All is not well at Lazada Malaysia, which is now 83% owned by the Alibaba Group. Over the past month, customers have been facing severe issues with the extremely popular online marketplace.
Lazada’s traffic and transaction rate is arguably the highest in the country, and while it is truly understandable for some issues to crop up every now and then, the sheer number of complaints flooding their official Facebook page is sure cause for concern.
The problems that are reported range from missing order after payment has been made, missing deliveries, unprocessed refunds as well as non responsive customer service.
We ourselves are big fans of the online shopping site, and we receive deliveries almost every day. However, since early this month, even we have been getting items wrongly delivered to our doorsteps, or not delivered at all. Whats more alarming is that the delivery orders, as well as details are correct, but the items inside are not.
We did receive the particular item which we ordered, but we also received a second delivery for the same order, which we are quite sure was supposed to be sent out elsewhere (note the duplicate order no).
One week later, we are still hanging on to the item after alerting Lazada via email of their error.
Based on the comments on Facebook, buyers are not the only people affected. Some merchants have even taken to Lazada’s Facebook to highlight that orders on their stores are not reaching them, and being assigned to other sellers who do not actually carry the said items.
We have reached out to Lazada Malaysia to get their response on these issues, but have yet to receive any feedback.
Lazada Malaysia Acknowledges Backend Issues; Promises Faster Action for Affected Customers
Following our report yesterday regarding a larger than usual amount of complaints about Lazada Malaysia, the e-commerce giant has moved swiftly to acknowledge the issue. The company is aware of the problems, and is accelerating its efforts in addressing customer refunds.
According to Lazada Malaysia, its issues are due to upgrading works on its servers and backend systems in preparation for the upcoming 11.11 “Singles Day” campaign. Unfortunately, these works resulted in “service interruptions”; these include paid orders not being reflected in customers’ orders page, slow refunds processing, long delays in delivery, and item deliveries being mixed up and ending up at a different order’s address.
We were alerted to this issue when there was a higher than normal amount of complaints on the company’s social media channels – especially its Facebook page. Not only that, some of our own recent orders also faced similar problems as the complaints, confirming that they aren’t isolated issues.
The company is currently addressing customers and partners affected by these issues, while working to complete its backend upgrade works. Customer refunds are also being sped up.
In any case, now that the issues have come to light and have been publically addressed by Lazada Malaysia, let’s hope they won’t crop up during 11 November – expected to be the single largest day for e-commerce, popularised by Alibaba’s “Singles Day” moniker in China.
Here is Lazada Malaysia’s statement in full:
In the last few weeks, we have been upgrading our servers and systems with the goal of improving our platform experience for shoppers in anticipation for our 11.11 campaign; unfortunately, this has resulted in several unintended service disruptions. We sincerely apologize for the inconveniences, and are following up closely with every customer and partner affected by this. We are working hard to complete our system upgrade soon and will endeavor to resolve all related issues. Kindly be informed that we’re also taking necessary actions to ensure that customer refunds are being sped up. Thank you for your understanding and support.
Source: Lowyat