Question

Using the marketing mix “Place” and “Promotion”, explain how Lazada and Shopee changes the retailing industry.   

Answer 1

Marketing Mix: The marketing mix refers to the set of marketing tools that help an organization to promote its product in the market. Each marketing tool combines together and finds out the target market for its product and service and helps in promoting and selling a particular product or service to potential customers. Different elements of the marketing mix work together to make a successful marketing plan. The 4 elements of the marketing mix are known as 4P of marketing that are Product, Price, Placement, and Promotion.

Place or Placement: Placement is one of the important elements of the marketing mix. It helps the marketing manager to put the right product at the right place at the right time. The place is basically a distribution channel that is different for different kinds of products. The product should be in reach of the customer so that he can buy at the time of need. Place includes different distribution channels, websites, availability in the local market, other locations, and delivery of the product on time.

Promotion: Promotion helps marketing managers to create awareness about a product or service. Promotion is very important for a marketing plan as, without promotion, the prospective customer will not aware of the product, there are so many ways to promote a product or service such as advertisement, social medial ads, branding, content marketing, Public relation, etc. Promotion is basically communicating the value and benefits of the product to the customer.

Lazada and Shopee are two e-commerce platforms in Southeast Asia and most downloaded apps in Southeast Asia. These two-commerce platforms are gaining popularity and help sellers to use their marketplace to reach out to more customers and increase their revenue and profitability. These platforms have various varieties of products on their platform.

Lazada ranks 1st in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, and the Philippines. Shopee ranked 1st in Indonesia and Vietnam.

These two websites and apps have huge traffic and highest monthly active users who visit these platforms to buy products from different varieties and at discounted prices.

Lazada and Shoppe have a different business model that is explained in below points,

Lazada uses retail and marketplace models, where it able to sell online and offline. Lazada has its own retail stores and sells products from these offline stores. In marketplace model sellers can list their inventory on its platform and customers can order online from the Lazada online platform. Lazada helps in delivering the product from seller to buyer.

On the other side, Shopee is using only a marketplace model where customers can order products through their online store.

Place: Both the platforms use discounted prices for the listed products as they have direct connections with manufacturers or sellers so the sellers can give the best prices to the customers as they are able to remove middleman between sellers and buyers. Lazada and Shoppe have fast delivery options or same-day delivery options for some of the parts in these countries.

Both the platform has its own websites and apps to show different products to the consumers with a unique user interface that helps consumers to find out the product as per their needs. Consumers can compare products from different sellers in terms of quality, quantity, and price. It has changed the way consumer shops by sitting at their home. Other facilities provided by these platforms are online payment, Return or exchange, Help center in case of any issue with the order.

Both the platform have strong shipping and logistics services that help the customer in fast and reliable shipping experience for their purchase.

Promotion: Lazada and Shoppe both platforms are the most popular and most downloaded apps in these countries. Both the platforms are using promotional activities properly to attract more customers to their platforms. Lazada and Shopee are attracting more social media influencers to improve online shopping attractions, for example, social media influencers are helping customers to choose the best products to fulfill their needs by showing them unboxing videos, suggesting better products as per their own uses, better reviews, etc.

Both the platform is using big festival sales and discounted sales for the customers. They are using different types of promotions and great deals to attract more customers and both of them have become successful in this stage.

Other ways that these companies are using for their promotional activities are discount coupons, cashback, vouchers, referral programs that are helping customers to buy more online, which will be helpful in attracting more customers in the future to buy on online platforms.

Lazada and Shopee have huge product varieties with more product categories on their platforms. Customers can buy anything on these platforms and no need to go out and search for multiple products in the local market. This helps customers to save their valuable time and money while shopping online.  

Lazada and Shopee are major online shopping platform with huge customer acquisitions. Both the platform have used marketing mix in a proper way, they have benefited with more customers are visiting their platform every day and they have changed the traditional retail industry by giving another alternative of shopping that is online shopping. By using marketing mix elements, both the platform is able to change the consumer perception towards online shopping by providing better shopping experiences, better quality products at a discounted price and better after-sale service. Now customers feel safe in buying online.