Rocket Internet, Tesco, Temasek, Summit Investment, JPMorgan Chase, etc. As of the end of 2015, Lazada’s total financing amounted to US$710 million and its valuation was US$1.12 billion.
The Southeast Asian e-commerce market is extremely complex. Difficulties such as logistics, payment, supply chain, policy differences among countries, and cultural differences make it difficult for any e-commerce platform that wants to enter this market. As the only e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia that spans six major national markets, Lazada’s special feature is that it has well integrated local supply chains, last-mile express delivery and payment services, and ultimately provides unique solutions for global brands and distributors who want to expand into the Southeast Asian market.
Due to differences in culture, law, logistics facilities, etc., the e-commerce market in Southeast Asia is very complex. Even though it is known that the e-commerce market in Southeast Asia has grown rapidly in recent years, e-commerce giants such as Alibaba, Amazon, and eBay have found it difficult to gain a foothold in the market. The key to Lazada’s success in the Southeast Asian market is that it has achieved a high degree of integration in the supply chain, logistics, and payment links, and has provided personalized marketing service solutions for brands, distributors, and retailers from all over the world.
Compared with Amazon and Alibaba, Lazada was established more than 10 years later. In addition to being called the Southeast Asian version of “Amazon”, some industry insiders also regard it as the Southeast Asian version of “JD.com”. The reason for this is mainly because Lazada also mainly sold 3C home appliances in the early stages of its development, and adopted a self-operated model. With the continuous accumulation of user scale, the Lazada platform has gradually opened up to third-party merchants, greatly expanding its product categories, and Lazada has also improved the user shopping experience by building its own logistics.
The regional characteristics of Southeast Asia determine that its market is relatively complex, but thanks to the perfect retail service solution developed by Lazada, both Lazada’s own products and the products of third-party sellers on the platform can be easily sold to consumers in various countries in Southeast Asia.