Lazada Philippines

Lazada Group (Chinese: 來贊達; t/a Lazada) is an international e-commerce company and one of the largest e-commerce operators in Southeast Asia, with over 10,000 third-party sellers as of November 2014, and 50 million annual active buyers as of September 2019. Backed by Rocket Internet, Maximilian Bittner founded Lazada in 2012 as a marketplace platform that sells inventory to consumers from its own warehouses. Lazada modified its business model the following year to allow third-party retailers to sell their products on its platform too.^[1]

History

In 2012, Maximilian Bittner founded Lazada with the intention of establishing an Amazon-like business model in Southeast Asia, to take advantage of the nascent online consumer market and Amazon's weak presence in the region. Lazada's e-commerce websites soft launched in 2012, before iOS and Android mobile apps for its platform were launched in June the following year.^[1]

Financing

Lazada has raised multiple rounds of funding since its founding in 2012.^[1]

Counterfeit products

Lazada faces issues of counterfeit products being sold on its platform. The company has insisted a zero tolerance policy towards such products. As a response they have launched LazMall in 2018, The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines recorded Lazada to be the largest source of reports for counterfeit products it received in the first half of 2023 at 69 percent.^[1]

LazEarth

Lazada launched its LazEarth campaign in April 2022 to reduce plastic waste in its products and packaging. This coincided with the launch of an Earth Day promotion, when 5,000 products labelled "sustainable" or "planet-friendly" were grouped into a promotional section on Lazada's platform, including polyester shirts, razors, electric toothbrushes, and more. Sustainability experts criticised the promotion as many of the products advertised were plastic disposable products, and offering discounts for such products did little to reduce plastic waste.^[1]

Boycott by the Royal Thai Army

Lazada faced a boycott by the Royal Thai Army in May 2022 due to a controversy arising from a TikTok video promoting a sale by the company. Posted on 5 May, the video included a depiction of a woman using a wheelchair, which was perceived as an attempt to mock the younger sister of King Vajiralongkorn, Princess Chulabhorn, thus violating Thailand's lèse-majesté law. Chulabhorn uses a wheelchair as a result of lupus.^[1]

Location

Lazada Philippines is based in Philippines.^[2]

Online presence

Lazada Philippines works in online marketplace. Its website is lazada.com.ph.^[2]