Janio Bi-Weekly News Round Up | End-April 2019

A curation of the latest news in e-commerce, logistics, and tech in Southeast Asia and beyond.

As April comes to a close, Reliance relies on staff for tests, Alibaba takes students from the Singapore of Africa and double down on Tmall sales, while Thailand challenges Chinese e-commerce giants, and the Lazada-L’Oreal partnership plans to expand on e-commerce fulfilment in Southeast Asia.

Ambani’s Anticipated App Undergoes Internal Testing

Reliance’s e-commerce app is being tested within the company ¹. Since Mukesh Ambani announced his intent to challenge Amazon and Flipkart, Reliance is now having its e-commerce app tested by employees. The commercial launch of this e-commerce app is slated to happen at the end of the year.

Alibaba Doubles Down on Students while Doubling Sales

Alibaba to open e-commerce class for Rwandan students². The e-commerce giant will be offering undergraduate programmes for Rwandan students in Alibaba’s Business School in September. Students will learn topics ranging from cross-border e-commerce, international trade, and the Internet. This programme is part of its Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP) initiative that Alibaba signed with the Rwandan government in 2018.

At the same time, Alibaba’s B2C platform Tmall aims to double sales volume by 2021³. In its most recent earnings call, Tmall’s GMV was up 29% year-on-year for Q4 2018, and its 11.11 shopping event grew 27%. This growth rate is slower than the year before: Q4 2017’s year-on-year GMV growth was 43%, while 11.11 sales grew 39%. Despite this slowdown, Tmall’s president is optimistic about hitting a 100% increase in sales volume this year.

Thailand Authorities Challenge Chinese E-commerce Giants’ Stronghold

Thailand’s Electronic Transactions Development Agency (ETDA) is building a local e-commerce platform for the B2C market⁴. This platform aims to create more opportunities for locals to tap into the burgeoning e-commerce market, while competing against Chinese giants Alibaba and JD.com⁵. The ETDA will discuss with Tarad and LNWshop, two of the largest Thai e-commerce marketplaces, to build a national e-commerce platform rather than to rely on global players, allowing merchants to skip high commission fees and sharing of buyers’ data.

L’Oreal Inks Partnership with Lazada to Expand E-commerce Offerings

L’Oreal partners with Lazada to strengthen e-commerce offering in Southeast Asia6. In Lazada’s press release, they’ve said they will support the cosmetics company in fulfilling next-day deliveries in top metro cities in Southeast Asia. Additionally, the collaboration will also see the trial of new customer engagement tools and exclusive products sold on the e-commerce platform.

That’s all for this news round-up!

Want to clear customs in Southeast Asian countries like a pro? Get our customs clearance guide to find out how!

If you’d like to find out more about how we can solve your SEA e-commerce cross-border delivery needs, come and have a conversation with us.