Shoppers on Lazada last year spent $350 million as ecommerce booms in Southeast Asia

Rocket Internet’s Amazon-esque Lazada saw more than US$350 million in consumer purchases in 2014, group CEO Maximillian Bittner tells Tech in Asia. US$70 million of that spending (termed gross merchandise volume, or GMV) happened in December alone, due to Christmas and special promotions like the 12/12 sales day.

The 2014 spending tally represents strong growth for Lazada from US$89 million in 2013.

Lazada is this week celebrating its third anniversary. It operates in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

More merchants

Bittner says he’s “super excited” about the growth in Southeast Asia’s ecommerce industry as millions of new people come online each month in a region with a population of approximately 600 million. He points out that online spending is still small across the region compared to retail sales, which points towards plenty of room for further growth for Lazada – and other ecommerce players too.

Lazada started out doing only direct sales to consumers from its own warehouses, but that changed in the fall of 2013 as the company launched a marketplace for third-party merchants. Those merchants now take in 70 to 75 percent of the consumer spending on the estore, Bittner reveals. They’re a “core driver of growth” on Lazada, he adds.

A mall in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital.

There are now 15,000 merchants using the site as an online storefront.

“It’s not a target to be a 100 percent marketplace,” Bittner emphasizes. “It depends on the best price for consumers” and other factors such as whether Lazada itself or third-party merchants have better purchasing power.

See: Here are the 15 most well-funded startups in Southeast Asia

Indonesia embraces ecommerce

Indonesia is Southeast Asia’s largest single market, and Bittner says the archipelago is the top market for Lazada. Indonesia’s shoppers made up over 30 percent of Lazada’s 2014 spending tally.