Author: C. Phua

By Haniko Martin Tio
Nov. 16, 2020

Just in time for Lazada’s 11.11 shopping festival this year, the revamp of the Alibaba Seller Centre that began in March was completed and ready to make onboarding, listing, managing, marketing and selling products more efficient for sellers.

Lazada initiated the changes, based on a survey with about 6,000 sellers online and interviews with 20 sellers individually that identified the pain points and areas where the process can be improved.  

“We heard our sellers’ feedback loud and clear, we will keep lowering the entrance barriers for eCommerce, especially for sellers venturing for the first time into it,” said Aidan An, executive vice president of seller product. “Our top priority is to optimize the user experience, from onboarding to product listing, to the day-to-day and campaign management process.”

For instance, by leveraging Alibaba’s technology, artificial intelligence (AI) can now automatically populate the product category and more key features to enhance the content quality, An explained. Sellers only need to upload a product image and leave AI to do the rest. That means they can now list their products about four times faster than before. Under a pilot project in Malaysia, simplifying the onboarding process boosted the number of new sellers by nearly 25 per cent within three months.

“I love the new design of the homepage, especially the shortcut icons. It saves time by allowing us to access all the frequently-used features,” said Lim Szu Xin, an authorised dealer of the Autobacs franchise, who has been selling autoparts and accessories on Lazada for about three years. She also has a physical store in Singapore. Selling online has helped her reach a younger demographic of customers, who are more digitally-savvy, Lim said.

Thai seller Thanaporn Chumphonphaisan’s family has been in the garment business for 30 years and owns a factory that makes jeans. Six years ago when revenue started sliding by 90 per cent every month, She closed all her physical stores and moved the business completely online. She reckoned that the revamped platform saves her about 80 per cent of her time every day, because she spends most of her time tracking logistics, such as pick-up status, and details of item in an order.

The mobile app homepage also underwent a significant redesign to better provide actionable data insights for Lazada sellers, so that they can quickly pivot to cater to consumers’ changing preferences – while on the go. The redesign has also boosted the stickiness of the app’s usage. At a later stage, a new order management page will be rolled out more widely. This will offer such handy features as a simplified summary dashboard and overview of logistics status.

“I quite like the product upload design,” said Rehiga Muktilana, a seller who is still in school.  The 19-year-old Indonesian student started selling small household items online only this year after seeing advertisements on social media and getting a recommendation from a friend. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, he said he has seen a demand for portable laptop tables, mirrors and plastic cups.

“The process is easy enough for someone like me who is just starting out the eCommerce journey,” said Muktilana, who aims to be financially independent so he can fund himself through high school and university. 

“Customer first is our core value. We aim to provide our Lazada sellers the best experience in Southeast Asia. That’s why we started this project,” said Gerald Tang, head of seller operations at Lazada. “We will continue to invest in simplifying our product, increasing sellers’ operation efficiency and making it easy for sellers to work with us. Fast onboarding, easy listing, clearer order management, simpler seller tools, and so on, we will continue to listen to our sellers and provide them better solutions, to empower our sellers for both mega campaigns and daily sales.”

Tio is a product operations manager who works with Lazada’s sellers

Featured photo above shows Thai seller Thanaporn Chumphonphaisan (top), owner of garment shop Saza, who went completely online and closed all her physical stores after steep declines in revenue, and Lim Szu Xin (bottom), an authorised dealer of an Autopacs franchise in Singapore, holding up one of the many  products she offers online. PHOTO CREDITS: Saza and Autopacs

By LazBeat Staff
Oct. 15, 2020

Growing up in Vietnam’s Central Highlands region famed for its tea and coffee, Lê Đức Minh and Lê Đức Duy watched their parents and other farmers harvest, dry and pack their tea leaves for sale. They remember how tourists would come from far and wide to the highlands city of Bao Loc to taste the tea, and how their mother would proudly tell customers what care and labour went into producing the quality tea they sold. How only the newest leaf buds were plucked, how these were withered and oxidised to retain their enzymes, so that they would retain their flavour and health benefits.

The brothers, now 26 and 25, have grown the family business, and sweetened it. They work with the region’s bee farmers and producers to meet the growing demand for honey and honey-related products. To reflect their mother’s dedication to quality, Đức Duy and Đức Minh consolidated all their products under a single brand name that honours her: “Cô Cự,” which means “Mrs Cự.”

“We named the brand after our mother to retain the traditional aspects of our business and remind ourselves to continue our parents’ dream and passion of selling authentic, quality products at affordable prices for the Vietnamese people. This is a passion shared by many of the local farmers here.” Đức Duy said.

The brothers have bigger dreams. They want everyone across the country to be able to buy and enjoy their products, whether they are in Bao Loc, or far away. Four years ago, their dreams took them online and into the eCommerce world.  About a year ago they joined LazMall because of its commitment to authenticity and the assurance of quality it offers consumers. Having successfully digitalised their business, they closed all 18 of their physical stores, and now sell their products exclusively online.

Going digital has revived and re-energised their family business, and helped to sustain the livelihoods of the highlands farmers, the brothers said.  Their story has had its ups and downs.

“About 10 years ago, we started to see an influx of products that mimicked ours, but at much lower prices and more inferior quality. The competition hurt our business and our parents had to scale it back. We started to lose some suppliers and customers,” Đức Minh said. “It was tough, seeing our parents’ and the local farmers’ businesses suffer. We decided we needed to look at doing things differently.”

Selling online was a brave new world. The brothers didn’t know how to begin. But they took courses from Lazada University and became involved in the Lazada Sellers’ Club to learn the tools of the trade, as well as tips from other sellers. During the last 11.11 mega shopping festival, the brothers received more than 2,000 orders a day for their honey products.

“Seeing trucks loaded with Cô Cự’s honey products being shipped out is probably one of the happiest moments of our lives,” Đức Duy said. 

During the pandemic, they’ve sold nearly 4,000 litres of honey a month. The brothers believe that as people became more concerned about health and wanting more nutritious products, they were naturally drawn to honey.

Using the same care and dedication to quality that their parents lavished on their tea, the brothers always ensure that their bees are in the pink of health and in the largest numbers before moving the colonies to the “blooming areas” to harvest the honey. The farm staff will also take care to scout for areas where flowers are in full bloom. The brothers use only Italian bees, as these  are thought to be not only highly resistant to disease but are amongst the most productive. This means that the golden yellow honey they produce does not need any artificial treatment and can be stored for more than three years without discolouring.

“The mountainous area of Bao Loc is a great environment for bees. Each package, each product, is a gift of nature to our customers’ health,” Đức Minh said.

Besides ensuring that their facilities comply with regulatory standards for food safety and hygiene, the brothers also work with exporters to ensure that their products meet international standards and are certified as such. This will position them well to one export their products. “Then the world may also learn about and enjoy the tea, coffee and honey from Bao Loc.”

By Juliane Rose Sun
Oct. 15, 2020

In late September, police raids across several store locations in Thailand netted US$1 million of counterfeit products. Thai authorities seized counterfeit ink cartridges and print supplies under the HP Inc brand. The counterfeiters had been selling them on Lazada.  

HP credited Lazada for exposing the illicit sale of counterfeit goods and said that the successful raid was possible due to the sharing of vital intelligence by Lazada with HP’s anti-counterfeit team and the Thai police.

Online marketplaces are reflections of the realities in the offline world, and removal of product listings suspected to be counterfeit is merely a band-aid to a deeper seeded problem. The root cause needs to be addressed to make real and concrete progress, which means catching the bad sellers and manufacturers of the counterfeit goods that exist in the physical world. While Lazada can help offer leads through the digital trail left behind by these criminals, only law enforcement and government agencies can take action to put them behind bars and permanently interrupt the counterfeit trade.

“The use of unlawful counterfeit supplies can result in printer damage, malfunctions, and printer hardware warranties becoming void. To protect consumers, businesses, customers and partners, the HP Anti-Counterfeiting and Fraud Program proactively works with partners like Lazada to deliver added value to consumers, business customers and partners. This ensures security, reputation protection, seamless operations and cost savings,” said a HP spokesperson.

In another recent raid, Malaysian authorities seized more than 90 counterfeit Panasonic electrical products at the GM Plaza in Kuala Lumpur. They confiscated hair clippers, blenders and irons. Counterfeit electrical goods pose potential safety hazards to consumers as they are unlikely to meet compliance standards. Materials used to make the counterfeit goods are probably of low quality. For this reason, brands like Panasonic are all the more invested in stopping the manufacturing and distribution of counterfeit goods.

As online shopping becomes mainstream, eCommerce platforms, brands and law enforcement authorities are working more closely together to identify, locate and take down counterfeiters. Conducting a raid is complex and often involves multiple parties. Such essential collaboration protects consumers from unwittingly buying and using unregulated and possibly unsafe items. Concerted action effectively deters offenders because they know their illegal activities are under continual scrutiny.

“There are now a lot of people who are new to online shopping, and thus more vulnerable since they do not know how to protect themselves,” said Andy Chua, the senior vice president who leads the regional brands protection team at Lazada. The team, formed in March 2019, now comprises nine people, all with experience working in the fraud prevention and risk management fields, in both the public and private sectors. Chua spent 17 years with the Singapore police force as an officer, including enforcing and investigating intellectual property rights infringement.

Leveraging on Alibaba’s technology, the team manages Lazada’s Intellectual Property Protection (IPP) platform. This is an online portal for rights owners use to upload their proof of IP rights. This then enables them to submit requests against listings that may infringe on their rights, seek their removal and track the progress of their request. Once submitted, the removal request is processed within three or four days on average.

Lazada’s brand protection team also puts measures in place to proactively monitor the platform for counterfeits. Working with the brands, such monitoring mechanisms have been so effective that they can zero in on fake products and remove them automatically.  Although still at the pilot stage and limited to the Singapore market only, these mechanisms have already led to 99 per cent of identified fake listings being taken down even before a single sale was finalised.

In addition, Lazada invests heavily in merchant education to maintain rigorous platform governance.  All new merchants are required to go through a series of educational modules through the web-based Lazada University course.  These modules school the newcomers in awareness of platform terms and conditions, as well as policies regarding intellectual property rights. They also make the newbie merchants aware of consequences for non-compliance, which include escalating penalties, account suspension, and account termination.

LazMall’s authenticity guarantee is a prime example of the platform’s commitment to safeguarding brands’ rights and ensuring peace of mind for shoppers looking for branded merchandise.

Consumer education is another integral part of a continuing anti-counterfeiting battle. Chua said: “We urge Lazada shoppers to shop smart, to keep your eyes peeled for potentially fraudulent activity and to report them. If there are certain marketplace discounts that seem ‘too good to be true,’ they usually are. Other telling characteristics of counterfeit products include popular brand names being purposely misspelled and shops with very poor ratings.”

“As an operations team, we run into daily challenges to balance the needs of our sellers, buyers, rights owners and other stakeholders. The problems we solve are complex and involve a wide set of responsibilities, but it is very rewarding to see the platform safe and our consumers happy,” said Simon Zhou, a senior operations manager in the brands protection team.

Juliane Rose Sun is a manager in Lazada’s Security Risks and Enterprise Intelligence team who works closely with brands in safeguarding their intellectual property rights.