Many novice merchants are not clear about the platform account category when they first enter cross-border e-commerce. Lazada is one of the largest shopping platforms in Southeast Asia, and if your cross-border destination is directly targeting Southeast Asia, then Lazada must be your go-to platform. So let's take you to know the difference between Lazada's local store and cross-border store!
1. What is a local store?
Lazada as a Southeast Asian e-commerce platform, Lazada has 6 sites in Southeast Asia, namely Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia.
2. What is a cross-border store?
Cross-border stores, in fact, are non-local (Southeast Asian) e-commerce sellers, such as Chinese cross-border merchants, who have registered a seller account with Lazada with Chinese company information, then the store opened is a cross-border store. As soon as a cross-border store is registered, all six sites can be opened, so fundamentally speaking, to determine whether Lazada's registered store is local or cross-border, the main basis is whether the store registration information is local information in Southeast Asian countries or overseas information.
Due to the policies of local stores and the lack of cross-border stores, many cross-border sellers will use local information in Southeast Asia to register their local stores according to store planning and needs.
Considering the development prospects of the e-commerce market in Southeast Asia, more and more cross-border e-commerce sellers are beginning to find ways to do cross-border while also being able to get involved in the "local e-commerce business". Let's take a closer look at the differences.
1. Differences in shopping experience
The customer is God, choosing to go to Southeast Asia to do e-commerce, we have to fully consider the needs of consumers, from the shopping experience of local stores and cross-border stores on the Lazada platform, local stores are more smooth, in line with local habits.
2. Differences in settled materials
If a local enterprise wants to settle in Lazada, you need to provide an enterprise license + a corporate P card, it should be noted here that a business license can only be opened at one point, if it is a local individual who wants to settle in Lazada, you need to provide ID card + bank card. At the same time, pay attention to the local secure network environment that needs to be prepared for the settled account.
3. The difference in entry commission
The cross-border store commission is 4% + 2% payment fee, the timeliness is slow, the payment is slow, there is no traffic support, and the conversion rate is low. The local store commission is 1% + 2% to pay the handling fee, the timeliness is 2-7 days, and the payment is collected 1 time a week, and the conversion rate is higher with the support of local traffic.
3. Difference in logistics costs
Local store sellers generally have their own overseas warehouses, or will choose to cooperate with third-party overseas warehouses, so they can quickly reach the sellers from local delivery. For example, goods from local stores can be purchased locally, such as Shopee, sent to a cooperative transit warehouse, and then sent to Lazada to complete the delivery. Compared with cross-border stores, there is no international logistics cost.
From the above analysis, it can be seen that the advantages of being a local store are significantly higher than that of a cross-border store, but there are also some limitations and risks, which are also problems that many sellers need to consider.
For example, what about the local account environment? If the IP address is abnormal, will it be blocked?
Yes, there are many novice merchants who don't understand the importance of store security, and it is usually easy to block accounts, especially for multi-account store group operations, and it is even more necessary to do a good job of preventing association. The platform has requirements, in order to prevent malicious competition between merchants, so merchants are prohibited from opening multiple stores, so there is a rule of account association, once the merchant is found to be linked to the account, there will be a chain reaction of multiple accounts of the merchant.
If you want to ensure the security of the store, you must know that the platform usually checks the account through IP, product duplication, account information, etc., among which the most common and most effective way for the platform to check is to check the IP address of the store, log in to multiple accounts under the same IP address, or the IP does not match the information applied for by the store, and the possibility of being found is the greatest.
Fingerprint browser can help open multiple custom browser environments and different IP addresses, truly simulate the local environment, which can greatly reduce the risk of being detected, and can also greatly save the cost of merchant operation.
Residential ISP**IP can ensure the security of the store to a large extent, and reduce the possibility of being detected as an abnormal account while doing a good job of IP isolation.
If your product market is relatively clear, and you also have your own trusted local partners at a site in Southeast Asia, and your own problems such as Benshi account, warehousing, delivery, and capital can be effectively solved, then you can try to do a local store.
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