Lazada Philippines, the local unit of Southeast Asian e-commerce giant Lazada Group, plans to put up additional warehouses in the Philippines in the next three to five years as it forecasts 6-7% growth of the country’s e-commerce market during that period.
“We will open more facilities in the next three to five years starting by this fifth-generation warehouse in Clark,” Lazada Philippines chief executive officer for logistics and operations Juan Pavez Spencer said in a recent briefing at its warehouse in Cabuyao, Laguna.
Spencer said Lazada also plans to open a warehouse in Central Luzon, North Luzon, North Mindanao, and in the Visayas.
Aside from its 54,000-square-meter Cabuyao warehouse, which is Lazada’s biggest facility in Asia, the company also has short-tail warehouses in Cebu and Davao that cater to orders and deliveries in different regions.
Spencer said Lazada Philippines plans to triple its fulfillment capabilities in the next three to five years to gear up for continued growth of e-commerce in the country.
“It’s very exciting because you always double every year, so you can expect the growth to be exponential. In the next two to three years, our forecast [is] that the e-commerce in the Philippines will hit 1.5% of the retail but will even grow up to 6% to 7% in the next three to five years, which is huge,” Spencer said.
Last November 11, Lazada held its annual 11:11 shopping sale event with as much as 99% off deals, and generated sales 15 times more than their regular daily shopping orders.
Spencer noted that Lazada Philippines has over 28 million monthly site visits, of which 23 million are active users, and has about 30,000 listed sellers offering over 80 million products in the Philippines.
“We are very proud of this because this is a way to develop the local economy. We also try to emphasize the SMEs [small and medium enterprises] to give them access to this online business. We have a lot of small sellers that are doing very well [on] the platform,” Pavez said.
Launched in 2012, Lazada is an online shopping and selling destination in Southeast Asia, majority owned by China’s Alibaba Group Holding Limited. It is present in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, offering a range of product categories from beauty, fashion, and consumer electronics to household goods, toys, sports equipment, and groceries.
