In the first five months of this year, ­Lazada Malaysia saw a 200% increase in the number of small and medium enterprise sellers, brands and retailers come on board the platform as the economy marked a significant shift towards digitalisation in 2020.  

When the Movement Control Order (MCO) was implemented on March 18 to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, Lazada, the country’s leading e-commerce platform, was deemed an essential service. It has been supporting Malaysians in procuring their daily essentials during the cordon sanitaire.

With thousands of brands and authorised distributors, Lazada has hundreds of thousands of products available for customers across the country. It received millions of orders during the MCO ­period, an increase of 80% in daily orders on average compared with pre-MCO days. Some categories, such as fresh foods, saw a surge in demand as households doubled down on keeping healthy. In March, consumers bought 1.5 tonnes of vegetables daily from farmers based in Cameron Highlands that had just joined the online platform.

“The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of buying and selling online. The shift towards e-commerce by merchants and consumers can be seen in the record-high transactions for products in the food and grocery category. During the MCO, Malaysians went online to send goods to friends and family and order their daily essentials. The readiness of consumers to transact online indicates a fundamental and long-term behavioural change in the adoption of e-commerce,” says Leo Chow, CEO of Lazada Malaysia.

Chow believes the digital economy in Malaysia will continue to be on a growth momentum and more brands and companies will be digitalising their business, as shoppers become even more confident in shopping online.

As more Malaysians embrace the digital lifestyle, Lazada Wallet has become the go-to choice and the most preferred payment method on the platform.

“Today, about one in three customers use Lazada Wallet to pay for their transactions. We believe this is largely due to the convenience and enhanced safety and security of using digital payments. Digital payments are not only convenient, offering easy one-click payments, but also secured with cutting-edge technologies, such as point-to-point encryption, tokenisation, biometrics, out-of-band authentication and  one-time password (OTP) via SMS,” says Chow.

Powered by Alipay, Lazada Wallet leverages leading e-commerce payment technology and experience, including payment processing and fraud management services and meets the necessary requirements outlined by Bank Negara Malaysia, including full-penetration testing and end-to-end encryption.

“With Malaysia’s digital economy on a growth momentum, digital payments and logistics are likely to be the key enablers of a digital future,” Chow says.

Lazada’s uptrend performance is underpinned by its continued focus on building a future-proof e-commerce infrastructure, backed by Alibaba’s world-class data-driven tech and logistics ecosystem. 

The company’s logistics capabilities is one of its key advantages. Lazada is the only e-commerce player with a wholly-owned network of warehouses across the country and over 40 fulfilment hubs, which enable it to provide swifter and timely deliveries to consumers. Due to this, it is also able to provide better cost, ensure capacity as well as give its merchants access to competitive rates, enabling them to create a better shopping experience for their customers. 

“I expect demand for efficient e-commerce logistics to increase as more and more consumers shop online. Lazada Malaysia will continue to build its infrastructure to meet this growing need,” says Chow.

Lazada’s “LazMall Guaranteed Delivery” service was previously only offered to shoppers in the Klang Valley. It was extended to the whole of Peninsular Malaysia in July as the company grew increasingly confident about its ability to cater for future peak-order volumes. 

“During the 7.7 Mid-Year Super Sale, we shipped out 96% of parcels to customers on time despite the large volume of transactions,” Chow said.

With the coronavirus pandemic forcing  millions of people across Southeast Asia  to stay at home, e-commerce live-streams and gamification features on Lazada have been able to tap a vast, captive audience that shows every sign of growing.

In April, when many countries in the region were implementing their toughest coronavirus measures, Lazada recorded 27 million active views on its live-streams across all markets, helping to boost the gross merchandise value generated through live-streaming on its platform by 45% month on month. In June, Lazada had over 74 million views, nearly three times the viewership number in April. 

“Our pace of innovation in Shoppertainment has accelerated in the past year. Our live-streaming programmes include the ‘see now, buy now’ feature, which allows instant purchase, boosting transactions. Our gaming channel, LazGame,  creates a new immersive experience for shoppers on the platform to earn rewards and our refreshed homepage design allows consumers to easily swipe to participate in and enjoy our LazCoin and LazLive games and shows. Our Shoppertainment strategy is changing the way brands and sellers engage and interact with consumers,” says Chow.

LazGame utilises LazCoin, a reward programme that allows customers to redeem collected points for vouchers and freebies. Shoppers can also play games on the app to earn discounts. 

“LazLive, LazGames and LazCoins are reinventing e-commerce as we know it. Our Shoppertainment strategy allows our community of sellers and brands to stay ahead of consumers who want more entertainment, rewards and social forms of shopping,” Chow says.

Lazada aims to continue to develop leading-edge innovations for sellers and buyers. All tech tools used on its platform were developed in-house, a strategic advantage that results from its relationship with Alibaba.

“We are just getting started. Our business has three key themes: empowerment, experience and efficiency. We want to empower our brands and sellers with digital tools to operate their online stores efficiently. At the same time, we want them to run a successful and sustainable business on our platform by supporting them with game-changing tech, logistics, marketing and Shoppertainment initiatives to better engage with their customers. Brands and businesses looking to innovate in this digital era can use our Shoppertainment features to keep their customers engaged and their brands at the forefront of customers’ minds,” says Chow.

Lazada provides its merchants with a comprehensive solution package known as Marketing Super Solutions. This package covers branding,marketing and sales efforts. Traffic is directed to the vendor’s online stores through sponsored displays, customer relationship management (CRM) tools, affiliate marketing and other methods. By leveraging the tools provided in the Marketing Super Solutions package, L’Oréal — one of Lazada Malaysia’s biggest brand partners — saw gross merchandising value sell-out for its products within a month.

Another tool accessible to Lazada Malaysia’s merchants is a virtual business adviser in the form of a digital dashboard that provides real-time updates of their online store’s performance as well as customer insights. 

“Our business adviser tool provides essential information that brands and sellers need to fine-tune and optimise their product listings so they can capture and possibly even anticipate the demands of their customers. They obtain precise insights into their customers’ behaviour, data that is not readily available in the market, and this is a huge advantage for sellers and brands,” says Chow.

Sellers also have the opportunity to expand into other markets by accessing Lazada Malaysia’s global network. 

“We have the unparalleled advantage of fostering synergies with our peers in Alibaba’s ecosystem and economy. These companies include Tmall Global, Alibaba Cloud, Ant Financial and Cainiao Network,” says Chow. 

This year, Lazada Malaysia’s online platform turns eight. The company intends to continue exploring and implementing new technologies for the benefit of its merchants and customers. 

“Innovation and an entrepreneurial spirit have always been a part of Lazada’s DNA. We will continue to explore new technologies to drive brand engagement and enhance consumers’ experience on our platform. We also want to support our sellers, especially local SMEs, to scale domestically and sell internationally,” says Chow.

“We are looking at artificial intelligence (AI) to further streamline and personalise customer shopping experience as well as other capabilities. This will enhance our ecosystem as we will add more highskilled jobs such as algorithm engineers for content and promotional activities as well as AI trainers to improve our chatbot experience. Lazada is redefining online shopping and we are the standard bearer of quality and service. We aim to push the boundaries of technology and innovation and will continue to be the catalyst in e-commerce development in Malaysia and the region,” says Chow.

To better serve its customers, Lazada Malaysia recently launched LazChoice, which offers a curation of high-quality, best-selling products, free shipping and a lowest-price guarantee.

LazMall, touted as one of the largest online shopping malls with the most extensive range of authentic brands, is also consistently enhancing its services. It boasts a wide array of authentic local and international brands, exclusive deals and services including a 15-day return policy as well as 24-hour and guaranteed delivery services.