Lazada officially launches online shopping mall in Southeast Asia

The Rocket Internet-backed ecommerce site Lazada has today officially launched its Marketplace for Southeast Asia. This online platform will allow merchants to sell their products on Lazada’s website in Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand or the Philippines.

Also known as Southeast Asia’s online shopping mall, Lazada will add to its role as one of the regions most popular ecommerce sites. The marketplace lets SMEs, big brands, distributors and retailers open up a store on the website where the Philippine-based company becomes the channel to customers via the site.

The site provides customized logistical arrangements, state-of-the-art online marketing initiatives and exposes merchandise to a massive visitor base. According to social network analytic Social Bakers, Lazada is extremely popular by claiming over 3 million Facebook fans and growing steadily.

The Rocket Internet-backed company notes that this platform is not only sophisticated but also user-friendly as merchants’ micromanagement is eliminated while having full control of creating and updating their own inventory.

Pineapple Computers in Malaysia for example has managed to expand its business by 38 percent. Similarly, Philips Electronics Siriwan Nitkitjatorn, says that “Philips has always designed their products around the needs of the customers and nowadays the ability to use an online distribution channel is part of those needs.”

Lazada CEO Maximilian Bittner says that because of the great number of partnership requests, the company is “glad to provide this opportunity to all merchants in the region.” He also says that Lazada’s goal is to continually “expand [its] product offering and service level to [its] customers and partners.” This “side-effect” of having an online ecosystem will serve to help businesses that would support job creation in Southeast Asia.

The company is often referred to as becoming the Amazon of Southeast Asia and has landed a decent US$100-million and is steadily becoming part of a trend of similar regional ventures being carried by the growing middle-classes of emerging markets.