Rocket quietly landed in Malaysia

UPDATED!

Sorry, it's not this rocket that most Malaysian are familiar with.

Instead, it's Rocket Internet from Germany. Dubbed as German's most successful (and AGGRESSIVE) incubator (started by Samwer Brothers) having a staff strength over 5,000 peoples in their portfolio companies, which include e-commerce site like http://www.Zalando.de 

It appears that they are going to launch a fashion online store here (apparently, in Australia & Singapore too), directly retail to the consumers. See what type of talents they are recruiting now.

1. Fashion Buyers
2. Online Marketing Head
3. IT Product Manager

So, any fashion buyers from Padini or FOS already head hunted over?

Their job posting appears in Jobstreet.com too. Go read it, then you will know this rocket is not to be taken lightly. Notice in every job posting, they mentioned this in their write up?

"This online retail group is set to take the Malaysian e-tail market by storm."

Can you feel it? if you don't, then check out this
I-will-die-to-win email by the BIG BOSS Oliver Samwer 

If you are the competitor, this email will make you shake in your pants. My favorite line is:" I am the most aggressive guy on internet on the planet. I will die to win and i expect the same from you! " (yeah right, did anyone tell him that dead people don't really care about winning? Proof: The top 5 regrets people have on their deathbed)


updated 05-Jan-2012 : Finally, Rocket Internet has (soft) launched their online fashion retail site in Malaysia - Check it out - Zalora.com.my (domain inspired by Zara?) 

Zalora.com.my 

Our first impression? 
1) A clean, neatly built site.
2) Zalora looks the same as their sister site (Zalando UK, Zalando Ge)
3) Safe to assume they are powered by the same system too.
4) A quick search review that the Singapore site will be known as Zalora.sg
5) I know NONE of the brands they carry... (yes, i'm brand idiot) 
6) Can't find anything below RM50 yet
7) Online payment powered by iPay88 + PayPal
8) Once got the items, you can have 3 days period to return it (unlike the Zappos's Insane 365 days return policy, which works in US but not in M'sia)
9) Limited items for each size now, which means they only sell what's in stock (not preorder, not backorder) so they can ship it fast to you.
10) Mouse over the thumbnail view in categories will display few angles of the product shots
11) Very nice filtering tools based on brand, colors, price, size, occasion (theme) on left bar when you drill into each categories..
12) Facebook page located at http://www.facebook.com/ZaloraMalaysia
13) And a sneak peak at young, energetic founding team led by a Hardvard Grad CEO - Off for a good start!

Don't miss this talk by their CEO - Florian Heinemann. He talks about Marketing Performance Across Channels. 





More about Rocket Internet Gmbh
Latest update: Rocket Internet's ambition on the world
http://gigaom.com/europe/revealed-the-full-extent-of-the-rocket-clone-empire/

• http://www.quora.com/Rocket-Internet
• http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/14/oliver-samwer-walks-out-of-an-interview-with-techcrunch/
• http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/03/business/worldbusiness/03iht-brothers.html?pagewanted=all
• http://www.businessinsider.com/what-do-ebay-facebook-and-groupon-have-in-common-these-guys-cloned-them-and-got-rich-doing-it-2011-1
• http://www.economist.com/node/21525394#

eCommerce in China

We all know China, will be the largest consumer market in the world in a very near future.

We also know, eCommerce, is HOT & BIG in China.

An army of excavators parked beside the highway - simply neat, big & awesome.

But how hot & how big is it? According to a weibo post by DHGate.com CEO - Diane Wang, it says by 2011, China will overtake Japan as World's 2nd largest e-commerce market, by 2013, it will overtake US as the world's no 1 e-commerce market. * mind boggling *

Here's some pictures I took during my recent trip to Shanghai, and I will also share some of the articles i read on the local business magazine. Just so to give you a glimpse.

E-commerce Ad, is everywhere. It's on the TV, it's on Search Engine (Baidu), it's on the bus, the railway's wall, and it's even found in the shopping mall!

This ad is by Ganji.com - one of China largest online classified site

Ganji.com is one of china largest classified (like Malaysia's Mudah.my). One Interesting thing about Ganji.com is their sales approach - Out of the 500 staffs (US's no 1 classified site - Craiglist.org, has only 30 staffs) Ganji has hired , about 200-300 are working in its call center to cold-call companies to place ads with the site.  Talking about labour intensive...

And their target market are the middle-lower income groups. The CEO of Ganji, Mark Yang called them the 3 lows - "Low in age, Low in income and Low in education level.”

Subway ad by Vancl.com - China largest online-only fashion etailer.

Another ad by Vancl.com featuring chinese superstar - 黄晓明

DHL Ad - We deliver Trust. Ecommerce, is really all about Trust.

At 1st glance, you will think Groupon.cn is owned by Groupon, which recently filed their IPO
The fact is, it wasn't, in China, Groupon actually acquires Gaopeng.com.

Another group buying ad spotted! Now the trend is towards discount for physical products,
ranging from computers to cosmetics!

An online store (ihaveu.com) ad in the mall? Now this is rare, as you know mall
generally perceive online stores as competition taking away their foot traffics.

Uniqlo, Japanese clothing giant recently enters Malaysia market.(opening up its 3rd store in one utama on 4th Nov). They have 2 online stores, one in Taobao's tmall and one their own branded eStore.

Bought some magazines (those with e-commerce headline on cover) for read
while chilling out at a nice cafe - Wagas.com.cn

One of the magazine I bought - Talks about the secretive courier tycoon,
 founder of http://www.sf-express.com in China.

Good news is, I manage to find the online articles here, you should not miss this!
and if you don't understand Chinese, don't even think about using Google translate!
Get a bf / gf who master both Chinese and English or hire me for tuition!

快递中国：顺丰疯长的故事

顺丰封面：一个快递员的一天

顺丰总裁王卫：坚持以人为本的管理

An article on 360buy.com (京东商城 - JingDong Mall), online sales exceeding 10 Billion RMB in 2010.
and they are preparing for an IPO to raise $4 to 5 Billion USD - dubbed as the largest IPO ever!

Media Markt - One of its huge 3C Retail store in Shanghai, occupy 5 floors,  just look at
the washing machines on display (below). Don't envy them for sizes,
 they are facing very stiff competition from online retailers like 360buy.com.

Here comes the insanely beautiful Cylinder Glass Shanghai Apple Store! 

a holy grail  for retailers of all sorts.

A panoramic view shot with iPhone's SeeThis App

iPad, the 2nd device that really WOW! me  (1st was PC)

It's important your site looks nice on iPad too. Worst is for full 

Flash website, it will just appear blank! 

China Post goes Green !

Cool service in H&M China store. This is "consultative selling", they will understand

your body shape, style and put up something which will make you look gorgeous!
(learn more on How to sell fashion online)

An english-teacher before becoming an China e-commerce Tycoon

Ma-Yun now want to buy Yahoo (for real).

When you are in the business of e-commerce, you will obsess over shopping cart.

And i end up buying a double deck shopping cart :)

Bullet Train speed topping 350KM / hour, if we have this in Malaysia, this will take me

from KL to Penang in just one hour time. Simply amazing! Think of it as a metaphor on  how fast

 China's e-commerce market is growing now...

Beautifully designed name card from Nike ID Studio Shanghai

Before I end this,  these are 8 China's E-commerce facts you have to know:

1. Chinese market is GIGANTIC, way bigger than you can ever imagine.
   > 400 millions Internet users!!!
   > 300 millions Mobile users!!!
   Do you now know why Apple sales Q2 in China alone is USD3.8 Billion? 
2. They are heavily funded by VC, for ultra aggressive expansion at the speed of light.
3. Most of them don't make a profit and still burning cash (like crazy) to acquire clients.
4. Mosf of them (bigger size etail like 360buy, vancl etc) are aiming for IPO in Nasdaq.
5. They are addicted to brutal price war aka fucking kill competitors with price.
6. They spend a lot of $$$ on advertising. 
7. They spend even more $$$ on infrastructure (fulfilment centre, system, land) and... they even build their own delivery fleet (people + system + transport). Eg. 360buy alone have about 10,000 delivery guys (unheard of in other countries). 
8. Credit cards are not popular or widely used, most of them are using debit card or COD (Cash on Delivery) to pay off online purchases- see an interesting article on Why china people loves to pay cash , interestingly, the same goes for Russian, Why Russian also prefer to pay cash for online purchase.

If you want to know more bout China's E-commerce News, don't miss out these superb sites:
1) http://technode.com/
2) http://iresearch.cn/
3) http://www.penn-olson.com/tag/china

People to watch 
CEO of Alibaba.com http://www.weibo.com/mayun
CEO of 360buy.com: http://t.163.com/2123575232
CEO of Vancl.com: http://www.weibo.com/chennian
CEO of DHGate.com: http://t.163.com/2810683446
CEO of DangDang.com http://t.qq.com/ddwlgq
CEO of Okbuy.com (China's Zappos) http://t.163.com/8720289206