Southeast Asian e-commerce giant Lazada has announced layoffs across Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines. An estimated 30% of Lazada’s regional manpower is expected to be cut across its commercial, retail, and marketing functions, with even top executives being affected.
Established in 2012 by Maximilian Bittner to deliver an Amazon-like experience to the burgeoning Southeast Asian markets, Lazada is a subsidiary of Alibaba Group, following its acquisition by the Chinese tech giant in 2016. Lazada notably entered the Philippines in its first year, where it has since become one of the country’s largest e-commerce players.
The layoffs reached Lazada Philippines despite celebrating an almost 300% sales lift after its platform-wide 11.11 sale last year. The e-commerce giant even announced it would be ramping up investments in the Philippines just last September, backing networking events, providing training, and developing advanced marketing tools to empower and distinguish its seller community in the competitive online marketplace.
However, Lazada Philippines is not immune to evolving challenges in the e-commerce landscape. Competition has noticeably increased over the years with new players such as Temu officially entering the Philippines back in August 2023 offering heavy discounts on a range of items across 29 major categories and over 250 subcategories.
Lazada also faces tough competition from other regional players such as Shopee, which has ranked consistently as a top brand for Filipinos for customer experience. TikTok Shop, the shopping functionality integrated into the short-form video app TikTok, has also emerged as a favorite for sellers engaging in live selling of their products—with TikTok Shop registering a 117% increase in sellers onboarded in the Philippines during the first half of 2023.
Emerging from the pandemic, e-commerce companies found it necessary to rightsize after being burdened with increased competition and macroeconomic challenges. Facing a $931.2 million Q2 loss in 2022, Shopee implemented workforce reductions in the Philippines and other markets including Taiwan, Indonesia, Singapore, and even Latin America, as part of its global optimization efforts.
Luca Suino, former Senior Vice President for Category Management at Lazada Malaysia, took to LinkedIn on January 5 to extend an invitation to Lazada employees affected by changes. He encouraged them to showcase their previous roles and include links to their CVs in a shared sheet.
Multiple ex-Lazada Philippines employees have already shared their CVs, with their roles ranging from associate to senior associate in departments such as marketing solutions and seller experience.