Lazada charters flights to speed up delivery

Lazada is going to great lengths to deliver delight to Filipino shoppers this holiday season as the eCommerce leader in the Philippines, for the first-time ever, chartered flights to deliver overseas purchases largely from the record-breaking year-end shopping festival.

In an industry-first, two flights from Hong Kong were chartered this month to expedite the delivery of up to 200 tons of parcels bought through Lazada’s online marketplace during the 12.12 Grand YearEnd Sale.

The first chartered flight, a cargo plane operated by Emirates, arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport on December 18. The other flight is scheduled for December 21.

“We are marking another milestone not only for Lazada but also for the country’s e-commerce industry,” said Juan Pavez, Lazada Philippines’ CEO for operations/logistics. “This is just one of the many ways we are ready to take to deliver on our promise of a seamless shopping experience.”

The chartered flights carried purchases from Lazada’s Taobao Collection and overseas merchants. Launched in the Philippines a year ago, Taobao Collection offers curated items offered on Alibaba’s marketplace, which was previously unavailable to Filipino shoppers.

Through our cross-border operations, we can give Filipino shoppers more product choices and make items accessible at their fingertips,” Mr. Pavez said. “The chartered flights, meanwhile, allow for the shipment of large volumes of parcels at once and, thus, enable Lazada to deploy them for last-mile delivery at the shortest time possible.”

Across Southeast Asia, Lazada was able to deliver more than 1 million parcels in a day for the first time ever, as it drew a whopping 1.3 billion visits to its platforms during the 11.11 and 12.12 shopping festivals.

The buying frenzy, which started from the one-day sale last November 11 continued into December. After crushing the region’s 11.11 online sales records, all six countries, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, outperformed expectations.

During 12.12, Lazada Philippines rang up sales tally that was more than 20x its normal-day Gross Merchandise Value.

Shoppers took advantage of more than 55 million deals and exclusive discounts spread across three themed days; Bestsellers of 2018 (December 10, 2018), Holiday Shopping Finale (December 11, 2018) and Lazada’s Top Picks (December 12, 2018). In enhancing the Lazada shopping experience, shoppers were also treated to specially curated daily shopping themes.