By Leslie Gatpolintan (PNA)
MANILA — The local unit of e-commerce site Lazada is looking into the construction of additional logistics facilities to expand its footprint in the country, bullish about the ‘exponential growth’ prospects of the Philippine e-commerce market over the next five years.
“We will open more facilities in the next three to five years starting by this fifth-generation warehouse in Clark (Pampanga),” Lazada Philippines chief executive officer Juan Pavez Spencer told reporters Sunday on the sidelines of media tour of its warehouse in Cabuyao, Laguna, Lazada’s biggest e-commerce facility for Southeast Asia.
Pavez said the company also has short-tail warehouses in Cebu and Davao catering the volume of orders and deliveries in different regions.
“And we are planning to (also) open one in Central Luzon, in North Luzon, in North Mindanao and in some other populated islands of Visayas. We have plans to actually triple our fulfillment capabilities that we have in the next three to five years,” he added.
Pavez pointed out that Lazada is gearing up for continued growth amid the local boom in e-commerce.
“It’s very exciting because you always double every year, so you can expect the growth to be exponential. In the next two to three years, our forecast that the e-commerce in the Philippines will hit 1.5 percent of the retail but will even grow up to 6 to 7 percent in the next three to five years, which is huge,” he said.
In the Philippines, Pavez said Lazada has over 28 million monthly site visits, of which 23 million are active users.
The e-commerce site offers a range of products in categories from beauty, fashion, and consumer electronics to household goods, toys, sports equipment and groceries.
Lazada has about 30,000 listed sellers offering over 80 million products in the Philippines.
“We are very proud of this because this is a way to develop the local economy. We also try to emphasize the SMEs (small and medium enterprises) to give them access to this online business. We have a lot of small sellers that are doing very well in the platform,” he added.
Majority owned by Alibaba Group Holding Limited, Lazada Group has also presence in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
