Rocket Internet’s Zalora denies they’re in bad shape; Oliver Samwer’s visit routine

If this report by Willis Wee from TechinAsia is true, Zalora is in bad shape, and the feared Oliver Samwer visited Singapore two days ago for a marathon eight-hour “motivational talk”.

These allegations are false, claims Tan Wee, managing director and co-founder of Zalora Singapore, an online fashion retailer owned by the infamous Rocket Internet.  He denies the article’s suggestion that “the meeting is probably triggered by complaints Zalora has received from its customers so far.”

In fact, Tan Wee reports that his German boss was in fact quite happy with progress.

“The exact conversation he had with me was: ‘Tan Wee, good job, things are going well,'” he says. The visit was in fact a routine one, and this was the third time they had met in Singapore.

Since Zalora launched in Singapore and Malaysia, it has received a lot of complaints about slow delivery times on its Facebook Pages. Some items were not received even after two weeks.

While he acknowledges that many of the feedback are valid, and that they’re learning, Tan Wee questions if a few Facebook comments are enough to paint an accurate picture of Zalora’s health.

“In the retail environment… people only complain when they’re unhappy. So if you pick out three quotes out of 100, and say we’re in bad shape, can you call it evidence?”

The situation is quite on the contrary, he says. Many of their customers receive their orders within 48 hours as advertised, some even within 24 hours.

The portrait of Zalora falling apart due to pressure from an over-enthusiastic corporate machine appears to have no grounding.

Ever since Rocket Internet entered Southeast Asia, it has generated heated discussion among the startup community. It is a German company that is most well-known for making a killing out of creating and selling clones of the most successful Silicon Valley startups.

Many vilify them for stealing talent from young enterprises, possessing an over-aggressive and ruthless corporate culture, as well as encouraging rampant copying. Even the tech media glitterati from the West has demonized them.

But speaking to the actual people working in Rocket Internet, which owns Zalora, the picture becomes far more nuanced.