Lazada Philippines: Getting the best in online shopping

Our local Internet usage evolution took place a couple of years ago. It helped that the smartphone penetration went sky rocket to the local online consumers. This eventually amplified the number of online audience. It did not only increase in quantity but also raised the longevity or duration that people connect online. This was perfect timing for Ecommerce to penetrate the local online market.  Numerous online malls were launched in the country and online shopping started to be a popular option for consumers ever since Lazada arrived in the country. Ecommerce was actually slow in growth a year before they have arrived in the Philippines. For short, not all local online users regarded online shopping as an option to their shopping needs. For local consumers who want to buy second hand items, they usually visit local online classified ads. For customers who want to buy brand new items, they usually go to traditional malls to buy it. This should be no surprise to us as we were raised by our parents going to traditional offline malls when we need to shop. Choosing online shopping can save the local online customers some time and money.

So how consumers can be helped by online shopping? They can shop online as they please, wherever that may be. It can actually save consumers more money on gas expense since they don't need to go location of traditional malls. This is a shopping woe that Lazada wanted to solve for the local online customers in the country. It was difficult for online malls to tap the local online market of the country. It was probably due majority of the population no owning a credit card, which is the most common payment method in online. It's just that we also don't trust so easily especially when it involves money transactions. Moreover, online frauds and scams are pretty known in online by the local online community. The local Ecommerce in the Philippines is now starting to grow. In just less than a year, the Philippines’ Online Shopping Mall was able to establish them in the local Ecommerce industry.

In order for them to make a big statement that they can be trusted as a legit business, they even had a TVC that run on top local channels during primetime. What did they do to break the Ecommerce limitation in the country? They introduced Cash on Delivery or C.O.D. as an alternative payment method to their customers. Online malls usually don't offer this kind of alternative payment method to online customers. The reason behind is that not all online business will risk their business for this payment method. Customers are not actually required to pay upfront; instead they can pay once their orders are delivered at their homes. What's great about this is that customers will only pay once they receive their orders. Scams won’t likely to occur since customers will get to keep their money up until they can see their orders delivered in real time. This is more of insurance for customers that they are not a scam online store.