Thương mại điện tử, lợi thế cạnh tranh, singapore, quản trị doanh nghiệp Analysis of ecommerce strategies to achieve Lazadas success: The competitive advantage of Lazada compared to rivals in Singapore
Analysis of e-commerce strategies to achieve Lazada's success: The competitive advantage of Lazada compared to rivals in Singapore Abstract E-commerce is now one of the business strategies to help businesses expand their business and it has become the main business model of businesses operating on internet platforms The presence of e-commerce not only helps businesses to reach a broader consumer market and boost sales but also as a sustainable competitive strategy for businesses The research highlighted the importance of E-commerce strategy as the way to support the business to gain the competitive advantage To be specific, Lazada was the research target which is the evidence of the success by utilizing the advantages of E – commerce Lazada is owned by Alibaba and was established in Singapore since 2012 It is obvious that with the outstanding technology development of Singapore, it has created the advantage for Lazada to boost its own e – commerce strategy as nowadays The different operating method and business orientation mainly focus on B2C to help businesses to have a strong and independent foothold in the market However, with the rapid development of technology, competitors of Lazada such as Shopee, Qoo10, and Zalora, etc., Singapore market becomes a competitive threat to businesses Hence, it is the need for this research paper to examine the e-commerce strategies that Lazada is utilizing, by analyzing macro-environmental factors, analyzing competitors, and analyzing customer feedback services and products of the enterprise to see the correlation between the e-commerce strategies and the sustainable competitiveness of enterprises in the market Acknowledgements Firstly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my dissertation supervisor Dr Uma Rani for the full support and helped to guide my research in the right direction, make the most of the research objectives in the utmost effective way I would not be able to complete the research without her insightful comments and encouragement I would also like to thank the 109 random customers for their enthusiastic participation and contribution to the successful research survey Besides that, I am grateful to my classmates for taking the time to help me read the research paper and make suggestions for more complete content Your opinions help me expand my knowledge and have a different perspective on my research problem Last but not the least, I must express my very profound gratitude to my dear family that has always been there and encouraged me to complete my research The deepest thanks to all Table of Contents Figures, Chart & Table List of Appendices CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Title Analysis of e-commerce strategies to achieve Lazada's success: The competitive advantage of Lazada compared to rivals in Singapore 1.2 Background of the research Since the time of internet 4.0 has arrived, the development of e-commerce became one of the most important strategies which has impacted business performance (Brzozowska & Bubel, 2015) The research would like to find out how does the e-commerce strategy supports the competitive advantage of the business and thus, concentrate on the advantages that Lazada has to acquire in order to be different from its rivals in the Singapore market As era of information technology is continuously advancing, the spread of the internet and in combination with the trend of consumers changing their shopping habits have a great influence on numerous areas, in which, it impacted e-commerce the greatest (Katawetawaraks & Wang, 2011) It can be said that in today’s time, the world of ecommerce is growing faster than ever, to an extent that it has become an integral part of the operation in every business E-commerce is defined as a way to buy and sell products or services through electronic pathways like the internet (Rivera, 2018) Enabling customers to buy and sell products on a global scale, any hour of the day and have a supreme shopping experience which traditional physical stores cannot achieve (Brianna, 2015) E-commerce is breaking conventional edges for greater globalization growth into an essential part of the business, bringing gadgets for both online purchasers and retailers (Bloomenthai, 2019) According to Statista, by 2015, e-commerce reckoned for 7.4% of worldwide retail sales, the number increased to 14.1% and had $ 3.5 billion in sales in 2019, with such growth, ecommerce shows a potential market, full of attraction to companies (Statista, 2019) Therefore, there is an increasing number of participants being part of the e-commerce world to get a share of the $ 23,445 trillion stakes worldwide, creating a competitive and complicated market (Moore, 2019) Rivals are not only competing with e-commerce brands, but they are also competing for a spot in the big market which is already being saturated In order ensure that the business path is on the right track, achieving more goals and more specifically, increase the profits earned, the company needs to be equipped with an efficient e-commerce solution In particular, Lazada is one of the online stores that has successfully achieved the requirements of the market and became the pioneer group that runs online ecommerce purchasing and retailing place in Southeast Asia since 2012 Singapore-based ecommerce firm Lazada has built itself as one of the top well-known e-commerce platforms in the region with great success and now provides a great variety of goods from consumer electronics to household products and fashion (Mishra, 2019.) By 2016, Lazada is supported by Alibaba, an e-commerce giant (Mcclay, 2020) Currently, Lazada is using Alibaba's technology to enhance its platform, giving it an easy and direct access to 550 million customers via a single retail passage (International Finance, 2019) Therefore, the purpose of this research is to analyze the different effective strategies, which brings Lazada's success and compare Lazada's competitive advantages to other companies in the e-commerce market of Singapore Singapore has a sophisticated e-commerce market with numerous foreign players at the forefront with local companies continuously investing in Singapore’s extremely lucrative, competitive Singapore e-commerce market, allowing Singapore to create a market wich makes investors and Lazada’s competitors to scramble for a foothold (Müller, 2020) 1.3 Research introduction The paper focused on researching and analyzing the e-commerce strategies that Lazada is applying to gain competitive advantage over other competitors in the Singapore market With the above research content, the paper was divided into main sections consisting of the following contents: The current section gave an overview of the research content, the reasons for the research topic, the questions and the research objectives as well as the division of the main content in the article The second part focuses on collecting and referencing to previous studies Theories and definitions of marketing and terms related to e-commerce were also be covered in this section Moreover, this research would retrieve the references from the studies which was about macro and micro-environment, the theory of competitive advantage and Porter's forces Part three involves the research strategies for building the content of research questions The more crucial part of this study is a survey with questions to target consumers in order to study their experience with Lazada The survey is the main strategy of this paper to tackle the topic statement which was brought up in this article After conducting the research process, the results of the survey combined with the reference sources in part two was analyzed in section four Section four focused on data analysis, the Cronbach’s Alpha value together, the macro factors and the forces affect the operation of Lazada With the analyzed data, hypothesizes were test to determine which hypotheses are suitable for the research topic Next, findings were presented to summarize the above analysis The findings were a valuable complement to the research topic to provide answers to research questions and further the research The following section covered the limitations that the researcher would face in the research process, implications for future research and conclusions for research 1.4 Research questions The research questions focus on the main issue of the research which is to solve the discussion about e-commerce strategy as a competitive advantage and a contribution to the success of Lazada What are the e-commerce strategies that Lazada are using? What are the e-commerce strategies that some selected rivals of Lazada are using? What are the environmental factors might affect the practice of e-commerce of Lazada? How does Lazada apply e-commerce strategies to become a success today? How Lazada apply e-commerce as a sustainable competitive advantage in the long term? 1.5 Research objectives The purpose of the research is to explain the function of e-commerce and its impact on the performance of the business which in this research will be Lazada To clarify the topic, the research objectives are given to structure the research smoother Identify the e-commerce strategies that Lazada is applying Identify selected rivals of Lazada and identify their e-commerce strategies Evaluate the environmental factors which affects the practice of e-commerce of Lazada Assess how Lazada take advantage of e-commerce strategies Discuss the impacts of e-commerce strategies on Lazada’s ability to sustain competitive advantage in the long run 1.6 Research hypothesizes Null Hypothesis: E-commerce strategies have a positive impact on the sustainable competitive advantage of Lazada Alternative Hypothesis: E-commerce strategies have a negative impact on the sustainable competitive advantage of Lazada 1.7 Summary The paper explores the content of marketing strategy, in particular the study of e-commerce with the case of Lazada The success and stable operation of Lazada over the years has created the need to study how e-commerce works so that businesses in the 4.0 era can create competitive advantages from this strategy The objective of this paper was focused on understanding the e-commerce strategies that businesses are applying to thereby exploit the strengths of e-commerce in maintaining the long-term competitive advantage of enterprises CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 E – Commerce definition E-commerce is a business model that allows businesses, organizations or individuals to conduct business via the internet, or more specifically, through electronic websites (Paris, et al., 2016; Rahman, 2018) The WTO defines e-commerce as a strategy that includes the process of manufacturing, distributing, marketing and selling, trading services by electronic means In the era of technology 4.0, the prevalence of e-commerce is no longer a strange term for consumers (Moon, et al., 2017) Consumers access e-commerce every day For example, they see ad boxes appearing in news sites they read, as part of an e-commerce marketing strategy Besides, when shoppers shop on websites like Lazada, Shopee, eBay, etc., they are engaged in e-commerce activities E-commerce allows customers to buy and sell online by connecting their internal and external data systems effectively and flexibly (Frederick, et al., 2018) Businesses that use ecommerce as part of their business can both distribute products themselves and be trading platforms that connect sellers and buyers to create a diverse and attractive product market, then to get more sources of customers (Vaithianathan, 2010) 2.2 Advantage and disadvantage of E – commerce Studies show that the emergence of e-commerce creates significant changes to the business operations of the business This change affects the processes and ways that businesses use to create profit and value (Richards & Li, 2018) The rapid expansion of e-commerce makes business transactions more efficient (Fauska, et al., 2013) At the same time, on the consumer side, the emergence of e-commerce creates easier access to the business Business through ecommerce is predicted a bright future that is the explosion of information technology be leverage for the stronger and smarter development of e-commerce (Altameem & Almakki, 2017) In general, large- and small-scale businesses have certain business opportunities from e-commerce They easily communicate and exchange with partners due to the flexibility in the integrated system of vehicles (Kaleka & Morgan, 2017) At the same time, businesses also gradually consider the presence of e-commerce as a tool to help businesses compete more effectively with competitors in the market E - commerce is also used by businesses as an effective business management tool such as managing for complex supply chains in large enterprises (Amin, et al., 2016; 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Table List of Appendices CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Title Analysis of e-commerce strategies to achieve Lazada' s success: The competitive advantage of Lazada compared to rivals in Singapore 1.2... addresses the tactics that Lazada uses to gain a competitive advantage over other competitors in the market Overall, Lazada has the advantage of investing in advertising strategies that incorporate