Tag: E-commerce

Singapore – Shopping and rewards platform ShopBack has partnered with BeLive Technology, a Singapore-based live streaming solutions provider, to power its video-first commerce efforts. This marks a significant step forward for the live commerce industry in Singapore and Southeast Asia. 

The new solution allows ShopBack live viewers to access exclusive promotions, creative video content, and interactive video features powered by BeLive Technology. It aims to maximise interaction between its hosts and the community, to deliver an entertaining shopping experience.

BeLive Technology said that the first live stream saw its vouchers sold out within minutes of going live. Merchant partners will get access to ShopBack’s live campaigns which are curated specially for them. The immersive experience and interaction between merchant partners and viewers will help build customer loyalty and a stronger community.

Currently, the collaboration is only available to ShopBack’s Singapore users however plans are in place to expand into all of ShopBack’s territories across Asia in the near future. It also marks BeLive Technology’s expansion across Asia as well as the opportunity to explore additional Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) markets.

Kenneth Tan, CEO and co-founder of BeLive Technology, commented that they are delighted to partner with ShopBack and power video-first commerce for one of Asia’s most loved brands. 

“Live video’s authenticity and descriptive nature have great alignment with ShopBack’s ability to help shoppers make smarter purchase decisions. We are incredibly excited to allow help ShopBack’s users discover, research and shop better with our interactive video solutions,” said Tan.

Meanwhile, Fern Nannaphat, country manager of ShopBack Singapore, noted, “We will continue adopting new solutions to win our users over with the best deals and most engaging content. This live stream feature has proven to be a vital addition to the ShopBack ecosystem, where we deepen the engagement with our users and offer our merchants an immersive way to promote their products.”

Manila, Philippines – Aitana Moira Burgos, formerly of Intrepid Group Asia, has been appointed as the new country head in the Philippines at LEAP Commerce, a subsidiary of Asia-Pacific retail and e-commerce network Luxasia.

She was previously the head of merchandising at Intrepid Group Asia, where according to her LinkedIn, aided in executing merchandising strategies across various categories that aim to optimise the user experience across customer touchpoints.

In addition, her previous role included her collaborating with the commercial team, design team, and customer service team in order to execute campaigns. In addition, her role utilizes reporting (conversion, sales funnel, etc.) data and analytics to improve business growth.

LEAP Commerce is a partnership enabler between the recent deal of foodpanda and the LEGO Group to expand quick commerce for toys in APAC. The company offers an integrated end-to-end solution for online commerce covering all digital channels – online marketplaces, mono and multi-brand sites, and social commerce.

LEAP Commerce was formed in August 2021 as Luxasia’s e-commerce enabler arm, aiming to cover end-to-end solutions for enablement on all digital channels for brands.

Singapore – Baozun Inc., an e-commerce service partner that helps brands execute their e-commerce strategies in China, has announced its new regional headquarters in Singapore, as it seeks to drive e-commerce innovation and bring a competitive advantage to brands in SEA.

Following its expansion into Hong Kong and Taiwan in 2013, Baozun identified Singapore and Malaysia as key markets in SEA to expand its footprint. The company is also in the midst of setting up its Philippines office and plans to expand to Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand by the end of 2023. 

Moreover, the company plans to continue nurturing a robust team of local experts with first-hand e-commerce experience to support business expansion and growth in the region.

“With 15 years of experience in the most advanced e-commerce market, we’re confident that Baozun Asia’s advanced technologies and infrastructure will give brands in the region a competitive advantage. Having said that, we’re acutely aware that SEA is a highly diverse region, so we look forward to prioritising a localised approach and creating custom solutions that help brands grow sustainably through a long-term relationship,” said Thomas Yeoh, board member of Baozun Asia. 

Baozun said that the demand for strong e-commerce technological capabilities and infrastructure is only increasing, and its entry into the region means that brands will have access to custom end-to-end omnichannel services, tailored to the fast-changing needs of brands in SEA. This encompasses the entire e-commerce value chain covering IT solutions, store operations, digital marketing, customer services, and warehousing and logistics.

The recent brand ambassador announcement by Shopee Philippines has caused a wide range of reactions amongst Filipinos online, with the majority turning against Shopee for tapping local celebrity Toni Gonzaga who is known for her controversial support of now-president Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. 

As of this writing, Shopee has defended its decision, stating that Gonzaga was chosen for her ‘mass appeal’, and not for her ‘political views’.

Despite this, clamour and discussion regarding Shopee Philippines’ announcement remained. In light of this, MARKETECH APAC has tapped social media monitoring Digimind to learn more about how the negative flak unfolded–as told by social media data.

Are Social Mentions Equal to ‘Boycott’ Sentiment?

Digimind noted in its data that social media mentions of Shopee spiked following the brand ambassador announcement, peaking at 286,495 on September 29. Said day was the time Shopee Philippines uploaded a teaser video of Gonzaga as the new brand ambassador.

However, despite the large volume of tweets mentioning Shopee, social media mentions, specifically those suggesting the boycott, only took 0.4% of all social media mentions. Despite the small percentage, this still amounts to a fairly sizeable volume of4,000 netizens expressing their opinion to boycott Shopee.

According to Olivier Girard, head of Digimind for APAC, influencers will always be on the verge of receiving scrutiny, especially when being associated with a partisan group or cause. 

“While consumers are familiar with the concept of influencers or celebrities endorsing brands, brands now need to have a more stringent process in place when assessing each influencer’s fit for their brand or campaign. Any brand, large or small, runs the risk of facing some level of social scrutiny or backlash when announcing a public figure with uncertainty over the public might receive them,” he said.

Was There a Spillover to Rival Platform Lazada?

 Following the negative flak to Shopee, numerous citizens have shown interest in moving to rival e-commerce platform Lazada, which is also one of the most popular e-commerce platforms in the country.

However, Digimind notes that the social media conversations around Shopee still eclipse those about Lazada, showing that resentment towards the former is much stronger than renewed support for the latter. Over the course of September 26 to October 3, Shopee registered around ~2M social media mentions while Lazada only managed to get around ~145k social media mentions. In addition, Shopee’s mentions reached around ~11m users while Lazada reached around ~5.2m.

“Where brand reputation is concerned, it is therefore critical that brands evaluate potential ambassadors closely in the domain of social media,” Girard said, related to how brands should pick their next brand ambassador.

Who and Where the Discussion is Coming From

Digimind noted a great number of discussions related to Shopee come from sellers themselves and users that are greatly concerned about the welfare of the sellers.

A handful of small businesses and online shops have decided to create a business account, with some saying that they would not support a platform that ‘enables [political lies]’, as well as ‘unjust termination of employees’. Netizens have pointed out the irony from Shopee Philippines’ side in retrenching employees in order to ‘optimise’ operations and then contracting a new brand ambassador afterwards. 

Girard said that it’s important for brands to obtain consumer sentiments to help them prepare communication contingencies ahead of time, as in the case of Shopee. 

“[This] can help brands identify influencer profiles that match their target community and sieve any negative sentiment your marketing and social teams might otherwise miss out on in the macro analysis,” Girard explained.

In the end, the brand ambassador announcement for Shopee Philippines went on as usual, albeit social engagement against them has diminished over time. Time will only tell how these media social sentiments truly play out in the longer run.

Manila, Philippines – Karen Yang Chiang, formerly of local fintech GCash, has joined local parenting-focused ecommerce platform as its new chief technology officer. In her new role, Chiang will manage the company’s product, engineering and project delivery teams.

She will also focus on developing the technology, architecture and scalability to support the company’s evolution into an online-to-offline (O2O) parenting ecosystem spanning integrated commerce, content and community experiences.

Chiang previously served as the head of enterprise architecture, strategy and innovation for Mynt, GCash’s parent company.

Speaking on her new role, Chiang said, “I am very honoured and excited to embark on this journey with the edamama team. I look forward to building the next evolution of our platform, enabling us to continuously provide trusted and innovative products and services for our customers.”

Meanwhile, Bela Gupta and Nishant D’Souza, founders at edamama, commented, “Underpinning our mission to help parents simplify decision-making is a customer centric platform built on a robust technology stack. We’re thrilled to welcome Karen to our leadership team to bring our product and engineering roadmap to new heights as we build a leading omnichannel brand.” 

They added, “Karen’s track record of scaling start-ups, along with passion for the customer as a mother of three, makes her a true growth partner to us as founders, and an inspiration to all women in technology.”

Since its launch in 2020, edamama has raised a total of US$25M in funding from leading strategic, financial and angel investors, including Alpha JWC Ventures, Gentree Fund, Robinsons Retail Holdings, Kickstart Ventures, Innoven Capital, and Foxmont Capital Partners. 

Malaysia – Car e-commerce platform Carsome has started its workforce reduction across all operations in SEA. The move will impact a number of employees, who will receive their full severance package and extended health benefits until the end of the year, as per Carsome.

In a report made by Tech Wire Asia, Carsome stated that it will now be focusing on enhancing productivity by aligning resources with contributions to the bottom line and enforcing stricter performance management, which is part of employee base optimisation.

Moreover, the same report said that the layoffs follow Carsome’s announcement of its group-wide accelerated profitability plan to achieve its target of positive EBITDA within the next few quarters. 

In a statement, Carsome said, “This plan includes accelerating its integration with the newly-acquired iCar and WapCar ecosystem of companies, as well as employee base optimization, and automation of processes to further increase group efficiency.”

Manila, Philippines – E-commerce platform Shopee in the Philippines is in hot water following the announcement of its newest brand ambassador, Filipina singer-actress Toni Gonzaga, with local netizens criticising the brand for their ambassador choice.

Shopee Philippines previously teased the new brand ambassador in a snippet video posted on Twitter on September 28.

Toni Gonzaga has been involved in controversy over the past few months after showing her staunch support to now-elected President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos, Jr., the son of former dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos. It should be noted that Gonzaga has appeared in numerous presidential campaign rallies for Marcos towards the May 9 national elections.

Progressive-minded netizens have called out Shopee Philippines for their new ambassador, with many saying that they would not support a brand that enables political lies.

Netizen @majiksparky stated that with the new announcement, they will switch to rival e-commerce platform Lazada.

Meanwhile, a Twitter user named @ArenoEllen, who is also an online seller, has encouraged netizens to switch to Lazada, claiming that Shopee takes a 15% cut from their payouts, while Lazada takes around 5% of payout.

Many Twitter users have also pointed out that the new brand ambassador comes after Shopee Philippines have recently laid off employees, the latest string of Shopee employee layoffs in Asia-Pacific, including China, as well as in Latin America.

Despite the criticism, Shopee Philippines pushed through with the announcement of Toni Gonzaga’s brand ambassador stint, with her thanking fans for the ‘mentions and engagement’.

A Shopee representative said that Gonzaga was chosen not for her ‘political views’ but rather her mass appeal.

“Together with our newest brand ambassador, Toni, we are working to deliver entertaining content to drive anticipation leading up to the upcoming 10.10 Brands Festival,” they said.

This was not the first time Shopee drew flak with its brand ambassador. When Shopee got international superstar Jackie Chan to be its brand ambassador for its 11.11 Regional Sale in 2021, marketing leaders and creatives criticised the ad for its ‘lukewarm’ and ‘confusing’ direction.

Sri Lanka – French sporting goods retailer Decathlon has announced that it will indefinitely suspend its retail and e-commerce operations in Sri Lanka by October 30 this year, following import concerns amidst the current social unrest in the country.

Decathlon first operated in the country in October 2018 and has operated two stores, as well as an e-commerce store.

In a Facebook statement, Decathlon said that its production activities in Sri Lanka will continue to operate as normal.

“We would like to thank all of our customers and partners for the good will and support they have shown since we first opened our doors. The welcome reserved for our concept and our products was amazing and we sincerely hope to restart our retail activities in Sri Lanka when circumstances permit,” the company said.

They also added that it will also relocate its production sites and its employees, as well as providing financial and return-to-employment support to its employees moving outside the company.

Decathlon’s suspension of operations in Sri Lanka follows the ongoing economic crisis in the country, with Sri Lanka facing its worst economic crisis since 2019. This resulted in the recent Sri Lankan protests that resulted in the government declaring a state of emergency and the resignation of Mahinda Rajapaksa as the prime minister.

China – Regional e-commerce giant Shopee has reportedly cut more jobs, this time in the Chinese market, according to a report by the South China Morning Post.

The recent layoffs in China follows recent reported layoffs from Shopee in Singapore, Indonesia, and in Latin America.

According to SCMP, the layoffs are to optimise operating efficiency with the goal of achieving self-sufficiency across Shopee’s business. In addition, they will be extending support to their affected colleagues during this transition.

However, the report didn’t mention how much of Shopee China’s workforce are impacted.

It should be recalled that Shopee’s parent company Sea has also announced that it is shutting some of its projects and downsizing staff in Garena and Sea Labs.

Shopee is one of the latest tech companies to announce employee layoffs, including Netflix, Snap, Oracle, and Hootsuite.

Singapore – Tiqets, an online platform for cultural and leisure experiences in Europe and North America, has partnered with Klook, a travel and leisure e-commerce platform in the Asia Pacific, to connect both their supply channels to offer consumers a world-class supply of cultural and leisure experiences.

Through the new partnership, customers can now use both platforms to seamlessly book an expanded range of experiences available through either Klook or Tiqets. With this integration in place, museums, attractions, and tour operators working with Tiqets and Klook can significantly increase their reach, and consumers will be able to easily book thousands of unforgettable experiences wherever they travel.

As the travel industry enters its rebound phase after a gruelling, two-year global pandemic, both companies have made a remarkable comeback. Over the summer months, Tiqets saw a 220% surge in bookings in Europe and the UK alone. Similarly for Klook, the company has seen outbound bookings grow eleven times in the same period compared to earlier in the year, signalling that the travel bug is stronger than ever. With the end-of-year holiday season on the horizon and the partnership underway, another impressive increase in bookings is expected.

Luuc Elzinga, Tiqets’ president and founder, commented, “We are thrilled to be partnering up with Klook, one of the most impressive OTAs in the industry. Through this partnership, our network of more than 4,000 of the best museums, attractions and tour operators that provide guided tours at these museums will benefit from greater visibility in the APAC market, and Tiqets will benefit from the new supply that Klook already has connected.”

Meanwhile, Wilfred Fan, chief commercial officer at Klook, said that this partnership with Tiqets opens new doors for both groups of customers to enjoy instant and seamless access to the widest selection of attractions and experiences across the Asia Pacific and Europe.

“Klook has gone from strength to strength during the pandemic, and we’ve quadrupled the number of activities on our platform over the last two years in anticipation of travel recovery. We will continue to work closely with our merchants to accelerate their recovery and reach even more customers around the world,” added Fan.