Tag: Zalora

Singapore – Online fashion and lifestyle retail company Zalora, a part of Global Fashion Group (GFG), is adopting generative AI technology with the launch of its proprietary platform-as-a-service integration (PaaS) of OpenAI, TITAN. 

TITAN is used to drive new efficiencies in operations, improve online fashion customer experiences, and unlock growth opportunities for the company. It will also create more immersive and conversational online shopping experiences and data-driven recommendations for customers. 

Among the areas being powered by TITAN is its smart search discovery to handle a wider array of spelling variations and errors and better identify, present, and sort customers’ results, reducing the chances of experiencing zero search results. 

TITAN also powers their conversational shopping assistant, which includes smart prompts and improved real-time interactive features; their production automation to unlock automation across different functions and improve employee productivity gains; and their internal chatbots, which improve employee experience and productivity. 

Gunjan Soni, Zalora CEO and Global Fashion Group COO, said, “With a history of innovations under our belt, we are excited to embrace the future with Generative AI and leverage it to deliver the best ‘tailored for fashion’ e-commerce experience for our customers both during and post-purchase.With TITAN we will once again be the first in the region to offer these innovations to our growing loyal base.” 

Zalora’s drive to innovate is paired with the responsibility to safeguard the millions of customers it serves as well as their personal data. The company is committed to using AI and TITAN in a responsible way, having developed a series of principles to guide responsible innovation, and implementing several measures to protect customers’ data. 

Meanwhile, Sumit Jain, Chief Technology Officer at Zalora, also shared, “ZALORA is excited to leverage the potential of OpenAI via TITAN, our AI platform, to reimagine eCommerce and create a truly ‘wow’ customer experience. The future of retail will be driven by technology innovation, and the extent to which we prioritise ensuring a safe and seamless experience for customers.” 

“By building on OpenAI technology through our proprietary platform, TITAN, we intend to lead Fashion E-commerce innovation in maintaining a safe and seamless experience for customers and taking the online shopping experience to the next level,” he added. 

Zalora’s introduction of TITAN, its proprietary integration of OpenAI technology into its platform, comes alongside a series of new tech advancements the company plans to roll out this year. This includes the development of their conversational shopping assistant and Warehouse Management System (WMS), both of which are still in the early phases of development. 

TITAN will also serve as a gateway for ZALORA and its parent company, Global Fashion Group, to scale new heights in Southeast Asia and replicate this technology across the Group’s different regions, including Latin America, Australia, and New Zealand.

Heily Hindrea, the head of B2B product at ZALORA Group, has been named one of the winners of ‘Empowered Women in Platforms’. The recognition initiative, Empowered Women Awards 2023, is MARKETECH APAC’s inaugural effort in recognising outstanding female leaders in the industry.

Heily has been with her current position since April 2022. She joined Zalora in 2018 where she first served as a senior product manager before being promoted to the role of principal product manager in 2019, then to her current role. Prior to joining Zalora, she also had stints working with companies such as MindValley and Proekspert.

How to continuously improve and escalate B2B offering–the ZALORA way

As a company that specialises in enabling e-commerce offerings for businesses, Zalora must maintain its B2B offering in order to support its journey as a well-recognised e-commerce enabler in Southeast Asia. And for Heily, it all boils down to how she–as the company’s prime leader in improving its B2B product offering–will be up to the task.

In her current role, she oversees the company’s e-commerce B2B product portfolio that ranges from the merchant portal to logistics, supply chain, and warehouse operations.

She also led a team that was responsible for enhancing Zalora’s in-house logistics and

operations systems to ensure seamless real-time order processing and fulfilment.

With these in mind, Heily has managed to have Zalora effectively reduce business costs by over SG$ 100,000, while at the same time enhancing its capability to process 95% of customer orders within one working day. Under her leadership, Zalora has also looked at actively scaling its same-day delivery capabilities, and is expecting it to be a significant driver of future growth for the company. This is especially with the fact that its marketplace account for 43% of its net merchandise value (NMV), and platform services make up 9% of its revenue.

In short, her contributions to developing Zalora’s B2B platform services have strengthened the company’s capabilities to deliver innovative breakthroughs in operations and logistics, to stay true to its ethos of making fashion accessible to all.

Building a leadership ethos out of diverse experiences and inclusive mentorship

Heily’s career dates back to when she first served at Proekspert AS, and was responsible for helping to relieve emotional strains and tensions amongst team members to help them better focus on delivering product outputs. This was already on top of her existing responsibilities on helping her team develop essential software for clients.

When she was promoted to the role of team lead at said company, she also built a self-operating and balanced team within a span of seven months – ensuring the team’s success by balancing its members’ internal competencies evenly. Her promotion in the company back then was in recognition of her leadership and expertise, where she was tasked to deliver creative solutions for customers.

She then moved on at Mindvalley, where she established several initiatives demonstrating her strategic thinking and problem-solving skills to help the development teams create more thoughtful and better solutions for customers, manage priorities and optimise internal processes.

By the time she moved on to Zalora, she eventually went on to coach other Product Managers on product refinement and best practices in working with Zalora’s development teams. She attributes her success today to her sheer determination and the trust and confidence that her mentors placed in her capabilities as a leader.

Moreover, Heily is widely recognised as a coach who motivates and nurtures her team so that they realise their full potential. As a strong believer of paying it forward in the workplace, Heily consciously imparts to her team the lessons she has learned throughout her career. She empowers team members to take ownership of their responsibilities and accomplish their goals – whether personal or professional.

On breaking ceilings through insightful thought leadership and inclusive insights

Recognising her position as a female leader in her field, Heily consciously makes it a point to

speak up and speak of her experiences by representing ZALORA whenever she gets the opportunity. In doing so, she hopes to inspire more ambitious women and serve as their role model, much like how others were and are for her.

One of those recent initiatives was she recently participated in a webinar where she shared her experience and advice for navigating and thriving in the e-commerce and tech industries. Moreover, her speech also inspired the attendees on how women can break the glass ceilings they often impose on themselves by shifting to a growth mindset and building a strong network and community of support.

Aside from Hindrea, check out who else made it to Empowered Women Awards 2023 Winners’ list. 

May Chin, the Head of Product – Growth, Experimentation and Analytics at ZALORA Group, has been named one of the winners of ‘Empowered Women in Platforms’. The recognition initiative, Empowered Women Awards 2023, is MARKETECH APAC’s inaugural effort in recognising outstanding female leaders in the industry.

Chin has been recently promoted to her new role in April this year after serving as a principal product manager for the company for over three years since February 2021. Prior to her Zalora stint, she served various marketing teams in companies such as Shoppr, Mindvalley, Lazada, iPrice, amongst others.

Pivoting company direction towards a culture of experimentation

With a wide array of experience across various startup companies in Southeast Asia, Chin’s expertise lies in product development from early-beta stages all the way to maturity. She brings with her a proven track record of strategically driving multimillion-user consumer products, apps, and platforms across the region.

Over at Zalora, she helms new product growth and experimentation, successfully building a new business unit from scratch in two years.

Some of those accomplishments include a yearly revenue uplift of SG$100 million that is directly attributed to various experiments. Moreover, her experimental cadence has ultimately overhauled the company’s approach to measuring success with impact measurement techniques and acting as AB testing evangelists, and successfully leading large-scale experimentation.

In terms of her leadership, she has been pivotal in setting the climate of innovation in the company by establishing a culture of experimentation that not only enhances creativity but increases revenue contribution and conversion rates.

In short, this reputation as de facto lead of company-wide experiment democratisation steadily cultivates a culture of female leadership and excellence.

In angling Zalora as a globally-recognised brand through her leadership

In addition to her various business successes over at Zalora, May not only consistently achieved quarterly recurring revenue of over SG$715k through her experimental framework but also further positions the company on a global stage.

Under her leadership, May’s achievements with the team have been recognised at the prestigious International Experimentation Elite Awards 2022; and was the sole Asian-based company to win an award at the ceremony held in London.

Using her various experiences at previous companies, May has become well-versed in bringing new products to fruition and optimising them towards innovative success metrics, as well as the formation of a new growth business unit that oversees all experimentation and analytics initiatives. 

How to balance industry advocacy amidst corporate duties

Outside of the product experimentation space, May is an advocate of active mentorship where she consults up-and-coming product managers on how to shift into a tech career. She has shared that her mentees have all received successful tech job offers. 

In addition, she is an established mentor for the Girls in Tech Reverse mentoring program, held in collaboration with Nanyang Technological University. With a sharpened focus on empowering women in tech, the mentorship program pairs female students with seasoned mentors and coaches. 

As part of this dynamic program, May was partnered with an ambitious student and counselled her on refining an early start-up idea and propelling tech-enabled solutions to tackle UN sustainable development goals, with a spotlight on quality education.

Aside from Chin, check out who else made it to Empowered Women Awards 2023 Winners’ list. 

Manila, Philippines – ShopBack Philippines has recently concluded its first-ever Users’ Choice Awards event last 30 March at Fairmont Makati. The physical gathering was the culminating event of the rewards platform’s voting exercise which lasted for the whole month of March where users got to vote for their most favourite brands on the platform. 

In the in-person event, more than 100 merchant partners and media attended the night filled with fruitful discussions and celebrations. Awards granted included the Trendsetters’ Choice, Smart Shoppers’ Choice, Foodies’ Choice, and Mommie’s Choice, amongst many others.

 Prashant Kala, the GM of ShopBack Ads APAC and acting country manager for the PH market.

More than 200,000 votes were garnered during the campaign period and winners were determined based on the number of votes received, the number of users who visited the merchant online via the ShopBack app, and the number of bookmarks via the Watchlist feature.

Here were the full list of winners: 

  • Smart Shoppers’ Choice (Marketplaces category): Lazada
  • Trendsetters’ Choice (Fashion category): Zalora
  • Foodies’ Choice (Food and Grocery category): Foodpanda 
  • Mommie’s Choice (Mom and Baby category): Edamama 
  • Revenge Travelers’s Choice (Travel category): Agoda 
  • Glow Getters’ Choice (Health and Beauty category): Shopee
  • Fitness Junkies’ Choice (Sports and Fitness category): Nike
  • Tech Savvy’s Choice (Tech category): Samsung
  • Supefans’ Choice (Brand loyalists category): Adidas 
  • Top New Merchant: SHEIN
  • Brand Trailblazer Special Award: Lazada
  • Local Groundbreaker Special Award: Edamama and Metromart 

ShopBack opened the in-person event with a look back at 2022. Timothy Tuason, commercial director for ShopBack Philippines, emphasised the high conversion data in the platform which pushed for tangible business results for its merchant partners. 

The brand also teased what’s to come this 2023 and the highlights included were optimisations on its newly launched search ads and livestream features, an upcoming podcast series, and its 8th birthday celebration this June. 

Nishant D’Souza, Edamama Co-Founder, then provided a keynote presentation on the topic of how to make a flourishing Filipino start-up, sharing Edamama’s journey to becoming one of the top shopping apps in the country. 

ShopBack also invited other merchant partners for a fireside chat to talk about the synergy of growth and profitability. The discussions touched on the need to constantly adjust strategies in the ever-changing macro environment. The speaker line-up included:

  • Ricardo Ortuoste – Head of User Growth, Lazada Philippines
  • Amer Bakshi – Head of Strategic Partnerships, Foodpanda Philippines
  • Cris Tan – Marketing Director, Zalora Philippines
  • Nathalie Salcedo – Growth Lead, Metromart Philippines

“We are happy to spend this night with our esteemed partners as a way to show our gratitude for a great 2022. More exciting things are coming ahead this 2023 and looking forward to strengthening our partnerships with all of you,” Tuason shared. 

Last 17 March, ShopBack Philippines also launched yet another media gathering to mark the start of the summer season. In partnership with Zalora, the platform kicked off the season with ‘Summer Playground’, a lifestyle event that gathered KOLs and media as well as the platform’s key partners.

Philippines – ShopBack, the shopping and rewards platform, has kicked off the summer season in the Philippines with ‘Summer Playground’, a lifestyle event that gathered KOLs, media, and key partners last 17 March.

The event was done in partnership with fashion e-commerce platform Zalora and supported by travel platform Klook and digital bank Maya. People at home didn’t miss out on the fun as they got to tune in to the event, live, through the ShopBack app and its Facebook page. 

In-person attendees bagged prizes from brand partners such as vouchers from Zalora and Klook as well as savings top-ups from Maya. The event coincided with Zalora’s 11th birthday which was celebrated from 17 March to 31 March. 

ShopBack has been ramping up its engagement with users through the launch of different in-person and digital initiatives. Just recently, it mounted its first-ever Users’ Choice Awards in the Philippines, which gave users the opportunity to vote for their top favourite brands across all product categories in the platform. The voting exercise will then be concluded with an awards ceremony for merchant winners on 30 March.

Meanwhile, last September, the global platform of ShopBack also brought back ShopFest 2022, its shopping festival with the latest one dubbed as the largest iteration yet. The said ShopFest 2022 ran for four months from September and covered the biggest year-end sale events for 2022 – 9.9, 10.10, 11.11, Black Friday-Cyber Monday (BFCM) and 12.12. The event covered all of its 10 markets.

Singapore – Shopping and rewards platform ShopBack has appointed Alessio Romeni as managing director of commercial for the Group. Based in the ShopBack Group headquarters in Singapore, Romeni will be responsible for spearheading merchant-solutions, revenue-generation, and pricing initiatives in the Group’s Online Affiliates space regionally. 

Romeni brings with him a highly successful track record in driving high-growth organisations. In his previous role as chief revenue officer at Asia’s leading online fashion and lifestyle destination ZALORA Group, he led the launch and scaling of the regional revenue function, and was pivotal in leading key priorities across revenue-related functions, increasing regional sales performance, and contributing significantly to customer satisfaction and retention.

In his latest tenure at ZALORA Group, Romeni took on the role of GM for Special Projects in ZALORA’s parent organisation, Frankfurt Stock Exchange-listed Global Fashion Group.

“Alessio’s track record speaks for itself. With ZALORA, he has spent many years helping thousands of brands to scale in the APAC region. I’m confident his experience and expertise will help us to create better solutions for our partnering brands, allowing them to tap on ShopBack’s ecosystem to scale to greater heights,” said Joel Leong, Co-founder of the ShopBack Group.

Romeni’s appointment comes hot on the heels of the ShopBack Group’s launch of new Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) payment option ShopBack PayLater, coupled with its first global brand refresh across its 10 markets in the Asia-Pacific earlier this year.

“I have been following ShopBack since its inception in 2014, both as a customer and as a passionate builder of teams in the digital space. What Henry, Joel, Candice, and the rest of the team have achieved is special – definitely unique in this part of the world. Analytical curiosity, quick iteration, constructive feedback, and authenticity are some of the values that resonate the most with me, and the best part is that you don’t find them only in the HR manual, but in daily interaction with any team member,” said Romeni. 

He added, “The vision of bringing together different business models into a unified experience paired with unmatched execution skills will open untapped markets and potential. Joining was a very easy decision.”

In 2022 alone, the Group has appointed ex-Slack VP of Engineering San Wai Oo as chief technology officer, ex-Zip executive Hamish Moline as managing director for financial services and ex-Fave executive Aik-Phong Ng as managing director for in-Store and payments.

Jakarta, Indonesia – Southeast Asia’s e-commerce merchant services technology platform, Ginee, has partnered with fashion e-retailer ZALORA to help merchants drive traffic and maximise revenue on their product-level pages on Ginee. This collaboration is part of Ginee’s mission to integrate with multiple marketplaces and e-commerce platforms to help businesses grow sales and manage their stores efficiently.

Ginee provides a SaaS Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platform to help online sellers easily manage day-to-day operations and customer relationship management via multiple marketplaces, as well as offering warehouse management services (WMS).

Meanwhile, ZALORA is an e-commerce platform focused on fashion, beauty and lifestyle, carrying products from over 3,000 international and local brands. It has established a presence throughout the region, particularly in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

Sely Adelina, brand acquisition associate manager at ZALORA, noted that their easy API integration with Ginee will accelerate digitalisation and e-commerce growth in Indonesia and across SEA, especially post-pandemic. 

“As a leading fashion and lifestyle e-commerce pioneer in the region, we’re excited to help online sellers on Ginee tap into this growing pool of digital, mobile-first shoppers who are looking to buy not just daily necessities but also online fashion, beauty and lifestyle products,” she said.

Meanwhile, Evelyin Wu, Ginee’s head of SEA, commented they are very excited about this partnership with ZALORA, the leading fashion e-commerce pioneer in this region. 

“Through our integration with ZALORA, we enable thousands of online sellers on our Ginee ERP (Enterprise Resource Platform) platform to run and manage their business easily and efficiently through a single platform, from CRM and order/inventory management to sales reports and accounting and even to warehouse management and last-mile delivery,” said Wu.

Just recently, Ginee has also partnered with TikTok Shop to provide a new online shopping experience for brands and merchants to reach their consumers through TikTok Shop, an exclusive and innovative marketplace where entertainment meets commerce that is fully integrated into TikTok, bringing together online sellers, buyers, and creators.

Singapore – Fashion e-retailer ZALORA has tapped digital experience platform company Optimizely to improve the user experience of their platform for their consumers in Southeast Asia. The agreement between ZALORA and Optimizely, signed in December 2021, will cover most ASEAN countries including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Brunei, Hong Kong and Taiwan. 

Through the partnership, ZALORA will be using Optimizely’s Experimentation Platform which facilitates targeted and personalised Web A/B testing that delivers results to enable businesses to make informed product decisions.

According to Liam Hutchinson, group director of product at ZALORA, they want to scale and democratise experimentation, enabling their entire team to explore and trial new ideas. He also added that with their mission to become a fashion and lifestyle super app for Southeast Asia, they need to deliver a more customer-centric experience, to which Optimizely’s platform will be a key enabler of.

“With Optimizely’s technology, we will be more impact-focused and empowered to make better product decisions on behalf of our customers thanks to experimentation and clearer impact measurement. Optimizely’s experimentation platform enables our teams to sharpen their decision-making skills, generate more quantitative insights at scale, and deliver a delightful customer experience,” Hutchinson said.

Meanwhile, Alex Atzberger, CEO at Optimizely, commented that with their dedicated teams throughout the region to offer a high level of expertise and support to all of their customers there, it is great to see notable brands such as ZALORA wanting to work with them.

“This is definitely a boost to our expansion efforts in the region and a recognition of Optimizely’s exceptional Experimentation Platform that can empower businesses in the region to make informed product decisions with accurate customer analysis. We will continue to establish our footprint in Southeast Asia and support businesses with our cutting-edge solution,” he said.

Hutchinson also added that with their partnership with Optimizely, they are further cementing their position as a regional fashion and lifestyle e-commerce leader to deliver more relevant, dynamic and personalised shopping experiences for their customers.

“We want to expand our ecosystem to provide other value-adding services with more content and engagement with new product portfolios and features. Personalisation and segmentation will continue to be our priorities with loyalty and customer retention as key focus areas. Optimizely will be a part of this exciting journey in measuring our success and helping us to drive an exceptional user journey in the region in the present and the near future,” Hutchinson concluded.

Singapore – ZALORA, Asian e-commerce fashion brand, announced its partnership with Google to launch Google Ads with ZALORA, a marketing solution that provides brands with a simpler way to drive online sales and performance.

Google Ads with ZALORA will help in the brand growth of businesses by providing sophisticated campaign support connecting them with customers while delivering tools that measure and optimize marketing campaigns.

Tejas Kirodiwal, head of growth at ZALORA, commented on the collaboration, saying that this partnership with Google aligns with ZALORA’s commitment to driving the growth of Asia’s e-commerce industry as it aims to boost brand promotion and success in a competitive online retail landscape.

“As e-commerce becomes increasingly important, Google Ads with ZALORA will work in conjunction with our in-depth industry expertise and other platform service offerings, such as retail intelligence and analytics solution TRENDER, a Data by GFG product, to run targeted and data-driven campaigns that meet business objectives,” Kirodiwal said.

The partnership comes after a string of successful pilot tests conducted during the second half of 2021. 

According to ZALORA, global fashion brand H&M ran shopping campaigns over a 7-week period within Malaysia and showed that Google Ads with ZALORA was effective in driving greater discoverability and traffic for H&M products on ZALORA’s e-commerce site, resulting in a strong return on advertising spend of 6.1x.

Jerome Hamlin, head of industry E-Commerce at Google, commented on the partnership, saying, “This extends on the ongoing efforts between Google and ZALORA to drive digitalisation in businesses. Southeast Asia is entering its ‘digital decade’ with the internet playing an integral part in people’s everyday lives. We’re excited to launch Google Ads with ZALORA to help accelerate e-commerce growth across the region and support brands to tap into the growing pool of digital shoppers.”

This January, ZALORA Malaysia announced their collaboration with conversational AI company Bray Leino Splash to enhance the customer experience of their Community Influencer Program.

Singapore — The Malaysian arm of e-commerce platform ZALORA has tapped digital marketing agency Bray Leino Splash to revamp the user experience of its Community Influencer Program, a reward system for influencers and customers.

ZALORA’s Community Influencer Program encourages influencers and ZALORA customers to endorse and earn via their social media platforms, rewarding them a commission on sales.  Bray Leino Splash was tasked to improve the user experience design of the site and make it easier for interested customers to sign up.

Efrain Lopez, executive creative director at Bray Leino Splash, commented on the steps the agency took, saying that they identified the previous version of the site did not succinctly communicate the USPs of the program hence customers found it harder to sign up right away.

“To this end, we stripped down the design of the site and put up the USPs upfront, & also created a straightforward FAQ section. This was fronted by a neat calculator tool to allow interested customers to calculate how much revenue they could earn simply by keying in the number of followers they had without the need to fill in a web-form,” Lopez said.

According to Zalora, its sign-ups garnered a 150% Increase after the UX revamp. Leonard Chang, regional affiliate marketing lead at ZALORA Malaysia, commented on the optimization of the program.

Chang said, “We have strong confidence in the new look of the program which has now recorded a 150% increase in the sign-up rate and a 90% increase in time spent on the site. This is the first key milestone and we hope to achieve a much better user experience through continuous optimization moving forward.”

Last October, ZALORA Philippines in partnership with Rizal Commercial Banking Corp launched its fashion and lifestyle credit card.