In 1999, a French man came to Southeast Asia from Europe and met his current wife in Singapore; Inspired by his father-in-law neighbors 15 years ago (who made millions selling watches on ebay), he started buying all kinds of goods from Southeast Asia and selling them online to France. Driven by faith and passion, he wants to develop in Southeast Asia; Seven years ago, he co-founded lazada, an online trading platform with friends.
He is Pierre Poignant, one of lazada's founders and CHIEF Executives.
"We want to make our dreams bigger"
Peng Long told reporters: "From the beginning, several of our founders wanted to create an e-commerce platform, and later, we wanted to make this simple dream bigger - to become the best one-stop e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia." In March 2012, we launched lazada in five markets: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore. By 2015, we achieved the opening of our platform to cross-border sellers. ”
As Lazada President Inii describes, "Every time I go to Lazada's office in Indonesia, I find the feeling of doing e-commerce in China in my early years. Early in the morning, you look down from the upper floor, the car is blocked and can't move, just like the feeling of going to Hangzhou Xixi during the rush hour, you can feel the passion of these young people in order to realize their dreams. ”
Similarly, there are also merchants and even international brands from China who have the "e-commerce dream".
Zhang Guodong, chairman of Zhejiang Carlo Special Industry and Trade Co., Ltd., told the Global Network Technology reporter, "In fact, in China, we are very late to enter the e-commerce industry, and opened the first Taobao store in August 2016 and began to enter our own brands; The first Tmall flagship store was opened in January 2017. In the past two and a half years, nearly 300% growth has been achieved every year. "Mention why did you come to Lazada?" He firmly admits that there are two reasons. "First, we want to enter this market. There is a market of 600 million people here, and the proportion of online gmv (website transactions) is very low. Second, because we are the last to enter this market and miss the golden development opportunities of Taobao and Tmall in China in the past 10 years, we do not want to miss the 'opening up' rhythm of the online market again. ”
Chen Cuiwei, regional manager of Swedish brand foreo in Southeast Asia, explained to reporters why an international brand needs to enter Southeast Asia through a platform like Lazada. "First of all, many international brands will first explore and stabilize the Chinese market, we have achieved good results on the platform of Tmall in China, Southeast Asia will be the fourth largest market in the world, at this point in time, I think every brand must find a partner who can cooperate." Secondly, since lazada has partnered with Alibaba Group, we have actually seen a big change, lazada's platform will be more in line with an international brand cross-border to Southeast Asia or even globally than other existing Southeast Asian platforms. ”
The two merchants agree that the time point and reliable platform are very important, because they need to prepare and layout early before the Southeast Asian market development reaches its peak, and wait until the demographic dividend is fully released, so as to obtain a relatively large commercial development.
A "new species" standing on the shoulders of giants
"Lazada is fortunate to stand on the shoulders of giants and learn from Ali's 20 years of successful experience in the Chinese market, but not only to copy the success of Taobao and Tmall, but to innovate based on the young and rapidly changing market in Southeast Asia." On March 21, at Lazada's first "Lazmall Brand Future Forum", Lazada President Inii said.
According to a previous report by Global Network Technology, in 2016, Alibaba invested $1 billion to hold lazada; Invested US$1 billion in 2017 to increase its stake to 83%; In March 2018, Alibaba invested an additional $2 billion. At present, Alibaba Group's investment in lazada has reached a total of $4 billion.
It is worth noting that as one of the core businesses exploring globalization in Southeast Asia, in addition to funds, Alibaba's investment in lazada's core resources and talent organization output has also continued to increase. Since 2017, Alibaba has comprehensively promoted the project of transforming and expanding lazada's entire platform system in technology. It is understood that Ali's core talents from Taobao, Tmall, technology, logistics, products and so on have also been sent to six southeast Asian countries in large numbers to explore new models with lazada multinational talent teams.
According to reports, at the end of July 2018, lazada quietly added the "lazmall" brand mall to its official website, and all the official stores were classified under lazmall, compared with lazada, lazmall brand mall has 3 major characteristics: all products in the mall are 100% genuine; Extended the original 7-day return period to 15 days; Buyers who purchase goods at lazmall are eligible for next-day delivery (within 24 hours).
In August 2018, Lazada's business model officially evolved into lazada platform model, lazmall brand mall model and lazada global cross-border model. To this end, some insiders believe that lazada and lazmall are like the relationship between China's Taobao and Tmall.
In this regard, Ini has stressed many times that it is not the same! He explains: "They're developing in a completely new format, not starting out (like Taobao and Tmall) from c2c to b2c. Because the current market is far from the need to distinguish between c2c and b2c, too early to define b2c will give local young people limitations and shackles. Today we hope that people who have the same needs can have a better experience, and how to give it to these young people who have a vision and a vision for the future is very important to us. ”
alibaba group CEO Daniel Zhang has said that Alibaba's approach to overseas markets is not to purchase or sell-oriented e-commerce to go to sea, but to cultivate a new digital ecosystem locally.
According to third-party reports, as the fourth largest market with 600 million consumers after China, Europe and the United States, Southeast Asia is one of the regions with the fastest Internet penetration, the longest per capita Internet access, the most active social media, and the largest number of young consumers in the world. Southeast Asia is undoubtedly a blue ocean market for digital businesses and entrepreneurs.
However, due to the complex geographical environment, weak infrastructure construction, and different language and cultural backgrounds, the stability of commodity supply, logistics, payment and after-sales service has become the "oldest difficulty" in the development of local e-commerce.
In order fulfillment management, lazada is setting up a warehouse management system based on Alibaba technology to increase parcel handling volume and better connect with its logistics partners, and the logistics efficiency of overseas warehouses is improved to "next-day delivery". Lazada has also opened up a logistics network with Cainiao, allowing Chinese merchants to use the "first mile" service provided by Cainiao's logistics partners to first transport goods from China to Southeast Asia, and then seamlessly take over the delivery of the last mile by Lazada. Subsequently, lazada also began to provide last-mile delivery services for merchants on Alibaba's platform.
In addition, the intelligent customer service robot developed by Alibaba Customer Experience Business Group for the Southeast Asian market, known as the Southeast Asian version of "Ali Xiaomi", was launched in Lazada in August 2018, which for the first time realized the order and logistics information of 6 countries and regions in terms of functional technology, combined with the shopping habits of local consumers, especially strengthened the service capabilities in cross-border order inquiry and order cancellation.
Peng Long revealed to reporters that in Southeast Asia, we have lazada hellopay (wallet), which is available in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore, and it uses Alipay technology.
In China, Hema Xiansheng is known as a new species of Ali ecology. It is worth mentioning that in southeast Asia's own development process, this new species appeared earlier.
On March 15, Singapore's local fresh grocery supermarket redmart, invested by Lazada, was launched in Lazada, rapidly expanding lazada's rapid expansion of more than 165,000 new products, mainly including high-quality fresh fruits and vegetables, frozen and refrigerated meat and seafood, maternal and infant food toys, household and pet care and other daily necessities, supporting Singapore's logistics timed delivery services.
Lazada's head of public relations, Xiao Wanzhen (Singaporean), told reporters, "Singapore's current e-commerce market share in the entire retail market is about 3%, which is many years worse than China, and the market space is relatively large." Although Singapore is only about the size of two Chaoyang districts in Beijing. However, here drinking water, fruits, vegetables need to be imported from Southeast Asia (other regions) and China, there is almost no agriculture, so fresh consumption is very strong, absolutely just needed. ”
Li Jieyang, a local online shopping enthusiast, told the Global Network Technology reporter that two years ago he was attracted because (lazada) was cheap, but he did not dare to buy more than 10 US dollars of goods at the beginning, until this year, many of the household products he used to get married and decorate the new house were ordered from lazada.
"The algorithm recommendation of this platform has helped me solve a lot of problems that I didn't realize, such as the stone pot that my girlfriend likes, and the water dispenser I need in my office." Li Jieyang used his own "return" experience to explain his "road to powder" of Lazada, once the merchant sent the wrong product to him, he felt that the cross-border return process should be more troublesome, but in the end, he was surprised that this process was quite convenient, he printed out the list and pasted it on it, and soon, the money returned to his account. This for him, from a not very good return to a better experience.
Peng Long told reporters, "Our region is undergoing rapid transformation, compared with China, the United States and Europe, even across several stages." But we believe this shift will improve the lives of people in Southeast Asia. ”