The impact of being the first among the competition

So why did Ecommerce in the Philippines had a hard time in penetrating local online market for quite some time now. Dating back in the early 2000 where other countries have begun offering online shopping by opening various online malls to cater to their local customers. This has been a struggle not only in the Philippines but also in South East Asia. It was only last year when Ecommerce started to take off in the South East Asia. It actually can’t be helped since logically people are not open to online shopping probably due to the fact that most of us are non-credit cardholders.

Conventionally, online payment is done thru credit card. It’s the reason why the local online community had a hard time adjusting to online shopping. It was actually a long shot for an online store to start up an online business in the Philippines then. The market share wasn’t that high only due to payment limitation of the online community, which is honestly sad. It’s also no secret that most of the local online community is very aware of the online shopping scams and frauds. This involves customers that can’t rely on online stores in securing their credit card details in case they purchase online. If a customer is reveals its credit card details to a fraud online store. There’s a high chance that some may misuse it for their own benefit. What makes it worse is that you will only find out once your credit card bill is delivered to you. By the time you want to catch the online theft they would have been gone already.

These are the issues that Ecommerce was facing a few years back. Not only customers are cautious about the online shopping idea but also business owners who want to tap our online market. Given these circumstances, it’s safe to say that the competition is low as well. I mean no business owners would want to further explore a dead market. Right? Now that the local community is catching up on technology, Ecommerce had a chance again to expand. Thanks to the arrival of affordable local smartphone and netbook brands. Almost everyone including the C type of market are now equipped in online activities. This was perfect timing for the arrival of Lazada last year. The market was fresh and rising. They were the first online store to cater to local community that offers huge selection similar to what a mall can offer. They actually offer same guarantees and warranties that a traditional mall will offer to their customers. They also just offered installment packages as part of their payment method to their customers.

Lazada is actually an official online mall. They not only made sure that they are one of the first key players to arrive in the country. But they made sure they offer one of the best online shopping experience that online store can offer.  With their varieties of unconventional alternative online payment methods, it made the local online community choose them over the competition easily.