Level up Your Online Business for Success, According to Lazada Philippines CEO Carlos Barrera

The shift to digital has empowered many to start businesses of their own online. And in a playing field this competitive, Lazada Philippines CEO Carlos Barrera reveals how they can succeed.

Starting a business is no easy feat, with many factors to consider and spend for. This includes capital to fund the business, products or services that people will want to buy, and a team to run the day-to-day operations of the business itself, among many other things. All these can be a lot to process and may deter anyone from even getting started.

Until now, that is.

As the leading e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia and the top online shopping platform in the Philippines, Lazada has truly redefined the way people do business. With a strong presence in six countries—Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam—the e-commerce giant features millions of customers and sellers under its wing.

But how has Lazada been able to create many opportunities for said brands and sellers to grow their businesses? In this exclusive interview with Lazada Philippines CEO Carlos Barrera, we find out how this e-commerce giant can help online businesses level up for success.

Working With an Owner's Mindset

Carlos Barrera was born in Madrid to a family of computer engineers, which started his exposure to technology at an early age. A graduate with a double degree in Business Administration and Finance from University Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), he also completed his Bilingual program in just three years—making him the first to ever finish the program ahead of its time.

Taking his passion for technology and his business expertise, his journey in Lazada began when he first worked for its Malaysia branch in 2014. He then moved to the Philippines—which he now calls his home—where he took on several positions before becoming the COO of Lazada Philippines and eventually, the company's CEO in 2022.

From then until now, Barrera has been operating with an owner's mindset. Unlike leaders who set base in their office and wait for people to come to them, he himself goes to the departments that need him most as he troubleshoots and helps people to the best of his abilities.

The Advantages of Online Selling

This hands-on approach is a fresh perspective that he brings to the table as Lazada's CEO, as he envisions an e-commerce ecosystem with entrepreneurs who are unafraid to take the first step into starting their businesses.

"Everyone has a different journey," Barrera begins. "But everybody should have an online presence. Sometimes, you have an offline business that has been around for quite a while, and they just want to try it out to get that extra boost. There is no downside to having an online business."

"The reality today is that, in the Philippines, if you want to work with Lazada, the cost of their business is very, very low, and there’s no fixed cost. So trying is always a good experience," he continues. "You can go online within less than two minutes. You just need one ID, and you can quickly upload your store. And you get the benefits of getting different customers—different eyeballs. Even if you just do it for brand awareness and visibility."

Barrera goes on to mention that starting an online business does not come with as many repercussions, unlike brick-and-mortar brands that stand to lose so much more. "We’ve seen a lot of businesses that are only doing five, ten percent of their sales online with us, but they still get a lot of good learnings and use it as a testing ground, right? It gives you a new channel you can use to try things," he expounds.

"It’s actually funny because it can look intimidating and oftentimes, we hear that people are a bit concerned or a bit worried about going online," the CEO adds. "But the reality is that very, very quickly, they pick it up. And what we’ve seen, especially in the case of Lazada, it’s so easy to run your store, to upload your items, [since] everything is in your app."

Challenges to Expect When Starting Out

While online selling is seemingly straightforward, the CEO maintains that just like running any other business, it takes a good understanding of trends and the market to keep it going. "The challenge is always around focus and attention to what’s new and getting familiarized with the new trends. But the reality is that a lot of successful businesses have offline channels that [are] quite powerful and very, very recognizable."

"Once they've tried [going] online, they were so much more successful that they even decided to pivot their business to go fully online," he enthuses.

The CEO likewise points out three challenges that online sellers need to look out for. "First [is] getting familiarized with the tools, but that’s something that, frankly, Filipinos are fantastic [at] when it comes to dealing with the online. And we also support our training with Lazada University."

"Second [is] the speed. The reality is that the speed of the online business is overwhelming, and we want to have sellers that are fast and that are picking up new things. We have hundreds of thousands of merchants, and some of our merchants are incredibly fast," he continues. "At the beginning, people have [had] a hard time adjusting from a normal cycle of business offline of two, three, four months—maybe quarterly planning. Here, it’s two, three, four days. You need to have the best flash sale, the best product today, and the best merchandising. Things move fast."

"And lastly, it’s around [the] team. Some people see it as a distraction, but that’s why we want them to try it out. And it’s easy to change that perception, right? Once you build your capabilities [and] you develop your team, it’s a perfectly complementary business."

Of Ease and Convenience

In all this, where does Lazada come in? "Today, Lazada makes it easy for you to capture an audience of tens of millions of customers across the entire country," Barrera explains. "Nobody thinks of building their own mall when they need to set up a store, right? But everybody feels the need to build their own website when they want to go online."

"The reality today is that Lazada makes it easy from the beginning—[from] listing your product and creating your store to the end–delivery and refunds and returns," he adds.

A platform that not only houses brands and sellers in one place, Lazada also takes on roles that come with any other business like the logistics, marketing, and the overall optimization of the shopping experience. "We have optimized every step of the way, and we are investing so heavily to make it easy," Barrera explains.

However, in the face of growing competition and the many e-commerce platforms that come into play, Barrera is undeterred. "We are happy [when business owners and sellers] set up their own site, have their domain, and do cross-domain promotions. But the learnings you get from our experience—not just the more than a decade that we’ve been in the Philippines, but also all the knowledge of Alibaba and all the tools that we bring from all the different countries to make it easy, [all this] becomes very valuable."

"The reality is that many of these things are a lot more expensive to try and do it on your own—the cost of developing your site, the tech cost, and also the focus," he continues. "Whereas within Lazada, we have merchants that are running their store two, three hours a day. A lot of our hundreds of thousands of sellers are doing it as a side business, and they make hundreds of thousands of Pesos every month—just in a couple of hours of night shift work."

Lazada's Competitive Edge

Setting its sights on loftier aspirations, Barrera plans to take the entire country online. "We want to digitalize the Philippines, and we believe that this is a nation of MSMEs—of small business owners—and we want to take all of them and leverage this new channel," he explains. "Thanks to what we’ve been doing in Lazada for years, we can reach the entire Philippines [and] I think [that] that’s an unbeatable proposition."

The CEO then goes on to reveal Lazada's competitive edge, or simply, the three main things that make it unique. "First is our position around trust, authenticity, and quality. People know that whatever happens at Lazada, we made them whole and we take care of them—both in terms of our money-back guarantee, the way we have developed, or returns and refunds. It’s very easy for you to get automatically refunded, to raise any problems [with us], and [to] always have a customer service representative that will assist you so you are taken care of."

"Second, we have the fastest delivery in the Philippines, and we reach every single area," he continues. "We’ve invested a lot over the years to develop hundreds of hubs everywhere to be close to our merchants and close to our buyers. Today, we pick up from most of our merchants within a day, so the moment you’re ready to ship something, there will be someone going to pick [it] up from you. And that makes everything so fast."

In fact, Lazada's logistics arm is an efficient one, as they are "delivering, on average, in 48 hours in Metro Manila and, nationwide, [in] less than four days."

"We really make it a point to make convenience available to everyone and to move everything fast so that you don’t even have to think about it," the CEO explains.

"Last [is] something that is very, very important for us," he emphasizes, noting that this sets them apart from their main competitor. "We are investing in this market, and we offer the best promotions and prices. We have our 'patong-patong' campaign where you can easily stack up to four different promotions—our cashback, our free shipping, our wallet vouchers, [and] partner vouchers. And we have the best prices in the market with our everyday low prices and our LazMall channel."

The technology, logistics know-how, and capacity to invest. These are what make Lazada truly stand out from the rest. And rather than keep that for themselves, the CEO declares that: "We want to use that to service all Filipinos out there, whether they’re an MSME or a buyer."

How to Plan for Success

Success is what everyone aims for. It is often celebrated, but it too can be detrimental in the long run. "To be quite honest, we’ve seen some of our best merchants die of success. They were so, so successful that their supply chain couldn’t keep up. Even their financing couldn’t keep up," Barrera explains. "We just had our birthday campaign and some of these merchants made the sales of a year within a day. So they just couldn’t produce more. They had to get loans."

Given that, starting an online business begins with a plan. Looking back, Barrera emphasizes, "It’s very important to, first, plan your stocks and positioning, and know how fast you can deliver—how fast can you come up with new items."

"When you plan a business, I always advise people to plan for the next six months, for the year, food the quarter," he says. "Then, just focus on your promotions today, your sales today. Try to make it a sustainable thing. Have always a discussion. We have hundreds of account managers to help you. Have that discussion to plan and really set your goals, and make it progressive. We don’t want people to have a big business spike, then they cannot keep up. It’s important to grow."

In fact, being sold out may seem like a good thing for sellers, but it puts them in a bad situation, as people can easily move on to their competitors if they can't get the item right away. With that, the CEO advises sellers to "Make sure that your supply chain is good enough. Make sure that if you’re selling something, you have the capacity to quickly scale it, and put the resources, the manufacturing, and find the partners that can help grow it with you."

"Entrepreneurship [is] a long journey. You need partners that will grow with you for five years, ten years, for 20 years," he adds. "A lot of the shortcuts don’t work. You need to develop that supply chain—that partnership that allows you to grow."