LazadaPH: Online shopping better than ever

Internet has always played an integral role in the rise of technology. Although, technology can stand on its own, it made technology very compatible with Internet on their evolution of usage for the people. Nowadays, website browsing has become part of our lifestyle. I guess having a social media platform online gave us more reason to stay online rather than offline. Their greatest gift to us to me is the communication impact it did to our society. Countries from other side of the world have no more boundaries. It’s just a matter of connecting online and you can reach out to your loved ones that are very far away.

Plus, Internet is in real time so no more snail mails just to make sure your loved ones received your message. You can even interact with them on a higher level even in videoconferences on real time. The truth is that Internet has become a truly powerful tool available for us at our disposal. IT actually changed our way of living. A lot of people are now connecting online more often rather than when they are offline. Should people nowadays need something that they used to do offline can now be accessed online as well. It is a platform way more comfortable and lest time consuming. Online industries like Lazada PH have thrived handsomely to the people. The amazing thing about them is they just had launched their business last year leaving them on a perfect timing with the rise of local brand smartphones and affordable netbooks. With this, everyone is now available online most of the time. However, despite having these numbers and improvements, it wont is enough to establish an online store in the Philippines. What made them who they are their overall shopping experience offer to the customers. One thing to admire about them is their eagerness to ensure that the local customers get to trust them right away even for a short period of time or none at all. This prompted them to introduce an alternative payment method called Cash on Delivery. This payment method singlehandedly erased the old perception of online shopping having a bad impression. It’s no secret that everyone knows online frauds and scams come in and out in the digital space.

Although, C.O.D. or Cash on Delivery is already used in the past before by Food delivery, this was the first time it was ever offered by an online store. So why do there competitors don’t want to try this out? It’s simple, that risk from a business standpoint is way lighter or less of a burden for them. But for Lazada, that was just launched last year, it was the only clear way to make it work since they were not initially known in the past but rather more of a ghost. No one knew what Lazada were then, their name doesn’t actually ring any bells to any household.  So in order for them to make an impact, they need that kind of a bold move to indulge online users. Good thing that their gamble to offer Cash on Delivery panned out.

LazadaPH: Online shopping is OK as long as we have the ball

How reliable can online store be? We all asks ourselves that same question whenever we are deciding if we will proceed within a transaction. Is it safe? Are we getting the best deal out of it? Well the best thing about online is that there price are always competitive. It may not be directly on the selling price all the time. But they do giveaway a lot of discounts and vouchers. As a result, overall price is trimmed down at times lower than SRP.

However, there’s always some downside in online shopping. It’s actually no secret that a lot of online frauds and scams happen almost everyday. It’s also not ideal for anyone to expose their confidential credit card details as they may be dealing with bogus online stores and end up having their details theft by hackers. In the Philippines, it’s beyond what’s the current issues being faced by other countries. Besides the trust factor, majority of the population can’t even conduct an online transaction. Only minority of the population owns a credit card, which is the conventional payment method to online stores. This actually is the very reason why online shopping or even the Ecommerce industry had a hard time expanding in the country. Good thing is that things are starting to shape on a positive direction. With the continuous expansion of online users, it is slowly increasing its potential to the Ecommerce market. Thanks to the high demands of affordable local brands of smartphones and netbooks, the local Internet users are now at an all time high. With this, Ecommerce started to rise even across South East Asia.

In the Philippines however, the online shopping trend started when websites like LazadaPH came into the online landscape. What they offered is beyond what competitors expected from them prior to their launch last year. They introduced the very first Cash on Delivery or C.O.D. on an online store. This is actually the perfect solution the online shopping woes that derailed Ecommerce’s growth for some time. This alternative payment method is truly a very bold move from a business perspective. More local online users are actually getting a hang on this option since it gives them flexibility on how they can pay. Since we have a very untrusting perception over online stores probably due to the fact that we are aware of the risks and disadvantages over the online store were dealing. It truly makes perfect sense on why they should offer Cash on Delivery in the country.

Based from their results, it paved way for them in infiltrating the local online market that didn’t even exist before. Another thing that made them standout among the competition is they are willing to waive the shipment fee as long as the transaction exceeds one thousand pesos. As a result, even if the local consumers are very comfortable dealing with traditional malls, it still gave them enough reason to try out online shopping. Overall, it makes it a desirable option over offline shopping since we don’t need to exert extra effort and that we can actually save more from buying in online stores.

Lazada PH: Appreciation on user interface evolution

What I like about surfing the web is the fact it entertains me. To be honest, going back to the old days, I only connect online whenever there is an assignment or project that requires research.Beyond that, I prefer spending my activities offline. But as technology got upgraded, so as the Internet capability support of this kind of technology. I think every year we take big step ahead in further improving the technology, which affects our lifestyle as well without even realizing right away. Do you still remember the days where people go outside to socialize, write a hand written letter or etc.? It’s true! And I think everyone in the generation who luckily saw the leap of old-tech era to the new modern digital era. Mobile phones where primarily a luxury in the beginning. Eventually, we adapted to it and became part of our lifestyle. That’s how quickly the change of pace was on this case.

As mentioned, we are always evolving and craving for something new. The questions we had for ourselves are always: “What’s next?” True, it helped our lives much easier and convenient. We can now connect to people from the other side of the planet in real time. Speaking of making our lives easier. We recently had a breakthrough in the country. Online shopping or the Ecommerce industry started to explode last year. Since the local people are now most of the time online. Thanks to the local smartphone brands and cheap netbooks, majority of the population are online at some point during the day. This made it logical for online stores giant like Lazada Philippines to be launched in the country early last year. Initially no one knew what they were and what they can offer to their customers. But as they started to progress with the help of their aggressive online marketing. They started to get recognized by the local online community and eventually started to have their own audience and followers. The thing made them successful in the penetration in local Ecommerce market is their Cash on Delivery alternative payment method. By offering this option, it allowed anyone to become online customers regardless if they have credit cards or not, which is the conventional payment method online.

But for me, since I consider myself as a very internet-savvy person. What I appreciate the most about them is their very friendly user interface. I’ve seen a lot of online stores International and now local. The way they presented their online store to their customers is well executed. Moreover, it is very easy to understand. In my own opinion, the way they structured their website is that even first time visitors or first online users won’t have a hard time understanding how to navigate their store. They also have a quick to load website despite having a lot of media files, which is usual for any online store. They rely on media files to bring more attraction and physical imagination on what they are selling. Relying on text-based format alone to describe their product won’t help them convert sales at all. But despite having these heavy loaded media files, they still managed to the make their online website fast and user-friendly.

Lazada: Ecommerce evolution in the Philippines

We all heard and known for quite sometime that Lazada was launched in South East Asia. Back then; I’m sure some of us didn’t realize that they would be this big within a year. A lot huge investors already invested on them. In the Philippines, no one even knew what they were about then. The name itself sounds foreign and has no catch as an online mall. But what made them speed up their brand awareness is their aggressive online ads. I’m pretty sure you’ve seen them around online pretty much everywhere. They are so aggressive on their online execution that it will be tough for someone not to see them in their browsing online.

Lazada is actually an online mall that offers huge selections similar to what an online department has to offer. But what made them popular and successfully penetrate the online market is their overall service to give their customers the best online shopping experience. They came in the country very prepared. As we all know, majority of the population are unable to conduct an online transaction due to the fact that they don’t have credit cards or Paypal accounts. These are the basic conventional online payment methods offered by a typical online stores dating back when online shopping started globally. Lazada didn’t only limit themselves to these payment methods. Instead, they introduced Cash on Delivery in online shopping. This payment method single-handedly eliminated the local online shopping woes that plagued the local Ecommerce industry.

Now that they offer their customers to pay in cash, there is no more limitation on how their customers can avail their service. This opened the door for the untapped market in online by previous Ecommerce business that failed to realize. After everyone was aware that such online store offers this kind of alternative payment method, it catapulted Lazada as one of the best choice to buy online. Cash on Delivery payment method gives less risk for customers and more on Lazada itself. No need to pay Lazada upfront. All they need to do is order anything they want from their lazada.com.ph website via Cash on Delivery payment method and just leave their shipment address. Once Lazada gets their order thru COD, they will process it within two to five days and have it delivered in your preferred shipment address. On top of that, Lazada is willing to waive the shipment fee as long as it exceeds one thousands pesos value of transaction. Also, just recently, they offered customers to pay in installment basis within 3,6, and 12 months of installment. This is actually one of the first in the online shopping scene in the country. Some of the local online users prefer traditional malls to cater to their shopping needs since it accepts installment fee. With Lazada Online Shop, they can easily buy huge amount items since they can pay it on monthly installment basis. It just shows that Lazada has still a lot of surprises in store for us. Personally, I’m very excited!

Lazada: Facing the digital era of online shopping in the Philippines

It’s quite obvious that the online activity is now reaching an all time high nowadays. Things have changed drastically over the years. Going back, it’s quite funny that before we only visit the Internet only when we need to conduct a research or just get information. Beyond that, it’s all offline activities and endeavor. But ever since most of our offline activities translated to online, people slowly started to pick up the Internet trend. At this period of time, we are now more available online than offline. Pretty much we can connect to everyone we know thru online. Perhaps the rise of smartphone usage paved way for people to make online as part of their lifestyle already.

Thanks to social media websites, it made Internet even more popular and useful. What makes Internet more interesting is the business side of it. No longer we need to rely only on traditional offline malls just to address our needs and every luxurious shopping demands. Actually the Ecommerce industry had just started to enter the mainstream scene in the country only last year. Thanks to Internet Giant, Rocket Internet, who brought ventures like Lazada to the country. Lazada is an actual online mall, one of the first online malls to offer huge selections and Cash on Delivery as an alternative payment method to the local online consumers.  Penetration in the local online scene was no joke. A lot of Ecommerce companies failed or never pursued in establishing an online mall in the country. Prior to Lazada, there’s no notable online mall that thrived in the local Ecommerce industry.

In my own opinion, the local online communities weren’t prepared at that time. Not everyone had smartphones or laptops. Affordable netbooks and local brand smartphones wasn’t available yet. Hence, the number of people online before is very low. But now that we have adapted to the digital era, it was perfect timing for website like Lazada to infiltrate the local Ecommerce industry. So before the ideal audience wasn’t there, but now that it exists, it made Lazada’s launch only realistic and logical from a business standpoint. However, the only obstacle they were facing at that time was the fact that most of the population are non-credit cardholders or Paypal users. Both of which are the most popular conventional payment method. So what they did in order to make an impact to the local market is that they offered Cash on Delivery to their customers. The name is pretty much how it sounds. Yes! People can order on their website and pay in cash as their order package is delivered to them. So in essence, anyone can order anything from their website online and just leave their shipment address. No need to pay up front like how typical online stores is setup to their customers. Lazada will take the orders and processed it right away even no payment has been done yet. This led people to easily try their service out since no commitments or initial loss that is at stake for them when they order at Lazada Online Shopping Mall.