Categories
Business & Commerce

How an Indonesian Seller Turned His
Entrepreneurial Vision into Ecommerce Success

By LazBeat staff, with additional reporting by Jessica Horsan
April 15, 2021

Sugeng Wibowo was on his way to lunch on his motorbike when a pedestrian suddenly appeared from nowhere to cross the street. He fell as he swerved his vehicle to avoid hitting the pedestrian. Except for feeling some pain and soreness in his right eye, Wibowo, who was 17 at that time, didn’t think much of the incident. Over time, however, his vision seemed to deteriorate. A doctor later discovered a retinal tear caused by the fall. Wibowo underwent several long and painful surgeries, only to be told in the end that he would never fully regain his eyesight. 

The accident didn’t stop Wibowo from going to college and graduating with an engineering degree nor did it interfere with his skills and abilities. Still, with the stigma that unfortunately comes with many physical impairments, Wibowo struggled to find the job he wanted, which was to work for a multinational bank or consultancy firm. He sent out resume after resume, sometimes even with pictures of himself before the accident, so that prospective employers would not see that his right eye was impaired. But even when he made it to the interviews, he would be told that he failed to pass the required medical tests.

That was nearly two decades ago. Today, the 36-year-old father of two runs his own online business in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. He first ventured into digital commerce in 2013, setting up his own website to sell fragrances. A year later, one of his closest friends introduced him to Lazada, on which he launched his store, Toko Alona, selling home décor and bedding products.

WATCH: Sugeng Wibowo’s seller story

Toko Alona marked the first time Wibowo sold on an eCommerce platform, and the vast ecosystem of resources and support proved immensely helpful to him as an entrepreneur.

“When I ran my own online business, I had to do everything by myself, including creating and driving traffic to the site,” he said. With Lazada, not only has he been able to leverage the platform’s existing consumer base, its reputation as a trusted eCommerce destination has made customers feel more confident about buying from his store as well.

The eCommerce platform’s sophisticated technology has also played a major role in Wibowo’s entrepreneurial success. “With the data insights I get from Lazada, I can learn more about my consumers – what items they’re most interested in or what promotions they like – so I can better determine the next steps in business development,” he said.

Since launching on Lazada seven years ago, Wibowo’s business has allowed him to provide for his young family. In 2015, he expanded with an offline store on one of the main streets of Kaliurang, a small town just north of Yogyakarta. The business has also created jobs for those in the local community, including a dozen housewives whose work as tailors bring additional sources of income for their families. Even when the pandemic hit, Toko Alona continued to sustain the livelihoods of Wibowo and his staff. 

“As an online seller, customers do not care what you look like, they only care about the quality of the product,” Wibowo said, reflecting on the challenges of being seen as having a physical infirmity. “I’m thankful I followed my heart, gave this a try and now even have a brick-and-mortar store because of the success I had on Lazada.”

While continuing to grow his business, Wibowo has used his story to empower those with real or perceived limitations to achieve what they thought could not be possible. He joined the Yogyakarta chapter of Lazada Club, which covers a community of more than 150 sellers in the area and two other nearby cities and towns, and became a seller leader, volunteering his time to train and impart his knowledge and experience to other small-business owners and encouraging his friends and relatives to become online entrepreneurs. Once, an elderly woman at a Lazada Club gathering he organised approached him to ask for advice. They met again at another event a few months later and she thanked him because the advice she shared worked. Even though it was a simple gesture, it meant a lot to Wibowo to know he helped another person who had challenges to overcome.

“It’s my responsibility to encourage others,” Wibowo said. “I will continue to do that through my business and my work with the sellers’ community.”

Wibowo with his family and staff.
Categories
Inside Lazada

Lazada Celebrates 9th Year
by Being a Company That Can Be Counted On

By LazBeat Staff
April 15, 2021

Consumers, brands, businesses as well as more than 110 celebrities and influencers came together on March 26 for a virtual Super Party to kick off Lazada’s ninth anniversary celebrations. There were performances from Katy Perry, NCT Dream and local talents from across Southeast Asia, and more than 5 million viewers tuned in to watch the signature star-studded concert on Lazada’s in-app livestreaming channel, LazLive. The concert was simulcast on more than a dozen local TV networks across six markets in the region, and for the first time, was also livestreamed on various social media platforms. On top of the celebrations, which also included various shoppertainment features that have become synonymous with the platform’s annual birthday event, this year’s anniversary marked a particularly important phase in the company’s history.

While the eCommerce platform is still relatively young and has a lot of room to grow, it is also established and mature enough to contribute back to the region that has provided it with a dynamic and supportive home for close to a decade. In a light-hearted LinkedIn post, Lazada’s Chief Strategy Officer Magnus Ekbom compared the nine-year-old company to a pre-adolescent child who has just learned how to ride a bicycle and finally gets to stay up late with friends. “To some extent, we are a bit like the bigger brother or the older sister who you know you can always count on,” he said.

Being a company that people can depend on has been especially important during a time of unprecedented challenges brought on by COVID-19. As the pandemic disrupted all corners of the globe over the past year, providing for different sectors of local communities became the main priority for Lazada. When the novel coronavirus reached Asia, Lazada worked with the Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Foundation to transport and distribute donated medical supplies to impacted countries. It also leveraged its digital giving platform, LazadaForGood, to raise funds for impacted groups and rolled out various initiatives to empower sellers during the economic downturn while also keeping customers across Southeast Asia safe, informed and in access of daily necessities amid lockdowns.

These efforts offer a glimpse into just how far Lazada has come since it was first established in 2012. Back then, as a fledgling start-up in Jakarta, the platform’s main concern was figuring out how to win over customers when there was still a lot of scepticism about online shopping. To build up excitement, Lazada came up with 12.12, an e-shopping festival that is now one of the biggest annual retail events in Southeast Asia. Aside from introducing other mega shopping festivals and campaigns throughout the years, the company has also launched its mobile app, built up a robust digital and logistics infrastructure and implemented initiatives such as the intellectual property protection platform to create an eCommerce environment that is safe and sustainable for customers, sellers and partners alike.

“When you’ve been at something for nine years and so many things have happened and transpired, it’s easier to take shortcuts. But I think what you will find about Lazada – also in the earliest days and not just now – is that we didn’t take any shortcuts,” Ekbom said. “What we need is to always make sure that we create more value than we take. And that is true in everything that we do.”

Indeed, all of Lazada’s initiatives and innovations have been designed to create value in some way for others in the community, be it sellers, buyers, governments or those in the private and public sectors. Thanks to these efforts, Lazada now serves more than 100 million annual active consumers across six markets and is viewed not just as an online marketplace but the go-to lifestyle platform that combines everything from entertainment to solutions for payments and logistics.

“We are not just a transactional player that is there one day and not there the next day,” Ekbom said. “People trust us. They can count on us.”

Lazada celebrated its ninth anniversary with a star-studded signature Super Party.
Categories
Business & Commerce

Bridging the Digital Divide:
Technology and 5G Infrastructure

By Daryl Teo
April 15, 2021

It’s been a little over a year since COVID-19 transformed the world. During this time, we have seen more than 40 million new internet users in Southeast Asia alone. This means that 70% of the region’s population now uses the internet, with more than one in three consumers being new to digital services.

We see signs of possible green shoots in the economy being fuelled by small and medium-sized enterprises embracing digital transformation, incorporating sustainability goals and adopting a mobile-first approach. Regional governments have launched several initiatives to help SMEs keep up with the digitalisation race. For example, Malaysia launched the Digital Economy Blueprint, which aims to accelerate adoption of digital tools and foster inclusion among the rakyat – ordinary citizens – and across all levels of businesses to eventually position Malaysia as the regional producer for digital products and solutions.

The key enablers of a mature digital ecosystem include payments, telco connectivity and digital adoption. We are seeing a liberalisation of mobile data price points as Mobile Virtual Network Operators come up with cheaper data-only plans for everyday mobile users. Handsets are also being launched at ever-more affordable price points globally. The proliferation of e-wallets and the subsidies doled out by competing companies serve to accelerate even more digital participation from all consumers. 

Amid this growing digitalisation, 5G network capability, if it can live up to its promise, will have a significant impact in the region through the following ecosystem of technologies, as outlined in a KPMG report:

  • Artificial intelligence (AI): As more consumers join the online ecosystem, more data is created by their daily activities. With cloud computing costs exponentially reducing, AI is well-poised to offer more turnkey solutions and unearth deeper actionable insights. Increased 5G internet bandwidth can improve decision-making with machine-driven insights and support to help make sense of these new waves of data.
  • Internet of things (IoT): New production capabilities have made sensors and their implementation more affordable. With a greater variety and volume of data collected, we are able to enjoy lower costs of operations with predictive maintenance capabilities and automate more tasks with smarter appliances. Coupled with the ultra-low latency that 5G brings, we could start commercialising a new wave of products, including semi-autonomous driving and healthcare robots.
  • Robotics: With better and smoother internet connectivity, we can enjoy more applications with finer precision, such as robotic surgery and multipurpose response drones. With the unprecedented benefits of network slicing, when 4G networks get disrupted by urban fires, 5G offers the potential to continue disaster response with drones operated on a safe, secure and segregated spectrum band that continues to power essential communication.
  • Augmented reality: With its higher speed and lower latency, 5G offers consumers opportunities to enjoy more immersive experiences as they work, study and play, even in remote areas. Schools can teach with simulations of real-life situations; sport events can have detailed overlays to feature fun statistics and work environments can be augmented with virtual reality meetings.

Enabling an inclusive and secure 5G ecosystem

While the universal roll-out of 5G technology may still take a number of years, we need to be mindful that its advent does not widen the digital divide between the haves and have-nots. With a deeper integration of technology into our everyday lives, we need to work collectively to ensure that the game-changing potential of 5G is inclusive and benefits the entire population. Sufficient support and educational opportunities must be incorporated to redirect gains from the digital ecosystem towards helping underserved populations also be part of the economic growth.

Security is critical here to protect the increasing amount of activity performed and logged on digital ledgers. With 5G technology bringing new dimensions of network slicing, fuelling more use cases running synchronously and autonomously with negligible impact on network latency and workload requirements, data security has to expand its role in safeguarding different authentications. Our increased internet dependency has to be corroborated with an elevated level of cyber defence.

With the right safeguards in place, the 5G ecosystem will not just be the fundamental underpinning of the fourth industrial revolution but can also deliver seismic benefits of edge computing. By allowing vast amounts of data to be parsed in mobile data centres at the edge of the data source and only passing back the results over the network to the corporate cloud, the technology increases features available on electronic gadgets.

While 5G’s ability to unlock a wider ecosystem of capabilities is revolutionary, the ability to leverage this ecosystem of technologies to empower brands and sellers, help consumers and ensure that communities live better is the real game changer. That is the true power of digital transformation.

Daryl Teo leads the regional government affairs and portfolio management functions at Lazada Group.