Just few days after we covered the first introduction about online marketplace from Rocket Internet, Zalora Indonesia, the site has gone live today. Zalora, which is a clone of popular site Zappos, has been available in the neighboring countries, like Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, as Zalora Indonesia is the the latest edition in the list. Zalora Indonesia focuses on men and women’s fashionable products, in collaboration with GoJek as their shipping partner.
To be honest, I am not really familiar with all those brands in Zalora, except for (X)S.M.L. Not a hipster myself, it’s understandable that Zalora tries to grab most of their consumers from young adult communities, as this category has been proven to be the most impulsive buyers, especially in the big cities.
Zalora’s rules is pretty much loose with free shipping policy ( don’t ship outside the country for now), 30 days return policy, and many options of payment. Beside several common payment option, like debit and credit card, Zalora also accept payment with Cash on Delivery (CoD) and PayPal.
As I said previously, Zalora Indonesia has became the online version of “The Goods Dept” or “Brightspot Market” — where all those hipsters products are gathered. The one that may become direct competitor with similiar theme is Ratimaya, although the brands aren’t pretty much the same — at least based on my fast skimming.
Zalora is added as the next marketplace alternative to Multiply, Rakuten, Blibli, Plasa or TokoBagus in this stiff competition on getting loyal customers. It’s founded by the German’s Samwer brothers and being very serious on selling fashionable products by having its own in-house stylists and such.
Update: someone from Rocket Internet verifies that Zalora is an e-retail shop and not marketplace. They stock merchants’ products and having direct relationship with them. Unlike common marketplace, Zalora doesn’t facilitate the ability to create shop by third parties (merchants).
