Lazada Philippines shapes up on heels of complaints 

On the heels of complaints regarding fake products, delayed deliveries and unauthorized reselling, online retailer Lazada Philippines is beefing up its customer service and sales process.

 

“Customer relations is extremely important to us for Lazada to be sustainable,” Inanc Balci, Lazada Philippines CEO said in a phone interview on Wednesday.

 

The company has imposed stricter measures on shipment deliveries, with a special team assigned to make sure that the orders are delivered properly and on time.

 

It has also created inspection service to make sure that its products are authentic and of quality when an online buyer receives an order.

 

“If the item is not new or not authentic then we give a full refund. It is extremely important for us to improve our service level significantly. It’s going up again,” Balci said.

 

This comes on the heels of complaints by Etude House, the Korean makeup brand, saying it has not allowed Lazada to sell any of its product. Lazada has since stopped selling Etude House products in the Philippines. 

 

“We won’t comment on the ongoing legal proceedings, but our position is that we continue to oblige all of our merchants to continually assess compliance,” Balci said.

 

“Customers are encouraged to contact us in case of any concerns about authenticity. We have a zero tolerance policy for this in all of our markets. We have already investigated and removed the merchants (selling the Etude House products),” he added.

 

The products have been removed from the online shopping site some three weeks ago, he noted.

 

'Less stressful'

 

Balci said the incident may have happened, because Lazada allows merchants to sell their own products through the site.

 

“We have committed to traffic only BIR-registered companies as we have a 100-percent buyer protection policy,” he said. 

 

He said Lazada processed millions of orders last year.

 

One of last year's customers is blogger Kimberley Reyes of momonduty.com. Her orders of cutlery and Shake N Take blender arrived after 42 days, she said in response to an email query on Wednesday.

 

Last month, Reyes placed orders for a doormat and a door hanger. She noted that her “second experience with Lazada Philippines is much less stressful than the first time.” The items arrived in five days.

 

On November 11, the e-commerce site is holding an online sale and expects around 2 million visitors on its site.

 

“This year we have 200,000 special deals, the highest number of deals ever,” Balci said.

 

'500 orders a minute'

 

The company is set to have P11 deals for items normally selling for P200 to P1,000 and P99 deals for items usually priced at P300 to over P1,000. Some items will also be given discounts of up to 95 percent.

 

“We did it last year and it was very successful, 500 orders per minute at the peak. We are very excited about that,” Balci said.

 

Early this year, the online retailer has removed from its website items that contain banned substances and gave customers who earlier bought slimming and skin-whitening products a full refund.

 

"Following the report that a few products listed on Lazada.com.ph contain banned substances, Lazada has since removed the products and is issuing a full refund to affected customers," the company said.

 

EcoWaste Coalition noted the products banned by the Philippine Food and Drug Administration were being sold online.

 

In November 2014, the Southeast Asian e-commerce company founded by Germany's Rocket Internet has raised 200 million euros ($250 million) in a new funding round led by Singapore investment company Temasek. – VS, GMA News