E-COMMERCE company Lazada Philippines has been adding three times more sellers daily into its platform during the lockdown compared to with the preceding months.
Lazada Philippines Chief Executive Officer Ray Alimurung said that the company welcomes thousands of new sellers a day, many of them small businesses.
“In July, we are onboarding three times what we were onboarding in February. So now hindi na tayo hundreds — we are actually in thousands everyday,” he said in a webinar organized by the Trade department on Friday.
Lazada added more than 500 brands into its online shopping mall for branded products LazMall during the lockdown, or between March and July.
The company early in the lockdown focused its selling on essential products, and found that sale of the products increased by 15 times.
There has been a spike in consumer complaints on online transactions during the lockdown, the Department of Trade and Industry reported.
The department received 9,044 complaints about online transactions in the five months to May, compared with 2,457 complaints in the same period last year. Around 8,000 of the complaints this year came in between April and May.
From the total number of complaints, 30.81% were against Lazada and Shopee, lower than its previous tally of 45%.
Mr. Alimurung in June said that sellers and online platforms should share liability risks to deter scams, saying that removing responsibility from the seller would encourage scammers. He said that inspecting all goods sold on the platform would raise Lazada’s operating costs.
He said in the webinar that if a seller is unresponsive to complaints on the website, consumers may raise their concerns to the Lazada customer care chat. The company uses artificial intelligence tools to assess possible “erring behavior.” — Jenina P. Ibañez
