E-commerce partnerships can bring great value to offline retail giants. Source: Shutterstock

E-commerce partnerships can bring great value to offline retail giants. Source: Shutterstock

Interview: Why Senheng partnered with Lazada to boost online sales

RETAIL giants tend to have a certain set of capabilities in terms of understanding and delighting customers and providing them with the right deals.

When competing with e-commerce giants, many seem to struggle to take their strengths and use them in the digital ecosystem, understanding, marketing, and building relationships with customers through data.

It’s why partnerships between retail and e-commerce leaders helps with sales growth.

While plenty of such partnerships already exist, Senheng just took the plunge and signed a memorandum of understanding with Lazada to help take its electronic goods business to new highs in the digital space.

To understand Senheng’s motivations and journey thus far to Lazada’s platform, Tech Wire Asia interviewed Senheng Malaysia Managing Director Lim Kim Heng.

“We see Lazada as the right e-commerce partner to spearhead the next chapter in Senheng’s expansion, as the platform complements our new retail strategy.

“With Lazada’s technology, we are able to extend our key value propositions and offer customers the ease of store pick following purchase on Lazada. Via this, we are empowering customers to really shop anytime, anywhere!”

Heng is excited to partner with Lazada because it allows him to focus on his customers and his business — that’s how the company has built itself into the 100-odd store giant it is today.

“Prior to engaging with Lazada, Senheng has its own Brand Commerce platform.

“However, in a brand commerce setup, there are more than just commercial challenges, and this trickles down to various challenges across technology, payments, and development.

“Our partnership with Lazada helps reduce such concerns and enables us to focus more on the importance of scaling up the commercial aspect of the business, which benefits both our online and offline channels.”

According to the Managing Director, the partnership is important to Senheng because it is aligned with the retailer’s vision to deliver better customer experiences seamlessly across multiple channels.

Heng believes that as a result of working with Lazada, it will be able to avoid getting tied into the complexities and use technology to focus on sales growth and delighting customers.

Truth be told, Senheng’s move to Lazada wasn’t the smoothest. Heng admits that there were hiccups on the journey and said that there was a steep learning curve for his team.

However, given previous experience with retailers like Senheng, Lazada has created plenty of tools and resources to make onboarding easier — which Heng said his team really appreciated.

“We experienced a steep learning curve here understanding e-commerce in an enhanced way. However, with Lazada’s guidance, comprehensive seller tools, and insights, we were able to adapt our business strategies and implement them quickly for our audience on the platform.”

Lazada Malaysia CEO Leo Chow is also excited about the partnership with Senheng — it’s another feather in the e-commerce giant’s cap, building its platform and delighting customers with a wide range of offers from trusted sellers.

It’s why the company has devoted considerable time and energy to continually craft new programs to assist sellers new and old, large and small, and works to ensure they thrive on the platform.

“Lazada remains steadfast in its mission to empower businesses by upskilling them with the necessary knowledge, skills, and tools to excel and stand out in the competitive landscape,” Chow told Tech Wire Asia.

Earlier this year, Lazada rolled out a package of solutions focused on branding, marketing, and sales, to directly address the pain points of brands and sellers, and transform them into “Super eBusinesses”.

As more consumers go mobile-first, choose cashless payments over traditional methods, and shop online, retailers and brands need to find e-commerce platforms to partner with in order to extend their reach.

What Senheng aims to achieve through its partnership with Lazada is something that more retailers and brands should explore proactively.

Doing so will not only help traditional retailers gain a strong foothold in this digital-first marketplace but also ensure that they are able to focus on what got them to winning customer’s hearts in the first place, leaving technology concerns like the ones Heng mentioned to the platform provider.