Lazada, Redmart, Uber, and Netflix take on Amazon Prime with new subscription service

(From L to R:) Redmart CEO Roger Egan, Lazada Singapore CEO Alexis Lanternier, and Uber Singapore general manager Warren Tseng. Photo credit: Lazada.

Lazada announced today the launch of a new membership program in collaboration with its recent acquisition, online grocery delivery service Redmart. The program, called LiveUp, will bring the two companies together with four more international online brands: Taobao Collection, Netflix, Uber, and UberEats.

LiveUp will pool together benefits from the Alibaba-owned ecommerce website and all the other services. It’s subscription-based, with an annual fee of about US$36. To start with, the subscription will be offered at US$21.

In many ways, this is Lazada and Redmart’s answer to Amazon’s Prime service, which includes benefits like same-day delivery and access to the company’s video streaming service. The US ecommerce juggernaut has delayed its Southeast Asia market entrance, but its arrival is hotly anticipated.

Unlike Prime, however, which offers benefits exclusively on Amazon, LiveUp bunches up perks from a range of companies and services.

“We thought it was very powerful to bring to the customers something they really wanted across multiple services, to have a much better offering than what Amazon will bring to them,” says Alexis Lanternier, CEO of Lazada Singapore.

The program is aimed at consumers who primarily go online for shopping, entertainment, transportation, and food delivery. The companies call them the “online lifestyle natives.” “That’s the term we use for people who are very savvy shoppers but are time-starved and want affordable convenience,” says Redmart CEO Roger Egan.

Between Lazada, Redmart, Uber, and Netflix, this covers a broad range of Singaporean customers.

See: With the Lazada-Alibaba marriage, is it game over for rivals?

Benefits include rebates from Lazada and Redmart purchases, free and faster delivery from Lazada and its recently launched Taobao Collection component, discounts on Uber and six months off a Netflix subscription.

The service is available now in Singapore, but the companies plan to expand the service in other countries and add more partners down the line, although they don’t reveal any specific plans. Singapore made sense as a starting point, they say, as all participants are headquartered in the Lion City, which enjoys a solid broadband infrastructure and a digitally savvy population.

The Southeast Asia-born ecommerce powerhouse teased a subscription-based service during an interview with Tech in Asia in February, as well as the integration of its payment service, HelloPay, into Ant Financial’s AliPay. This integration was officially announced yesterday morning.

Converted from Singapore dollars. US$1 = S$1.40