Thursday, May 9, 2013

LazadaPH: An opportunity that changed the Ecommerce of Philippines


We all know that online shopping is starting to become a trend in the Philippines. We see a lot of online stores being put up since last year. Just thinking a couple of years back, online shopping wasn’t even considered or available. The nearest we can consider an online store was a local online classifieds. It is were local seller and buyer meet online and finalizes their transaction offline. It’s more of a meet and greet online. Rather than rely on your network, you can simply post on a classified website and people will come to you instead. I’ve experienced it first hand. I was trying to sell my old phone but couldn’t find one person interested that I know.
Surprisingly, after posting it on a numerous local classified websites, within the day I got almost 20 interested buyers. That was way easy and fast.

However, things have changed drastically since last year. Just happened it is the same year Lazada online mall was launched in the country as well. In my own opinion and observation since their arrival a lot of local online stores followed. It just shows that local businessmen are slowly realizing the potential of Ecommerce. Lazada was the first online store to introduce Cash on Delivery or C.O.D., a payment method that allowed anyone to purchase on their website online but pay in cash only after they receive their orders. Sounds to be too good to be true, right? Well, from a business standpoint the risk is off the roof for Lazada. But then again, it just shows how determined they are in convincing their customers to just try their online store. To the point that they are actually giving away their service (well, sort of!) It only shows their confidence about their service.

To them, they just needed one chance from their customers to try them out. As we all know, once a customer is satisfied, there is a higher chance that they will come back again to avail your service. This is the peg that I think Lazada is molding their credibility to their customers. Given that they only launched last year with zero credibility. They needed to do that extra mile in order for them to be noticed and not have customers doubt them. No strings attached! No commitments from customers required by Lazada. Customers can go directly to their website and order anything they want. They just need to leave their address and name of the recipient. Once that is done, all they need to do is wait for their order to arrive. They are only required to pay as their ordered package is handed over to them in real time. That’s how easy it is to order from them. Personally, I recommend C.O.D. as your mode of payment among their alternative payment methods. It really is hassle free. Worst case scenario, if you don’t receive the item, then no harm done since you still get to keep your money.

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