You can avoid massive crowd during SM Mall sale as Lazada takes it online

You can avoid massive crowd during SM Mall sale as Lazada takes it online

LAZADA, one of the Philippines’ largest online shopping platforms, recently announced that it is offering items from SM Malls’ 3-Day Sale on its webstore.

With Lazada’s announcement, online shoppers would be able to access discounted items from one of SM Malls’ biggest promotional events of the year, minus the inconveniences commonly associated with the nationwide event.

Over the past few years, SM’s 3-Day Sale has been known not only for its huge discounts, but also for the headaches it causes shoppers.

After all, the 3-Day Sale attracts thousands of people, sometimes including residents of provinces located hours away from a participating mall. This results in massive overcrowding in shopping centers.

Apart from this, the influx of shoppers also causes significant problems with transportation, as cab drivers, tricycles, and the Philippines’ iconic jeepneys struggle to accommodate the throngs of people traveling to and from the participating SM Malls.

With this in mind, Lazada’s recent partnership with SM carries quite a lot of potential. In a statement to ABS-CBN News, Lazada CEO Inanc Balci stated that the collaboration with the shopping center chain is proof that physical and online retailers could coexist harmoniously.

Balci asserted that an extended online presence would grant offline retailers in the Philippines a larger market to sell their products.

“We do not compete with shopping malls. Shopping is an entertainment, cultural activity,” he said to ABS-CBN News.

“It’s actually very nice to go to these air-conditioned places. I don’t think shopping malls will be impacted by e-commerce,”

Over the years, Lazada has proven itself to be one of the Philippines’ most progressive online shopping platforms, with a simple sign-up process and reasonable commission rates. This has encouraged many Filipino small business owners to embrace Lazada as their partner of choice when marketing and selling their products online.

Overall, Lazada and SM Malls’ latest collaboration bodes well for local merchants in the Philippines. With Lazada steadily expanding its reach while collaborating with physical shopping centers, the time might soon come when small business owners in the Philippines could market their goods not only online, but in physical malls as well.

Lazada’s parent company, Alibaba, is already doing this, with the e-commerce giant currently building its own physical mall where it would sell many of its online merchants’ products. American premier e-commerce firm Amazon is adopting a similar strategy, opening physical stores to correspond to its massive online presence.

If Lazada maintains its rather progressive stance, Filipino merchants in the online platform might soon be able to transition their businesses to physical stores. And that, for many Filipino business owners, is definitely good news.