More About Lazada's Upcoming Marketplace

Just over a week ago Lazada celebrated its first anniversary and announced that the company will be launching a marketplace for suppliers and consumers to set up their own shop at Lazada's website. To find out more about the plans for its marketplace, we went straight to Lazada's top management and asked them some questions.

According to Managing Director Magnus Ekbom, Lazada decided to open a marketplace because the company wants to create an opportunity for Indonesian entrepreneurs who would like to have their products sold directly through Lazada's website. "We believe by giving them the ability to create their own stores will push the e-commerce market in indonesia even more. This will mean that we will be able to give a huge product portfolio to our customers but they will also get the trusted Lazada.co.id service".

Lazada vice president Rizki Suluh Adi added that the traffic generated by Lazada can help with exposure and raise Indonesia's Internet profile. "Because lazada.co.id already has huge traffic, we believe it will also give the advantages of huge exposures and visibility to the indonesia internet market".

"Due to the low barriers to entry, other countries have already seen very sizable niche retail players that started off with a marketplace on another website. This is a huge opportunity to help people that would otherwise not have the reach to sell online", said Managing Director Tom Damek.

An online marketplace is something that's becoming very popular in Indonesia. The locals have been using various online services to act as store fronts to sell their products even if the terms and conditions specifically prohibit such activities. From Tokopedia to Rakuten, from Multiply to Facebook, many Indonesians won't waste a chance to set up shop. In the case of Multiply, it even shifted its business from a social sharing platform to a marketplace.

In the face of mounting competition, Damek said, "The key for us is to ensure that customers have peace of mind. We know that to attract a lot of new customers in the young category that is e-commerce we really need to WOW customers. They need to see that it is better than sitting in the traffic on the way to the mall".

Maintaining the quality of the products being offered through the website is an important factor for the company. "While we urge for user generated content, we will still do content curation. So, we will be quite selective as to who we allow to be on the lazada.co.id marketplace", Damek said.

As for the service level guarantee, Ekbom assures customers and partners alike that they will get the same Lazada treatment and service but there's flexibility in case the partners have their own preferences. "If it has the Lazada brand, you bet you will get the same trusted service as lazada.co.id. There are different models where we will do complete fulfillment or just part of the fulfillment".