With
the arrival of Lazada in the country, local online competitors showed up while
the online shopping popularity started to rise. As a matter of fact, Ecommerce
was having a hard time in penetrating the local online market just a few years
back. Shopping online was actually a disregarded option for most local online
users then. Second hand local online users usually prefer items on local online
classified websites when they want to buy something. A customer would typically
go to traditional offline malls when they want to buy something that is new.
This should be no surprise to us as we were raised by our parents going to traditional
offline malls when we need to shop. Traditional malls have meant a lot to us
since that is were families bond together. It’s the reason why we really struggled
in changing our shopping culture.
With
online shopping, local online consumers can actually save their time and money.
So what can we get from online shopping? As long as local consumers go with
online, they can do it wherever they please. Money spends on usual travel
expense going to the location of traditional malls can now be saved by
customers. This is the issue that they wanted to address when they were
launched in the Philippines. It's actually hard for any online mall to tap the
currently untapped market in online of the Philippines. It was simply hard due
to the fact the only the minority of the population owns their own credit card,
which is the main payment method when it comes to online. We prefer to deal in
real time - face to face and to pay in cash. We are just used to not trusting
online transactions immediately. Moreover, online frauds and scams are pretty
known in online by the local online community. It is the main issue on why
Ecommerce don’t have a good image to local online users.
Nowadays,
the local Ecommerce is beginning to make some noise in the online space. The
Philippines’ Online Shopping Mall is just over one year of operation but they
managed to make an impact on the Ecommerce industry. This is to prove that they
are legit online mall. They were seen on TVC on top local channels at
primetime. Since Ecommerce in the country is limited, how did they come up with
a solution? They called Cash on Delivery or C.O.D. Typically offered an
alternative payment method, online stores do not offer this in online. This
payment method is risky for any online business. With Cash on Delivery they are
not required to pay right away online. Once orders are delivered, that's the
only time customers are required to pay in cash. 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 the way to show the local online customers that
they won't be scammed.
No comments:
Post a Comment