Author: C. Phua

May 13, 2021
By Thu Pham

Like so many other business owners in Vietnam, Nguyen Tien Trung found himself struggling to sustain his livelihood when the novel coronavirus broke out across the country. But when he was forced to close down his seafood restaurant, he decided to pivot online – a decision that proved crucial for him and his young daughter.

With lockdowns and other unprecedented offline disruptions caused by COVID-19, the 31-year-old single father realized he had to look to digital solutions if he wanted to provide for his child. He started doing research on different eCommerce platforms and eventually sold his most prized possession at the time – a motorbike – so he could use the money as capital to launch his first online business, selling home and living products on Lazada.

“I researched several different eCommerce platforms, but Lazada was the most suitable choice for sellers with no or little online experience,” Trung said, referencing the round-the-clock support the platform provides to new merchants.

Since joining Lazada, Trung has not only been able to connect with a vast customer base, completing his first order after only just four days of signing up, he’s been using the platform’s insights and resources to grow his store. He is vigilant about studying and analyzing his store’s metrics using Lazada’s real-time data dashboard and often adjusts his business strategy accordingly as a result. For example, after finding out that 95% of his orders came from South Vietnam, he relocated his business to Ho Chi Minh City and has since seen sales rapidly increase to VND25-30 million per week.

Trung has also taken part in Lazada’s mega campaigns, which have helped bring in hundreds of millions of Vietnamese dong in daily sales. While he had no experience in these sort of large-scale retail events prior to joining Lazada, the platform’s dedicated key account management team helped him easily – and quickly – find his footing and path to success. Not only did the team offer guidance on choosing the right products for campaigns, it also offered marketing support to help Trung better connect with and engage customers.

“The Lazada team helped me with new promotional tool and store setups and motivated me to do more livestreams. Because of this, I’ve become more confident in interacting with customers and have also learnt how to take attractive images and videos by myself to promote my products,” Trung explained.

Trung now spends his time between running his successful business and being a father. While it can be challenging at times, he says the flexibility of having his own online business means he can spend more time with his daughter, whether it’s to play with her or to make her breakfast and take her to school, while still being able to take care of his store’s operations and expand his own digital skills by taking courses at Lazada University.

Having experienced firsthand the benefits of using eCommerce, Trung has become especially passionate about encouraging his friends to start their own stores on Lazada and has helped them navigate the platform’s many tools and resources to optimize their businesses and drive traffic and conversions. Thanks to these efforts, many of his friends have achieved success since joining Lazada.

Trung himself has expanded his business with two more stores on Lazada that focus on electronic accessories and sporting goods. He also plans to open an online seafood store on the eCommerce platform in the future so he can utilize Lazada’s fresh-food delivery service.

“Running an online business is very interesting, and thanks to it, I can have more time to care for my daughter and maintain our livelihood,” he said.

Thu Pham is from Lazada Vietnam’s public relations team.

May 13, 2021
By Juliane Rose Sun and Zinc Tan

Adrian Goh is an authorised distributor of eco-friendly cleaning brand White Magic in Singapore and has been selling its products on LazMall, Southeast Asia’s largest virtual mall, for over four years. At the height of the pandemic last March, as more people turned to eCommerce, he began to notice more counterfeit White Magic products appearing online, which impacted his business as a direct result.

“There was a period of time when we saw that there was quite a fair bit of products carrying our brand name,” Goh said. He took steps to report the unauthorised sellers and counterfeit products, which included bamboo towels, multi-purpose melamine sponges, free-hand mop sets and accessories, to Lazada’s dedicated intellectual property rights protection team. Almost immediately, he saw how it helped his business bounce back.

“After we reported the counterfeit products and got them progressively removed, we actually saw a significant increase in our sales, somewhere close to 30%. Because when the counterfeits are removed, the buyers will go back to buying the original brands.”

Counterfeiters hurt businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises such as Goh’s, since they undercut prices and undermine the quality of brands. According to Forbes, counterfeiting was the largest criminal enterprise in the world in 2018, and sales of counterfeit and pirated products is expected to grow to $2.8 trillion by 2022.

To raise awareness of how patents, copyright and trademark infringements can impact daily life, the World Intellectual Property Organization in 2000 established World Intellectual Property Day, which has gained more traction in recent years due to the proliferation of online commerce and brands’ increased need to safeguard their intellectual property rights as a result.

For this year’s World IP Day, which happened on April 26, the theme focused on the importance of helping SMEs combat counterfeiters. In a video message for the event, WIPO Director General Daren Tang highlighted that SMEs account for 90% of companies in the world and 70% of global employment.

“SMEs are the engines, the unsung heroes of our economy. And yet for many of them, there is still a lack of knowledge about how IP can help them translate their ideas into products, and how IP can be a powerful tool for them to not just survive, but to also compete and grow,” he said.

“This year’s World IP Day reflects our mission to support SMEs,” said Alan Chan, Lazada’s chief risk officer. “It is why we are constantly collaborating with rights owners, customers and platforms to raise the bar on IP protection.”

Committed to protecting IP and product authenticity, Lazada is the first and currently only Southeast Asian eCommerce company with a dedicated Intellectual Property Rights Protection Team. The team serves three main functions: managing the system for reporting and taking down listings that infringe upon IP, using AI algorithms to automatically detect and remove suspected counterfeit listings and working with various stakeholders to advance protection for rights holders. The eCommerce giant’s IPR protection programme also includes an Intellectual Property Protection Platform – an easy-to-use portal for rights holders to submit takedown requests and also find useful resources. The platform now has more than 1,000 registered users, and, thanks to Lazada’s ever-improving technology, the average time needed to process a takedown request dropped by 35% between 2019 and 2020.

“Using data and technology, we strive to set the industry standards of what IP protection should be and bring more ideas to market,” Chan said.

For SMEs like Goh’s, these efforts by Lazada have helped ensure a safe and secure space that empowers businesses to reach their full potential.

“Lazada has put in quite a lot of effort into IP protection as opposed to other platforms,” Goh said. “It has placed more emphasis in this area to help protect sellers’ rights and benefits.”

Juliane Rose Sun is a manager in Lazada’s security risks and enterprise intelligence team, which works closely with brands to safeguard their intellectual property rights. Zinc Tan also works in the same team and supports the development of communication assets.

By LazBeat staff, with additional reporting by Jessica Horsan
April 15, 2021

Sugeng Wibowo was on his way to lunch on his motorbike when a pedestrian suddenly appeared from nowhere to cross the street. He fell as he swerved his vehicle to avoid hitting the pedestrian. Except for feeling some pain and soreness in his right eye, Wibowo, who was 17 at that time, didn’t think much of the incident. Over time, however, his vision seemed to deteriorate. A doctor later discovered a retinal tear caused by the fall. Wibowo underwent several long and painful surgeries, only to be told in the end that he would never fully regain his eyesight. 

The accident didn’t stop Wibowo from going to college and graduating with an engineering degree nor did it interfere with his skills and abilities. Still, with the stigma that unfortunately comes with many physical impairments, Wibowo struggled to find the job he wanted, which was to work for a multinational bank or consultancy firm. He sent out resume after resume, sometimes even with pictures of himself before the accident, so that prospective employers would not see that his right eye was impaired. But even when he made it to the interviews, he would be told that he failed to pass the required medical tests.

That was nearly two decades ago. Today, the 36-year-old father of two runs his own online business in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. He first ventured into digital commerce in 2013, setting up his own website to sell fragrances. A year later, one of his closest friends introduced him to Lazada, on which he launched his store, Toko Alona, selling home décor and bedding products.

WATCH: Sugeng Wibowo’s seller story

Toko Alona marked the first time Wibowo sold on an eCommerce platform, and the vast ecosystem of resources and support proved immensely helpful to him as an entrepreneur.

“When I ran my own online business, I had to do everything by myself, including creating and driving traffic to the site,” he said. With Lazada, not only has he been able to leverage the platform’s existing consumer base, its reputation as a trusted eCommerce destination has made customers feel more confident about buying from his store as well.

The eCommerce platform’s sophisticated technology has also played a major role in Wibowo’s entrepreneurial success. “With the data insights I get from Lazada, I can learn more about my consumers – what items they’re most interested in or what promotions they like – so I can better determine the next steps in business development,” he said.

Since launching on Lazada seven years ago, Wibowo’s business has allowed him to provide for his young family. In 2015, he expanded with an offline store on one of the main streets of Kaliurang, a small town just north of Yogyakarta. The business has also created jobs for those in the local community, including a dozen housewives whose work as tailors bring additional sources of income for their families. Even when the pandemic hit, Toko Alona continued to sustain the livelihoods of Wibowo and his staff. 

“As an online seller, customers do not care what you look like, they only care about the quality of the product,” Wibowo said, reflecting on the challenges of being seen as having a physical infirmity. “I’m thankful I followed my heart, gave this a try and now even have a brick-and-mortar store because of the success I had on Lazada.”

While continuing to grow his business, Wibowo has used his story to empower those with real or perceived limitations to achieve what they thought could not be possible. He joined the Yogyakarta chapter of Lazada Club, which covers a community of more than 150 sellers in the area and two other nearby cities and towns, and became a seller leader, volunteering his time to train and impart his knowledge and experience to other small-business owners and encouraging his friends and relatives to become online entrepreneurs. Once, an elderly woman at a Lazada Club gathering he organised approached him to ask for advice. They met again at another event a few months later and she thanked him because the advice she shared worked. Even though it was a simple gesture, it meant a lot to Wibowo to know he helped another person who had challenges to overcome.

“It’s my responsibility to encourage others,” Wibowo said. “I will continue to do that through my business and my work with the sellers’ community.”

By Daryl Teo
April 15, 2021

It’s been a little over a year since COVID-19 transformed the world. During this time, we have seen more than 40 million new internet users in Southeast Asia alone. This means that 70% of the region’s population now uses the internet, with more than one in three consumers being new to digital services.

We see signs of possible green shoots in the economy being fuelled by small and medium-sized enterprises embracing digital transformation, incorporating sustainability goals and adopting a mobile-first approach. Regional governments have launched several initiatives to help SMEs keep up with the digitalisation race. For example, Malaysia launched the Digital Economy Blueprint, which aims to accelerate adoption of digital tools and foster inclusion among the rakyat – ordinary citizens – and across all levels of businesses to eventually position Malaysia as the regional producer for digital products and solutions.

The key enablers of a mature digital ecosystem include payments, telco connectivity and digital adoption. We are seeing a liberalisation of mobile data price points as Mobile Virtual Network Operators come up with cheaper data-only plans for everyday mobile users. Handsets are also being launched at ever-more affordable price points globally. The proliferation of e-wallets and the subsidies doled out by competing companies serve to accelerate even more digital participation from all consumers. 

Amid this growing digitalisation, 5G network capability, if it can live up to its promise, will have a significant impact in the region through the following ecosystem of technologies, as outlined in a KPMG report:

• Artificial intelligence (AI): As more consumers join the online ecosystem, more data is created by their daily activities. With cloud computing costs exponentially reducing, AI is well-poised to offer more turnkey solutions and unearth deeper actionable insights. Increased 5G internet bandwidth can improve decision-making with machine-driven insights and support to help make sense of these new waves of data.
• Internet of things (IoT): New production capabilities have made sensors and their implementation more affordable. With a greater variety and volume of data collected, we are able to enjoy lower costs of operations with predictive maintenance capabilities and automate more tasks with smarter appliances. Coupled with the ultra-low latency that 5G brings, we could start commercialising a new wave of products, including semi-autonomous driving and healthcare robots.
• Robotics: With better and smoother internet connectivity, we can enjoy more applications with finer precision, such as robotic surgery and multipurpose response drones. With the unprecedented benefits of network slicing, when 4G networks get disrupted by urban fires, 5G offers the potential to continue disaster response with drones operated on a safe, secure and segregated spectrum band that continues to power essential communication.
• Augmented reality: With its higher speed and lower latency, 5G offers consumers opportunities to enjoy more immersive experiences as they work, study and play, even in remote areas. Schools can teach with simulations of real-life situations; sport events can have detailed overlays to feature fun statistics and work environments can be augmented with virtual reality meetings.

Enabling an inclusive and secure 5G ecosystem

While the universal roll-out of 5G technology may still take a number of years, we need to be mindful that its advent does not widen the digital divide between the haves and have-nots. With a deeper integration of technology into our everyday lives, we need to work collectively to ensure that the game-changing potential of 5G is inclusive and benefits the entire population. Sufficient support and educational opportunities must be incorporated to redirect gains from the digital ecosystem towards helping underserved populations also be part of the economic growth.

Security is critical here to protect the increasing amount of activity performed and logged on digital ledgers. With 5G technology bringing new dimensions of network slicing, fuelling more use cases running synchronously and autonomously with negligible impact on network latency and workload requirements, data security has to expand its role in safeguarding different authentications. Our increased internet dependency has to be corroborated with an elevated level of cyber defence.

With the right safeguards in place, the 5G ecosystem will not just be the fundamental underpinning of the fourth industrial revolution but can also deliver seismic benefits of edge computing. By allowing vast amounts of data to be parsed in mobile data centres at the edge of the data source and only passing back the results over the network to the corporate cloud, the technology increases features available on electronic gadgets.

While 5G’s ability to unlock a wider ecosystem of capabilities is revolutionary, the ability to leverage this ecosystem of technologies to empower brands and sellers, help consumers and ensure that communities live better is the real game changer. That is the true power of digital transformation.

Daryl Teo leads the regional government affairs and portfolio management functions at Lazada Group.

By Jessica Vilda Horsan
Dec. 15, 2020

Mielka Raputra Bardin is no fashion newbie. He has spent the past 14 years building a fashion label in Bandung specialising in graphic-designed T-shirts, sweatshirts, bags and accessories. But now he was ready to launch his own independent label.

The 37-year-old fashion entrepreneur lives and works in the city once famed as the Paris of Java. Bandung happens to be Indonesia’s third largest city with a growing fashion industry and a burgeoning reputation as the Capital of Cool. This is where Bardin went to university and co-founded the successful fashion brand Wellborn, where he remains a partner.

Still, Bardin had always dreamt of designing his own creations and collections, emulating the avant-garde style of the designers he idolized – the Japanese icon Yohji Yamamoto and Belgian designer Raf Simons.

About a year ago, he began planning to launch his own brand of trendy streetwear. He envisioned that his Super Sentimental Secret Theory, or SSST, would use a business model like that of Wellborn, where he would work with physical stores on a consignment arrangement, and have an office and warehouse. But the pandemic hit, stores shuttered and the fashion business nosedived. As domestic consumption plummeted, and exports slid, Indonesia’s textile-apparel sector contracted by more than 8 per cent in the second quarter of 2020.  

Lockdown and stay-at-home measures pushed shoppers to prioritise buying essentials such as food, and personal care and hygiene products. Runway chic lost out to comfortable homewear.

“Fashion definitely took a back seat. It was the last thing on everyone’s mind,” Bardin said. “Many people thought I was crazy to try to launch a new fashion brand at the height of the pandemic when demand for fashion brands was at its lowest. But I said it’s now or never. With all the hard work we have been putting in, the only way is to keep moving forward, and to adapt.”

Adapting means pivoting his business a hundred percent online, and making eCommerce one of his core strategies. He jettisoned the consignment plan, gave up on the idea of having an office and found a warehouse that could be monitored remotely via video conferencing. Using social media, he built an online presence for SSST, creating posts that showcased models wearing “the total look” (that is, with matching pieces, shoes and other accessories) rather than just individual pieces of clothing. His resilience paid off. To his surprise, he started making sales after a month, despite the pandemic’s impact on the fashion industry. 

 In November, Bardin and his team hit the fashion jackpot when they were invited to showcase their collection in Jakarta Fashion Week, via a Lazada partnership with Indonesia’s annual premier fashion event. They were one of only five local brands selected by Lazada’s Show of Hearts initiative, chosen for their unique, novel styles as well as their designer’s passion for creativity and their compelling backstory.

“This has been an exceptionally difficult year for the fashion industry,” said Jacopo, executive vice president of the fashion category at Lazada Indonesia. “But we meet local Indonesian designers like Mielka, and we are inspired by their stories of resilience, passion and drive. Show of Hearts, as part of this year’s Jakarta Fashion Week, is a tribute to their can-do spirit of persevering against all odds and never giving up. We want to provide them all the support that we can to empower them to follow their hearts.”

The Show of Hearts designers’ collections are featured on Lazada’s curated fashion channel, Style Space. During the fashion week, the Style Space runway shows were also streamed on LazLive, Lazada’s in-app livestreaming technology. “Our one-of-a kind ‘See Now Buy Now’ feature makes it easy for users to immediately click and buy what they like during the livestream show, effectively turning our platform into a sales channel for the designers,” said Monika Rudijono, Lazada Indonesia’s chief marketing officer. “With our Shoppertainment technology and long-term partnership with Jakarta Fashion Week, we hope to continue helping more designers like Bardin. It’s a manifestation of Lazada’s commitment to support local creative talents and the fashion industry in Indonesia.”

SSST was the only new brand among the five selected this year by The Show of Hearts. The other four were 3Mongkis, HAM! Jeansku, Nadjani and Warning Clothing. It is extremely rare for new brands to be invited to participate in Jakarta Fashion Week, since it was inaugurated in 2008.

Seizing the opportunity to be part of the country’s biggest annual fashion week, which had to also pivot digitally this year, Bardin and his team worked on an exclusive collection to showcase during the virtual runway shows. They were broadcast via Jakarta Fashion Week newly created channels – JFW.tv, JFW Youtube and JFW Tiktok – as well as on LazLive, where nine of the 16 shows for Jakarta Fashion Week were livestreamed. Over three days from Nov 27 to Nov 29, LazLive’s sessions garnered over 460,000 views.  

This was Bardin’s very first virtual fashion show.

“Technology has been instrumental for us in growing SSST,” he said. “We are grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with Lazada for this year’s Jakarta Fashion Week. The collaboration has helped us build our brand’s existence in the fashion industry and we got really great exposure from the show.”

Jessica Vilda Horsan is a senior manager in Lazada Indonesia’s public relations team.

By LazBeat Staff
Dec. 15, 2020

Since Lazada was founded in 2012, it has built a strong reputation for creating large-scale shopping events that deliver unbeatable deals, promote new products and generate huge opportunities for brands and businesses to reach large swaths of consumers.

Such mega campaigns have become mainstays of the retail calendar in Southeast Asia, especially among increasingly digitally savvy consumers. A survey by the mobile survey platform Jakpat in 2019 found that 75 per cent of consumers in the prime 15–39 age group in Indonesia bought something online during 12.12, an annual e-shopping event Lazada created, which is also known locally as Harbolnas.

This was a mere seven years from the time Lazada came up with 12.12. At the time, the company was just a nine-month-old start-up in Jakarta looking to get its business off the ground and to change customers’ ambivalence towards online shopping. “We needed to find a way to really boost our business. And we of course, looked to around the world, especially to China where in 2012, 11.11 – or Singles’ Day as it was called back then – was sort of the first time it really became a bit of a global phenomenon,” said Magnus Ekbom, Lazada Group’s chief strategy officer.

Inspired by China’s massively successful online shopping festivals, Lazada launched its very first and very own 12.12 that year. This was Indonesia’s first eCommerce festival. Aptly named Online Revolution Week, it accelerated the country’s embrace of online shopping. Lazada brought together seven eCommerce companies, including the Lippo Group’s Matahari Mall, and niche marketplaces such as Kururuyuk.com to drive the campaign forward.

The maiden 12.12 was a huge triumph by the standards of the time, bringing in approximately 1,500 orders in Indonesia, Ekbom recalled. Its growth since has been astronomical. Not only is 12.12 now a multiday affair covering all the six markets in which Lazada operates, but during this year’s campaign, hundreds of thousands of orders were made in just the first few minutes.

Engaging Consumers, Empowering Merchants

Lazada’s mega campaigns have continued to expand way beyond 12.12. It launched its first 11.11 Shopping Festival in 2013 and Lazada’s campaign portfolio now also includes the 6.18 Mid-Year Shopping Festival and 9.9 Big Brands Sale.

These massive events have grown not only in number but also in purpose. Ekbom explained: “In the beginning, it was more about first-time buyers and first-time sellers finding a way to start trying eCommerce for the first time. Now, this is a professional business on a global scale.”

Indeed, such large-scale online shopping events have an especially pronounced impact on businesses and the regional economy. A McKinsey study in late 2018 estimated that in Indonesia alone, eCommerce is expected to create – directly and indirectly – more than 26 million full-time jobs by 2022. And as more merchants recognize the benefits of moving online, mega campaigns have become one of the most effective ways to turbocharge their success.

Just ask Aseel Abri, 21, who ventured into eCommerce while still in high school, and now runs Bacter Online Shop, selling gemstones from Loloda Village in North Maluku, where he has relatives. This province in eastern Indonesia is one of the country’s least populated.

Abri is involved in Lazada’s many seller programmes. When he took part in his first mega campaign last 11.11, he received more than 700 orders a day. Ordinarily, he gets only 10 to 20 a day. Since then, he has also participated in 12.12, with similarly stellar results and has become one of Lazada’s top sellers with thousands of monthly orders – a feat that has also boosted the income of Loloda’s villagers.

He said: “I joined 11.11 because I was curious about Lazada’s mega campaigns and I wanted to test the waters. I was really surprised by how much exposure it brought to my business. It really helped build up my reputation and my customer base.”

For merchants like Abri, Lazada provides not just a platform during mega events but also the support essential to achieving success. So, for example, to help merchants navigate 11.11 and 12.12, Lazada creates one-stop campaign portals updated often with the latest information, including performance trackers, tips and strategies to boost engagement and transactions as well as a variety of video tutorials.

In the lead-up to its biggest campaigns, the Lazada team also hosts seller conferences and regular livestreams to help merchants prepare. In addition, Lazada leverages its data capabilities and Alibaba’s digital infrastructure and ecosystem to alert top brand partners about the usage of their promotions to consumers, whether an item is out of stock or if any milestone is achieved. These real-time updates across all six markets are communicated via DingTalk, a messaging app, and powered by Lazada’s “Business Advisor Enterprise” data solutions, which equip the brands with the visibility to make timely responses that optimise their selling opportunities.

Besides this wealth of eCommerce tools and resources – vouchers, free shipping offers and real-time campaign analysis data – Lazada’s Shoppertainment features in recent years have also proven instrumental in fueling exposure and transactions for brands and businesses. During this year’s 11.11, merchants were able to use livestreaming, in-app games and even an interactive “Voucher Rain” segment during Lazada’s Super Show to engage with consumers. Thanks to these tools and other forms of support provided, more than 8,000 small-and-medium merchants generated over US $10,000 in sales during the 24-hour period.

While such Lazada blockbusters rake in massive volumes of transactions, to Ekbom, they are far more than just big sales events. “These campaigns have been used over the years as a driving force for new customers, new sellers and new brands to come online and to have a big event – something to have as a lighthouse, milestone and achievement throughout the year,” he explained. “It’s all about pushing the boundaries and setting new benchmarks. That is really what we do during our mega campaigns.”

Featured photo above shows a collection of campaign posters since 2012.  

By LazBeat Staff
Dec. 15, 2020

The 2020 pandemic has shifted the retail landscape in Southeast Asia, pushing many more people to shop online, and prompting businesses to pivot digitally to cater to this change. LazBeat talks to eCommerce expert Sarabjit Singh, an associate partner with McKinsey, about some of the trends that have emerged. Based in Myanmar, Singh specialises in building online businesses with retail and consumer companies. He also offers insights into the challenges and opportunities that he expects 2021 will bring for eCommerce in the region.

What are 2020’s top three eCommerce trends for Southeast Asia?

The biggest trend by far was the explosive growth of eCommerce. In our survey of Indonesian consumers in September, we found that 2.5 times more consumers now do most of their shopping online than in pre-COVID-19 times. The pandemic introduced millions of new customers to online shopping, and many are planning to stay online post-COVID.

The resulting economic uncertainties inspired a big shift to value this year, moving the composition of online shopping baskets away from discretionary products. Online purchases of essentials such as groceries drove some of the highest growth in online sales. And value-for-money become even more important in a region that was already very price conscious.

As eCommerce grew increasingly social in 2020, nearly half of all users spent more time on social media. We haven’t yet seen mega platforms in the region that offer a core value proposition around social. But trends such as live sales and influencer marketing point to a merger of social and commerce that can only strengthen.

How have businesses adapted to these changes? What were best practices and keys to success?

The increase in eCommerce demand caught many players unprepared initially. Platforms had to restrict their assortments because of limitations in product availability. Average delivery times doubled in Malaysia and grew by between 10 and 30 per cent in other regional markets.

Since then, the best players have recovered by strengthening their supply chains, securing supplies of essential products sought by most consumers, and investing in logistics capabilities to meet customer expectations of waiting times and delivery experience. When customers shop online for the first time and have a positive experience, this can build loyalty immediately and increase the chances of their returning and spending even more. These are key drivers for customer lifetime value.

Businesses are responding by building partnerships across physical and online retail, from consumer-packaged goods (CPG) companies working with hyperlocal online delivery partners to go direct to consumer (D2C), to offline retailers exploring omni-channel solutions by tying up with eCommerce platforms. Such partnerships are bringing forth an exciting array of fresh innovations in online shopping experience for consumers.

Entering 2021, what’s the industry outlook? Where are the challenges and opportunities?

The eCommerce momentum generated in 2020 is expected to continue into the new year, not just on the back of sustained customer demand but also as a result of large investments that have flowed to this sector.

Growth will not come without its challenges. Logistics and supply chains will continue to come under pressure from COVID-related restrictions (possibly for one or two quarters, and perhaps longer depending on how effective the vaccines prove). Such increases in buyers and sellers online are also likely to accelerate risk of fraud and identity theft, and growing competitiveness will further squeeze profit margins that are already razor thin.

And yet, this is the very crucible from which winners will emerge.

Massive increases in eCommerce demand have created perfect conditions for innovation in user experience, products and services, and in business models. Companies that can seize this opportunity will likely position themselves to be market leaders for years to come.

By Catherine Yang
Nov. 16, 2020

There are farms in Singapore. But they are squeezed into just one per cent of the total land area in urban Singapore.

And there are farmers. Like David Tan, who used to be an electrical engineer, and his partner, Daniel Wong, who used to be a software engineer. The pair are part of a rare species on this island which is sometimes called the Little Red Dot after how it appears on world maps.

Tan and Wong gave up their corporate lives as engineers to become farmers, but with the help of technology.

The adventure began more than a decade ago when Tan visited Singapore’s HortPark, which advertises itself as the first one-stop gardening lifestyle hub in Asia. He noticed how the plants there were watered by drip irrigation to get them acclimatised to the local weather before they were moved to Gardens by The Bay, which was then coming up on Marina Bay.

He was fascinated – that led to the founding of Red Dot Farm in 2008. He also met Wong, a software engineer, and other like-minded people with a keen interest in urban farming and how advancement in agriculture technology can help Singapore tackle food security concerns.

Now we need to plant some essential background here.  Singapore imports more than 90 per cent of what it needs to feed the more than 5.6 million people who live on this island.  When the coronavirus pandemic triggered a tsunami of lockdown measures, global food supply chains were thrown into disarray. The Singapore Food Agency needed to ensure the resilience of the country’s food supply. Barely a year old then, the agency set a “30 by 30” goal in March 2020, to produce 30 per cent of Singapore’s nutritional needs by 2030.

Around the same time, RedMart, Lazada’s online grocery arm, announced a partnership with 20 local farms, to sell their vegetables, eggs and seafood online, and help them to reach a nationwide market.

Red Dot Farm was RedMart’s first urban farm partner, when it joined the platform in 2017 as part of the farm’s expansion strategy. Both brands believe in disruption through technology and automation. So Red Dot Farm was more than ready to start selling its produce via RedMart, and experienced the efficiency and transparency in managing their business on the platform.

Once they launched on RedMart, their sales doubled. RedMart’s data enables the farm to determine what is popular product so that it can adapt its output to match local demand. Red Dot Farm spent the next few years increasing its local produce offerings, expanding the variety of vegetables offered, which now include water spinach, milk cabbage, Chinese kale and more.

Due to the pandemic, a nationwide Circuit Breaker in Singapore in early April forced many food and beverage establishments to close shop temporarily. That hit local farmers hard. They were oversupplied and couldn’t sell enough to make ends meet. Red Dot Farms quickly scaled up to supply RedMart and benefited from a spurt in demand from families cooking at home.

Tan said: “The partnership with RedMart has been instrumental to developing a sustainable distribution strategy for Red Dot’s business. Our sales doubled when we joined RedMart in 2017 and jumped by three times when Singapore entered the Circuit Breaker period. With RedMart, our business has more agility to meet both consumers’ demands and local produce surplus. We are fortunate to work with a supportive team in RedMart and look forward to taking on new challenges together.”.

Red Dot Farm nurtures, grows, and harvests crops including such favourites as red spinach and bok choy without using pesticides. At its base in north-western Singapore, it uses smart solutions such as the Internet of Things for farms and vertical spaces to grow high-quality vegetables. To ensure that plants receive the proper nutrients, Red Dot waters crops using a cost-efficient and smart system of drip irrigation. It harvests rainwater and storm water runoff in tanks that deliver water to the vegetables slowly but efficiently.

In addition, Red Dot Farm is cultivating a new generation of young urban farmers in Singapore and the region. Currently they operate farms in Singapore and Thailand, with plans to expand into Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Philippines, China and even the Middle East. With the expansion of the farms, the founders intend to increase job opportunities, especially for youths looking to provide for their families.

“Even though these farms are overseas, they are Singapore-owned,” Wong said. “The idea is to set up many Red Dot farms in the region. We share our know-how and technology with the farmers so that they can grow high quality safe food for Singapore. The produce is sent back to Singapore to contribute to our food security.”

The farmers, some of them from poverty-stricken areas, also learn to better manage their cultivation and supply their villages with fresh produce that is safe for consumption.

Red Dot Farm has successfully shown how taking on a “glocal” strategy, with its business in different markets across Southeast Asia, has contributed to meeting Singapore’s food security target. They have expanded their offerings to include temperate fruit such as avocados, pomegranates and strawberries. These are grown regionally using the same planting protocols and stringent controls and then imported to Singapore. The business also continues its mission to assist local farmers in the region to improve their livelihoods.

Catherine Yang is a manager in the Lazada Singapore’s public relations team.

Featured photo above shows Daniel Wong (on the left) and David Tan (on the right), founders of Red Dot Farm, an urban farm that was the first to onboard RedMart, Singapore’s largest online grocer. PHOTO CREDIT: Red Dot Farm