Any other ExPats selling on Lazada?

[Bang Bang]

23 minutes ago, Khaeng Mak said:

He is Thai.

Ok, that's a different ball game then. I imagine an expat would somehow have to leverage their "expatiness" - connections abroad? - in their business model.

 

I can't see how an expat can possibly compete with Thais in buying/selling entirely locally. But maybe I'm wrong.

Edited February 20, 2019 by Bang Bang

[Khaeng Mak]

28 minutes ago, Bang Bang said:

Ok, that's a different ball game then. I imagine an expat would somehow have to leverage their "expatiness" - connections abroad? - in their business model.

 

I can't see how an expat can possibly compete with Thais in buying/selling entirely locally. But maybe I'm wrong.

Your leverage would come from your superior working capital.  My friend just works on one big bundle at a time because he needs to recover his capital to buy the next bundle.

 

If you have more than 20K you could buy several big bundles at a time and also diversify across shoes, clothes and bags.  I am not sure but London to a brick if you also wanted to buy numerous big bundles at a time you could also get a reduction in the overall price.

 

You can see examples of this economy of scale business model everywhere in Thailand.  Simplest example is the mom and pop shop who can afford to buy a pallet of beer and then sell the individual cans to the village punters (who often barely have enough cash to buy more than one or two cans).

 

If you want to leverage your expatiness, get your friends to raid oxfam shops and put together a shipping contain full of items and then create your own bundles (or mini bundles).

Edited February 20, 2019 by Khaeng Mak

[Pravda]

I have been selling on Amazon for years. Never did FBA because of ridiculous return policies, co-mingled inventory and absolutely having no control over your product whatsoever. And the fees are ridiculous for FBA.

 

I don't see how could you do Lazada....you'd need to have a registered company in Thailand. That's the first and major requirement.

[WaveHunter]

13 hours ago, Pravda said:

...I don't see how could you do Lazada....you'd need to have a registered company in Thailand. That's the first and major requirement.

Actually you do not need to have a registered company here in Thailand in order to sell on Lazada, and as I have tried to explain before, you do not need a work permit or special visa either.  Here's why:

 

Technically speaking, because of the way Lazada is set up, you are not doing business here in Thailand at all as a Lazada seller. This takes a little thought so read carefully and don't just jump to conclusions!

It's important to understand that Lazada does not just operate only in Thailand.   Lazada operates in all major "ASEAN" countries (Vietnam (Lazada.vn), Singapore (Lazada.sg), Malaysia (Lazada.com.my), Thailand (Lazada.co.th), Philippines (Lazada.com.ph), and Indonesia (Lazada.co.id).

 

Secondly, it's important to understand that Lazada is specifically set up to serve cross-border sellers (any company based outside ASEAN such as the USA, Europe, or Australia) from their Hong Kong logistics hub.  Sellers in Europe, the US, and Australia ship products directly to the Lazada hub in Hong Kong.  Lazada then takes care of delivery to end customers in Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

 

Therefore, and here is the key point; the seller's entire sales chain occurs outside of the Kingdom.  Lazada, not the seller is fulfilling the orders to customers in Thailand.  The seller is only doing business with Lazada, not the end customer, and this all occurs in Hong Kong, not Thailand.

 

In order to participate as a Lazada seller, corporate registration can be from anywhere in the world, though it makes a lot of sense for a cross-border seller to set up an offshore corporate entity in either Hong Kong or Singapore (where Lazada is actually based) since it greatly facilitates the importation process.

 

Setting up a company in Hong Kong can be done in less than 2 weeks, and costs around US$1000. You don’t need to be a resident in Hong Kong or have any connection to the Chinese territory to do this.

 

So, that's it in a nutshell.  No Thai business registration required; no work permit required.  As far as Thai authorities are concerned, you are simply a foreign business person managing your foreign business from your laptop.  It is as simple as that!

Edited February 21, 2019 by WaveHunter

[myshem]

19 hours ago, Khaeng Mak said:

A friend of mine is selling motor bike plastics on Lazada and Shopee.  In an average week he gets three times more sales from Shopee.

 

He also sells "mini" bundles on facebook.  That is he buys a big bundle of clothes or shoes and then breaks it down into 10 or more mini bundles. His last one was a shoe bundle with 144 pairs. He broke it down into 12 mini bundles of 12 pairs. Sold the lot in 3 days.

 

True that Thai prefer shoppee !

 

 

[myshem]

15 hours ago, Pravda said:

I have been selling on Amazon for years. Never did FBA because of ridiculous return policies, co-mingled inventory and absolutely having no control over your product whatsoever. And the fees are ridiculous for FBA.

 

I don't see how could you do Lazada....you'd need to have a registered company in Thailand. That's the first and major requirement.

 

Just use an individual Thai name and it works very well !

Who care laws when they are stupid ? not me !

 

 

[WaveHunter]

19 minutes ago, myshem said:

 

Just use an individual Thai name and it works very well !

Who care laws when they are stupid ? not me !

 

 

You can not set up a Lazada seller account and take advantage of fulfillment by Lazada as an individual.  You need a corporate account.

Edited February 21, 2019 by WaveHunter

[CharlieH]

off topic post removed.

[Pravda]

3 hours ago, myshem said:

 

Just use an individual Thai name and it works very well !

Who care laws when they are stupid ? not me !

 

 

 

That's what I'm talking about. You can't sell if you don't have a registered company. I'm not talking about visas and workpermits, I'm talking about Lazada requirement.

 

Unless I am wrong and someone can explain to be how they registered as individual.

 

 

[myshem]

4 hours ago, WaveHunter said:

You can not set up a Lazada seller account and take advantage of fulfillment by Lazada as an individual.  You need a corporate account.

 

I know Thai selling without having a company, so it's clearly wrong. Any Thai can sell on Lazada ans shoppee.

 

 

[WaveHunter]

2 hours ago, Pravda said:

 

That's what I'm talking about. You can't sell if you don't have a registered company. I'm not talking about visas and workpermits, I'm talking about Lazada requirement.

 

Unless I am wrong and someone can explain to be how they registered as individual.

 

 

Read my long post above; it explains all.  I am assuming you are an expat.  Yes, Lazada requires company registration to be eligible for FBL, but it need not be a Thai company.  Lazada is set up as a cross-border e-commerce platform.  If you did FBA in your home country, you can register under that name.  Better still, just set up an offshore company in Hong Kong or Singapore.  Just read my post.

Edited February 21, 2019 by WaveHunter

[WaveHunter]

1 hour ago, myshem said:

 

I know Thai selling without having a company, so it's clearly wrong. Any Thai can sell on Lazada ans shoppee.

 

 

First of all, I am an expat, not a Thai person.  This thread is about expats selling on Lazada, not Thai people. 

 

Secondly, If you want to sell on Lazada AND have Lazada provide order fulfillment (FBL), you must be registered as a corporate merchant.  This is true whether or not you are Thai or ExPat.  Sure Thai people can sell on Lazada as individuals but ONLY corporate accounts are allowed to utilize FBL (fulfillment by Lazada). 

 

The simple fact is that if you want to really make profit whether it is on Amazon, Lazada, or any other e-commerce platform you need to be able to scale your business.  It's very difficult to do that if you are wasting a LOT of time fulfilling your own orders, dealing with returns, warehousing your own inventory, etc.  FBL / FMA solves that problem perfectly.

 

FBA or FBL may be expensive but it is money well spent.  I mean, "time is money", so a corporate account is essential if you are serious about making money on the platform, and it is relatively easy to do as I already explained.  Furthermore, if you are an expat, it is the ONLY way you can legally/ethically sell on Lazada.

 

Edited February 21, 2019 by WaveHunter

[onekoolguy]

On ‎2‎/‎20‎/‎2019 at 2:30 AM, Bang Bang said:

To give this topic a late night nudge, I've got contacts in South Asia, particularly, India. Any idea of goods that might be imported from there and sold here on Lazada?

 

I know I'm supposed to my own research but, hey, I'm just trying to pick experienced brains.

Picking products to sell is the million dollar question?

It's all supply and demand so look for what other sellers are offering. Forget the high demand items that everyone has. Too much competition. Pick items you might be interested in providing and see how many are being sold online. There are ways of finding out this number. Then figure out what you would have to do to take a percentage of the sales away from them? Better quality? Lower Price? Advertising? etc. Now see what you can obtain the product for and do the math. Stay away from items that will generate lots of returns such as things with a lot of moving parts, easy to break etc. You want simple easy to ship durable stuff. It will take some trial and error but the returns are pretty much unlimited. The OP was right, Don't do drop ship! You have very little control over your products and shipping times. The Bad reviews will kill your business! Don't do very inexpensive items unless you can package them into multiple units. Too much time to process for very little profit. I call them "mice items" HaHa A lion can easily catch mice but he will starve to death as it takes more effort and energy to catch the mouse than he gets in return! 

[Kohsamida]

20 hours ago, Pravda said:

 

That's what I'm talking about. You can't sell if you don't have a registered company. I'm not talking about visas and workpermits, I'm talking about Lazada requirement.

 

Unless I am wrong and someone can explain to be how they registered as individual.

 

 

I am an expat selling on Amazon and Lazada.  I've been doing Amazon successfully for several years now, and have just begun testing with Lazada (focusing on the consumer needs of expats specifically).  I have lived here in Thailand for 18 months now. 

 

While Lazada will allow you to register to sell as an individual, if you are an expat you are bound to have problems with Thai authorities over work permits since you are selling directly to Thai customers.  To eliminate this problem you need to register with Lazada as a company based outside of Thailand.  As a registered company, you can take advantage of FBL (Fulfillment By Lazada).  What this means is that you are actually doing business entirely in Hong Kong (Lazada's cross-border hub), not Thailand.  Lazada (not you) fulfills your customer's orders and delivers them to your customers via their individual ASEAN bases of operations. 

 

Side note:  Hong Kong or Singapore are the natural choices for setting up an offshore company to do business with Lazada.  Hong Kong because that is where Lazada's cross-border hub is located, and Singapore because that is where Lazada HQ is based.  It needn't be in those places though.  Anyplace including your home country is fine, just not Thailand or any other ASEAN country for obvious reasons.  My offshore company is based in Hong Kong.  I know it sounds complicated and expensive to do this, but it's really not.

 

Bottom line, as Wavehunter said, it is the only legal way to stay in the good graces of Thai authorities as an expat living in Thailand. ????

Edited February 22, 2019 by Kohsamida

[CharlieH]

Post removed.

 

Please do not post "how to" break or circumvent rules/requirements, it could be construed as fraud/illegal.

 

Thank you.

[WaveHunter]

On 2/19/2019 at 1:45 PM, richard_smith237 said:

Why is it that whenever there is a post on ThaiVisa.com regarding some form of ‘activity’ which ‘could be’ construed as work there is always a handful of posters getting upset and crying about work permits and generally getting all out of whack because they want others to accept that they are the defacto authority on what is legal work?..... 

Why?  Judging from one of the comments I saw on this thread, I would say it's simply jealous rage LOL!  They just can not stand to see others succeed where they can not. 

 

E-commerce is a wonderful business model tailor-made for those of us seeking the freedom to travel the world and have a truly independent lifestyle.  There are always going to be people who tell you why you CAN'T do something.  Successful people are more interested in finding ways you CAN do something.

 

I LOVE e-commerce!  It's not just about the money either.  If you have the passion, there are no obstacles that are barriers, only challenges that you find solutions for. 

 

There will always be haters and jealous people.  That's OK.  I don't mind their self righteous comments and pontificating tone if it makes them feel better about themselves.  "To thine own self be true".

 

It would be a good thing to hear from some of us who embrace the positive aspects of e-commerce.  This thread seems to be languishing.

Edited February 23, 2019 by WaveHunter

[Bang Bang]

5 hours ago, WaveHunter said:

This thread seems to be languishing.

Unfortunately so. One reason I guess is that no one's putting meat on the bones. By which I mean discussion of how they got started, the selling/fulfillment process, goods they are selling, revenue figures and such specifics.

 

Not safe to share I guess.

[WaveHunter]

2 hours ago, Bang Bang said:

Unfortunately so. One reason I guess is that no one's putting meat on the bones. By which I mean discussion of how they got started, the selling/fulfillment process, goods they are selling, revenue figures and such specifics.

 

Not safe to share I guess.

A seller's actual product listings and revenues are of course proprietary but all else is open to discussion.  The thread attracted me mainly as a place to share knowledge and experiences of the Lazada FBL platform from expats' perspectives. 

 

I'm a member of lots of e-commerce discussion groups but many of them are populated by so-called e-commerce "gurus" only interested in selling their silly courses to noobs or promoting their lame YouTube videos.  Just sounded like ThaiVisa might be a promising venue for relevant discussion, specific to expat sellers residing in Thailand.  Then again, maybe not ????

 

Edited February 23, 2019 by WaveHunter

[Ebumbu]

If you do it, don't ship anything to or from Thailand. Thus, you are playing on your laptop and it's nobody's business. Don't brag about it. Don't list Thai addresses. If you drop-ship, avoid Thailand in all ways possible unless and until you have a WP. Have a good lawyer. 

[WaveHunter]

4 minutes ago, Ebumbu said:

...Have a good lawyer. 

I agree that proactively working with a good Thai lawyer will save you a lot of grief in the long run.  That's for sure.    It's not that there is anything shady or unethical about running an e-commerce business as an expat; it's just a very new business model in the eyes of Thai authorities so it's best to be sure there are no misunderstandings.  A good Thai attorney is the best way to assure that things stay on an even keel ????

 

[MikeRing]

For sellng on FBA etc, I guess a sole proprietorship business would be the best way to go? My Mrs. will be registering a Thai company and I was weighing the options for her on which was the best route to take. Cheers.

[myshem]

On 5/1/2019 at 5:00 PM, MikeRing said:

For sellng on FBA etc, I guess a sole proprietorship business would be the best way to go? My Mrs. will be registering a Thai company and I was weighing the options for her on which was the best route to take. Cheers.

 

do you know how much it costs to register her ?

thanks.

 

 

[Cheops]

On 2/23/2019 at 8:42 PM, Ebumbu said:

If you do it, don't ship anything to or from Thailand. Thus, you are playing on your laptop and it's nobody's business. Don't brag about it. Don't list Thai addresses. If you drop-ship, avoid Thailand in all ways possible unless and until you have a WP. Have a good lawyer. 

Currently you don't need a registered business anymore to sell on Lazada in Thailand, so this is starting to be interesting (with E-commerce just starting to gain popularity in Thailand!).

 

If you have a WP, but for a different job, could you sell on Lazada? Since recently they changed the law and people only need 1 WP and more jobs are allowed, but the additional job should be added/listed in the WP. Would it be possible to add selling on Lazada on an existing WP for another job? I have no problems to provide the details to the Revenue department as extra income, but I just would like to be sure that no problems will arise from this. Or would this be a protected profession for Thais only?

 

Furthermore, my wife is interested in selling on Lazada as well. If she creates an account on Lazada as an individual and start selling, would there be any problems for me (working on a WP, but not selling on Lazada)? I assume this should not be a problem, but better to find out all the details here.

 

Thanks in advance for all input.

[lubfishin]

I have a lot of inventory here in Thailand I had planned on selling on Lazada however I'm just too lazy to do it. it's all sporting goods camping things knives hunting knives pocket knives etc. If anybody wants to take it off my hands. I will send you pics and inventory count. 

[zyphodb]

On 2/20/2019 at 10:23 PM, Khaeng Mak said:

Your leverage would come from your superior working capital.  My friend just works on one big bundle at a time because he needs to recover his capital to buy the next bundle.

 

If you have more than 20K you could buy several big bundles at a time and also diversify across shoes, clothes and bags.  I am not sure but London to a brick if you also wanted to buy numerous big bundles at a time you could also get a reduction in the overall price.

 

You can see examples of this economy of scale business model everywhere in Thailand.  Simplest example is the mom and pop shop who can afford to buy a pallet of beer and then sell the individual cans to the village punters (who often barely have enough cash to buy more than one or two cans).

 

If you want to leverage your expatiness, get your friends to raid oxfam shops and put together a shipping contain full of items and then create your own bundles (or mini bundles).

Out of curiosity, given the hypothetical shipping container of charity shop clothes & footwear, how would you get around getting completely screwed on import duty from Thai customs? 

[DingDongLing]

If you are not taking a thais job and doing it online, immigration does not care.   

[laspalmas]

"you can not scratch your butt without WP blah bla lah" ..it's been established

long ago

maybe something constructive in the subject...but I think that commers is 

a long-divided cake ... maybe I'm wrong ?

[myjawe]

Lazada are idiots. They are making things difficult when trying to sell online. Shoppee is easier. This is why Thai prefer shoppee.

 

 

[Cheops]

2 hours ago, myjawe said:

Lazada are idiots. They are making things difficult when trying to sell online. Shoppee is easier. This is why Thai prefer shoppee.

Can you please tell more about this? What is more difficult on Lazada?

I created an account for my wife (since she would to sell, but is not so good with computers etc.) and this was pretty straightforward and easy.

 

Problem with Shoppee is that's all in Thai language only. I can speak Thai, but not read/write unfortunately.

I think Lazada is trying to simplify things now due to the competition they experience.

Previously you couldn't even sell on Lazada if you didn't had a registered business.

[poobaisle]

On 2/21/2019 at 12:06 PM, WaveHunter said:

Actually you do not need to have a registered company here in Thailand in order to sell on Lazada, and as I have tried to explain before, you do not need a work permit or special visa either.  Here's why:

 

Technically speaking, because of the way Lazada is set up, you are not doing business here in Thailand at all as a Lazada seller. This takes a little thought so read carefully and don't just jump to conclusions!

It's important to understand that Lazada does not just operate only in Thailand.   Lazada operates in all major "ASEAN" countries (Vietnam (Lazada.vn), Singapore (Lazada.sg), Malaysia (Lazada.com.my), Thailand (Lazada.co.th), Philippines (Lazada.com.ph), and Indonesia (Lazada.co.id).

 

Secondly, it's important to understand that Lazada is specifically set up to serve cross-border sellers (any company based outside ASEAN such as the USA, Europe, or Australia) from their Hong Kong logistics hub.  Sellers in Europe, the US, and Australia ship products directly to the Lazada hub in Hong Kong.  Lazada then takes care of delivery to end customers in Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

 

Therefore, and here is the key point; the seller's entire sales chain occurs outside of the Kingdom.  Lazada, not the seller is fulfilling the orders to customers in Thailand.  The seller is only doing business with Lazada, not the end customer, and this all occurs in Hong Kong, not Thailand.

 

In order to participate as a Lazada seller, corporate registration can be from anywhere in the world, though it makes a lot of sense for a cross-border seller to set up an offshore corporate entity in either Hong Kong or Singapore (where Lazada is actually based) since it greatly facilitates the importation process.

 

Setting up a company in Hong Kong can be done in less than 2 weeks, and costs around US$1000. You don’t need to be a resident in Hong Kong or have any connection to the Chinese territory to do this.

 

So, that's it in a nutshell.  No Thai business registration required; no work permit required.  As far as Thai authorities are concerned, you are simply a foreign business person managing your foreign business from your laptop.  It is as simple as that!

Hi there, 

I'm a bit surprised by your answer... In the eyes of Thai regulations, whoever living in Thailand and engaging into any kind of activity from the Thai territory needs to secure a working permit. That apply even if you initiate trade business with countries out of Thailand. That's harsh but these are Thai regulations. It is as simple as that!