Christopher Beselin Founder and former CEO of Lazada Building a leading e-commerce company in Vietnam

1. Meet Magento Vietnam 2015
Building a leading e-commerce company
from scratch in Vietnam

2. Chris B. Beselin - who am I?
2
Background
• Swedish national, living in Vietnam since 2012
• Educated in Stockholm and Beijing
• Background at one of Europe’s largest active ownership investment funds,
Cevian Capital (AUM ca. 15 bnUSD). Retail company focus
• CEO of offline and online retail business in Sweden
• CEO & Co-founder of Lazada.vn
Today
• Founder & director of IT development company fram^ (team of IT engineers,
ranked as top 2% of local talent pool)
• Also, Founding partner at Endurance Capital – active ownership in listed
Vietnamese companies with focus on consumer businesses

3. Agenda
3
Lazada.vn – how did we build it?
Lazada.vn – what is it?
What does the e-commerce opportunity in Vietnam look like?
Lazada.vn – what were key challanges?
Q&A

4. Lazada.vn – an overview
4
Main facts
• Founded in Feb 2012, site launched end or Mar 2012
• Tens of thousands of orders/day
• Over 1,000 staff locally in Vietnam (including regional tech hub for rest
of Lazada countries, also based in Vietnam)
• Main office on Hai Ba Trung, Ho Chi Minh City, additional offices and
delivery hubs all over Vietnam
• Started out as an inventory-based ‘traditional Amazon model’, now is
majority ’Marketplace-based e-commerce’
• Recently featured on techinasia.com’s list of global online companies
valued between 1 - 5 billion USD

5. Lazada Group – an overview
5

6. Lazada Group – an overview
6

7. Agenda
7
Lazada.vn – how did we build it?
Lazada.vn – what is it?
What does the e-commerce opportunity in Vietnam look like?
Lazada.vn – what were key challanges?
Q&A

8. Early days…
8
“Ecommerce will not work in Vietnam – people here like to touch and feel… ”
• Ramping up from 1 to 350 employees in 4 months…

9. Early days…
9
No products, no data - what to do?
• We learned the hard way….

10. Marketplace
10
Shifting the market leader from Amazon to Alibaba
• We got everything wrong – so we changed like humble work ants…

11. Mobile
11
Why do Indian e-commerce players go mobile only?
• Don’t want to make same mistake as what is killing offline retail
• User is always logged in – a lot more user feedback and amazing data!
• Captivity is a balance

12. Agenda
12
Lazada.vn – how did we build it?
Lazada.vn – what is it?
What does the e-commerce opportunity in Vietnam look like?
Lazada.vn – what were key challanges?
Q&A

13. What do people get wrong
about online payments in Vietnam?
13
COD is not an obstacle, its an enabler!
• Isn’t it risky and expensive to run a >50 000 order / day e-commerce
company based almost entirely on cash payments (>90% COD)?

14. What does it take to build a robust logistics
backbone?
14
• It only takes three simple things: Pay on time, deliver on time, report on
time…
• You need to set your own standards, then be ready and able to walk away
from underperforming partners

15. How can you trust 3rd party merchants
to sell through your platform?
15
• To allow anyone access to your platform & your customers is a scary
model
• You need to be hands on – who are you really making business with?
• You need to have rock solid principles – 2 strikes your out!

16. Agenda
16
Lazada.vn – how did we build it?
Lazada.vn – what is it?
What does the e-commerce opportunity in Vietnam look like?
Lazada.vn – what were key challanges?
Q&A

17. 20 million more Vietnamese online over past 5 years
alone
- that’s 2x my entire home country, in only 5 years!
1
7
0% 1% 2%
4%
8%
13%
17%
21%
24%
27%
31%
35%
40%
44%
48%
0.0%
10.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
50.0%
Vietnam internet penetration
Source: World bank

18. Is the challenge different today?
18
What does the landscape look like today?
• The bets that the big players are making are becoming BIGGER!
• Business is no longer about BIG eats SMALL, its about FAST eats SLOW
How to play and how to play to win?
• Like every venture: Start, but start small. Plan/dream BIGGER!
• You need to establish your ‘right to exist’ clearly from day 1 (e.g. a vertical niche)
• Keep a five year vision of change in market and consumer behavior. We will be
there in no time.
• Be hands on, YOU GO ON THE SITE, EVERY EVERY DAY!

19. The opportunity
19
Offline retail never had enough time to develop a proper footprint
• Modern retail is severely under developed
• General assortment choice has historically put a lid on consumption in rural
areas
• Shopping has historically been extremely inconvenient (multiple shops, busy
traffic, etc)
This is the perfect backdrop for achieving a disproportionally high ecommerce penetration
• Similar / better than Chinese market conditions that allowed Alibaba to achieve
more than explosive growth
• Not if, but how much more important ecommerce will be in VN than e.g. Europe

20. Agenda
20
Lazada.vn – how did we build it?
Lazada.vn – what is it?
What does the e-commerce opportunity in Vietnam look like?
Lazada.vn – what were key challanges?
Q&A

21. Meet Magento Vietnam 2015
Thanks for listening!