Lazada, Tiki locked in delivery speed race

Singapore-based Lazada Friday launched a 4-hour delivery service for flowers in Vietnam, a move in response to Vietnamese startup Tiki’s 2-hour delivery for a large number of products.

Nguyen Ngoc Thang, head of express solutions at Lazada, said that this was a new step in e-logistics for the company.

Earlier this month, the company began to offer 2-hour and 4-hour delivery for products weighing under 15 kilograms in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

Almost 200 Lazada sellers are eligible for the service, mostly in beverage, fashion and baby products.

The move followed other e-commerce companies in Vietnam, like Shopee, Sendo and Lotte, also announcing delivery times of one to four hours after Tiki introduced its 2-hour delivery for over 100,000 products.

Tiki is able to do this by investing in expanding its fulfillment center, which is now at 60,000 square meters and set to triple to 200,000 square meters by the end of next year.

The company’s average delivery time is less than two days, against the market average of four-five days, said Tiki chairman Tran Ngoc Thai Son.

Meanwhile, Lazada has introduced its new 24/7 receiving points in Hanoi and HCMC where customers can pick up their items at a time of their choice.

In the third quarter of this year, Tiki ranked fourth in terms of of web traffic, followed by Lazada. Both of them fell two places from Q2, according to market research firm iPrice.

Singapore-based Shopee remained the market leader, followed by Vietnamese players Sendo and Mobile World, it said.

Vietnam’s e-commerce market is estimated at $5 billion this year and is set to reach $23 billion in 2025, according to a recent report by Google, Singapore-based investment firm Temasek, and U.S.-based consultancy Bain.