Zalora Malaysia

i. What is Zalora.com.my online proposition?
Zalora.com.my online propositions are as follows:

a) Price
Presently, Zalora Malaysia is the largest online fashion retailer in Malaysia that offers hundreds of local and international fashion brands ranging from the high-end local designers to mass-fashion labels. With many brands offered on the website, Zalora Malaysia is able to offer reasonable price for their products sold on the website to their customers as they focused more on local brands on their website. Other than that, Zalora.com.my provides attractive promotions where price of a product may be lower than the price in retail store and thus, gives great savings to customers.

b) Make Things Easier

Zalora.com.my is creating a hassle-free customer experience with products and services that are traditionally difficult to buy or use. Zalora.com.my brings together a wide range of brands from Malaysia and abroad into their website so that customers will not have to waste their time to search for the nearest stores or spend extra money to buy products. Zalora.com.my too provides several methods for payment services such as Paypal, credit and debit cards, direct debit and express courier service in shipping for customers allover in Malaysia. Moreover, Zalora.com.my provides a return policy service to customers who wish to return their purchases within 30 days of purchase and willing to refund customers balance as store credit without any penalty charged.

c) Product is Uniquely Better

Zalora.com.my conducts various interviews and market research on potential brands that will attract and sell successfully to customers because Zalora wants customers to consider these potential brands superior and unique to the competition on the Internet. For instance, Zalora.com.my is willing to take risk to bring in and sell local designer’s products for the reason that the fabrics used by the designers are good in quality with eye-catching designs and believe that customers are willing to pay for a price since they feel the purchase would be a worth buy. To date, Zalora.com.my offers more than 400 top international and local brands and designers on the website. In addition to that, Zalora.com.my is able to keep away from price wars as the 400 top selected brands offered on the website remains unique from other online websites.

d) Take ownership of customer results.

Zalora.com.my takes ownership of customer’s results because Zalora.com.my understands their customers by ensuring that customers get what they want when making any online purchases while Zalora.com.my is controlling the overall costs. The advantage of this proposition for Zalora.com.my is that once Zalora.com.my is established in their customer’s operations, customers will stay loyal to Zalora.com.my and other new online websites will find it hard to compete with Zalora.com.my. ii. Evaluate Zalora.com.my based on each elements of the 8 key elements of an e-business model.

a) Value Proposition
b) Revenue Model
c) Market Opportunity
d) Competitive Environment
e) Competitive Advantage
f) Market Strategy
g) Organizational Development
h) Management Team

iii. Discuss how Zalora.com from the point of Porter’s 5 forces model, specifically addressing the Malaysian market.

Diagram of Porter’s 5 Forces
1. Rivalry Among Existing Competitors
When Zalora.com decided to tackle the Malaysian market, Zalora takes note on the number and capability of its competitors in the Malaysian market. At that time, Fashion Valet was the only similar website that carries a wide range of brands from local to Asian designers. In order to set their place in the Malaysian market, Zalora offers many brands that Fashion Valet does not have and created their website where customers will find it is easy to navigate with clear tabs for men’s, women’s and kids’ fashion. Zalora.com also offers discounts and bargains all year round to attract current and new customers while constantly bringing new brands to the website.

2. Threat of New Entrants
Zalora.com was already an established brand in other Asian markets and thus, when Zalora.com wanted to tackle the Malaysian market, Zalora.com has already a customer loyalty to established brands offered on the website. Thus, the market size of Zalora.com increased and became the largest and fastest growing fashion website in Southeast Asia. Zalora.com eventually has a strong a durable barriers to entry and able to preserve a favorable position and take fair advantage of it.

3. Threat of Substitution
Fashion Valet is a good example of threat of substitution for Zalora.com. When Zalora.com entered the Malaysian market, Zalora.com tries to add a mixture of top international and local brands with affordable prices as Fashion Valet focuses on local and Asian fashion designers. Moreover, Zalora’s websites updates their catalogue regularly to bring in the newest collections to the Malaysian market as soon as they are launched. Zalora offer provides several payment options such as Cash on Delivery (COD), Celcom Aircash, Credit Card, Online Transfer and offers free shipping for all orders of which paid price is RM75.00 and above.

4. Bargaining Power of Buyers
Zalora.com is trying to control the bargaining power of buyers by implementing promotion and discount programs to their customers. Zalora.com offers a RM20 off for new customers with a 1 year validation period. Other than that, Zalora.com provides a comprehensive and personal service for customers who wish to inquire about their purchases. Zalora.com also offers shipping that takes less than 14 business day to arrive at customer’s doorsteps and free shipping for order above RM75. Zalora.com also offers a flat rate shipping fee around RM5 to RM10 depending on the location.

5. Bargaining Power of Suppliers
Zalora.com tries to set reasonable prices for the Malaysian market so that customers from any income groups are able to enjoy purchasing their items on Zalora. Zalora.com tackles the Malaysian markets as they have concentrated purchasers and thus, will increased the quantity of the products because of the high demand from the purchasers. Zalora.com too tries to find other new brands to increase the customer’s preferences as well as to attract new customers. iv. Assess how Zalora.com competes with TRADITIONAL and ONLINE companies that offer similar online services by reviewing the approaches it uses for different elements of the marketing mix.

a) Price
In terms of price, Zalora.com competes with traditional and online companies by visiting similar websites to them such as the Fashion Valet. Zalora.com may also use price comparison websites to check before setting their final price as price of products on the Internet becomes competitive for the reason that the price transparency gets quicker and comparing prices is getting easier. Zalora.com able to set their price reasonable or probably lower as they are able to reduce costs such as the staff costs and store space.

b) Product
Zalora.com did a research on customers’ needs before uploading photos of the products will full description stated on it. Providing a complete information about all products sold on Zalora.com is crucial in order for the customers to get a realistic picture of the product and make it offered more attractive. Other than that, Zalora.com is offering high quality services to their customers that should reflect satisfaction of customers, reliability, responsiveness, security, competence and ease of use.

c) Place
Zalora.com offers a new way for distributing various of brands through online selling. Customers are able to make their purchase decision anywhere and anytime they want because of online selling. With Internet available at any area especially in the city area, Zalora.com can go further and expand their market to both national and international markets. And thus, Zalora.com has a great implication for Place in the marketing mix due to the large market place.

d) Promotion
Promotions for Zalora.com is actively used to inform customers about Zalora and its products. Zalora.com uses most of the Internet promotional tools such as newsletters, online offers, and internet advertising to encourage new and old current customers to visit their website.