E-commerce heavyweight Lazada, smartphone brand Starmobile alongside 24 e-commerce merchants in Southeast Asia were honoured at the inaugural iPrice E-Commerce Merchant Awards (iEMA) 2016 at the eTail Asia Conference in Marina Bay Sands, Singapore. Voted and nominated by tens of thousands of consumers across Southeast Asia, the awards were organized by iPrice Group in partnership with eTail Asia, Trusted Company and UseInsider, with the aim to celebrate and honor the efforts of Southeast Asia’s top e-commerce merchants in the booming industry.
With the assistance of Trusted Company, each vote was validated and allowed to be casted only once. The voting and nomination period began on 15th November 2016 and ended on 31st January 2017. All merchants in Southeast Asia were automatically enlisted and qualified for the voting session.
Winners of the inaugural iEMA included Lazada, winning the Popularity Award for the Philippines and Starmobile won the Quality Award for the Philippines.
“Thank you for your support and trust in making Lazada a customer-first company and one of SEA’s most loved e-commerce brands,” said Sydney Dondon, senior associate of affiliate marketing of Lazada Philippines.
The Lazada Group was established in 2012 and operates Lazada, one of the largest e-commerce platforms in Southeast Asia.
When asked about their future plans, Sydney explained that shopping experience and empowering stakeholders were key. “We continuously improve the shopping experience by understanding what our customer needs, at every step of the shopping journey. It’s really down to empowering our stakeholder. We’re adding features on the website and app so that our customers can make more informed purchases. We are beefing up our logistics capabilities to fulfil orders faster wherever they may be. We are also developing tools to make selling more efficient for our merchants,” said Sydney.
Starmobile, a smartphone brand from the Philippines won the Quality Award for the Philippines. From its humble beginnings in 2011, it was no surprise that Starmobile took home the award for Quality considering them being known for being one of the most innovative smartphone brands locally and their strong fan base on social media.
Finalists for the Quality Award were Benloi, an online sporting equipment company and Anson’s, an appliance and electronics store in the Philippines.
The Absolute Winner of iEMA 2016 Awards
Bukalapak, a C2C e-commerce platform was declared the overall winner of iEMA 2016, garnering the highest number of overall votes in Southeast Asia. The startup began their operations in their garage with the passion to create a marketplace that is reliable and trusted by consumers today. When asked what made them successful Evi Andarini, PR Manager of Bukalapak mentioned that they constantly find ways to be creative and innovative in meeting their customers’ needs.
In addition to this, the iPrice Special Award for notable achievements in e-commerce was won by BloomThis, a Malaysian startup who utilized their website and social media pages to provide an unparalleled premium flower gifting service.
The full list of winners:
The Absolute Winner of iEMA 2016:
- Bukalapak
iPrice Special Award
- BloomThis (Winner)
- Althea (1st Runner Up)
- BMS Organics (2nd Runner Up)
Quality Award – Country Winners
- Malaysia : Livlola
- Indonesia : Mazaya
- Philippines : Starmobile
- Singapore : Tech2Cool
- Thailand : Advice
- Vietnam : Alovendor
Popularity Award – Country Winners
- Malaysia : Lazada
- Indonesia : Bukalapak
- Philippines : Lazada
- Singapore : Tech2Cool
- Thailand : Advice
- Vietnam : Alovendor
The Absolute Winner and iPrice Special Award of iEMA 2016 were presented a special trophy while other winners and finalists received a certificate and an e-badge for their e-commerce platforms. In addition to this, products from all winners and finalists of all categories will be given a special highlight on all iPrice websites across Southeast Asia.