The failure of traditional retailers like US-based Sears signals the rise of e-commerce platforms and non-seller stores, which have been developed hugely across Southeast Asia by global e-commerce giant Alibaba Group. Alibaba is focusing on Southeast Asia After pouring $2 billion into Lazada early this year, Alibaba is planning to boost developing its chain of non-seller stores, which are the combination of physical and online stores in Southeast Asia, aiming to directly compete with its US-based opponent Amazon, according to James Dong, managing director of Lazada Thailand. Southeast Asia is Alibaba’s largest foreign market thanks to its presence in six countries via Lazada. Dong also affirmed that Southeast Asia plays an important role in its strategy to expand globally. In China, Alibaba has entered into co-operation with many local retail brands to develop the RT-Mart store chain featuring e-payment, on-demand delivery, and analysing consumer data. Dong also stated that Thailand will be the first foreign market carrying out the retail model. “Shopping behaviours and hobbies in Southeast Asia are quite similar to China. We believe that our strategies will be efficiency in the market,” Dong said. Lazada is running business in six Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Singapore. Before investing $2 billion into Lazada, Alibaba acquired 83 per cent of the e-commerce platform’s shares. By Van Anh
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