Lazada Philippines: An online mall that matters to online consumers

After Lazada was launched in the Philippines, other online competitors showed up and online shopping started to emerge in the local online market. Looking a few years back when they weren't around online, Ecommerce was a flat industry in the Philippines. The local online users never thought of online shopping as their alternative option in shopping in the past. The local online users are more open in dealing at local online classified websites when they want to buy second hand items. For customers who want to buy brand new items, they usually go to traditional malls to buy it. Offline malls are actually part of our culture as we grew up visiting them when we want to buy something.

Surprisingly, we always forget that we can save more money and time in online shopping. So why do we need to choose online shopping nowadays? If local consumers opt for online shopping, they can do wherever and whenever they want. No more extra spending on travel costing since customers will no longer need to go traditional malls. It was of the challenge that they try to solve when they arrived in the country. It's also challenging for them to be able to tap the untapped market in online of the Philippines. Not being able to pay online since most of the population is credit cardholders at all. It's just that we also don't trust so easily especially when it involves money transactions. We are actually aware of the possibility of having online scams and frauds in online shopping. We don’t want our hard earned money to be put to waste. We are actually on the verge of the Ecommerce rise in the country. It's really hard to imagine that Lazada has only been here for more than a year yet it contributed dearly on the Ecommerce industry.

They just recently showed up on TVC on top local channels in the country during its primetime, which shows how credible they are. So how did they solve this Ecommerce barrier in the Philippines? The Philippines' Online Shopping Mall offered Cash on Delivery or more known as C.O.D. as an alternative payment method. This is very unconventional payment method that is presented by any online mall. This payment method is risky from a business standpoint for most online business owners. Payments are not usually required right away with payment method. What's great about this is that customers will only pay once they receive their orders. Customers can keep the payment up until they have received their orders in real time. The intention is to give their customers the impression that they won't be scammed. It’s pretty safe to say they are doing everything they can to prove to the local online consumers that they can be trusted. With their setup to their customers, they are on the disadvantage side, which is pretty rare to see from an online store. Conventionally, online stores have the upper hand between online deals.